In a post on Team Liquid’s forums, user Milkis brings up several issues, originating from an article on ThisIsGame, which may lead to Blizzard games being excluded from the World Cyber Games for the 2011 events in Korea. Growing problems between Samsung Electronics and Blizzard have led to Samsung calling for the exclusion of any Blizzard game by WCG. WCG is now torn between its primary sponsor in Samsung Electronics and the competition and success of Blizzard’s games.
Below is the post on TeamLiquid.net:
The possibilities of Starcraft and Warcraft 3 being excluded from WCG 2011 has been brought up recently.
Although four months has passed since the Grand Finals of WCG 2010 that took place in LA, there hasn’t been any official statements regarding the place it will be held on[T/N: It’s to be held in Korea, according to Fomos, but city hasn’t been decided] nor the official events.
During all of this, there has been strong possibilities of Blizzard games being excluded as an official event. The source of the problem has to do with the Starcraft Brood War IP rights conflict.
This is because Samsung Electronics, a member on KeSPA and WCG’s official partner, is strongly against Blizzard games being recognized as official events in the WCG. According to an industry insider, Samsung Electronics has explicitly ordered WCG to exclude Blizzard games from official events.
But WCG disagreed, claiming that it will have trouble promoting the event and getting other partners if Blizzard games are excluded. To this, Samsung Electronics responded by saying “Go and get money from Blizzard, and all other game companies, the fees needed to run the events and fees for choosing their game [T/N: or “fees associated with choosing their game”].
Thus, WCG has been conflicted whether to include Starcraft, Warcraft 3, and even Starcraft 2 as an official event.
There is also another obstacle WCG needs to handle before being able to choose Blizzard games as official events. This is because WCG’s main broadcasting station, OnGameNet, is currently being sued by Blizzard for issues related to Intellectual Property.
There are many perspectives that note that even if WCG includes Starcraft, Starcraft 2, and Warcraft 3 as official events, as long as the intellectual property rights conflict is not resolved, it will be impossible for OGN to broadcast these games.
An insider familiar with the situation has noted that “WCG does not wish to exclude Blizzard games as official events. But because broadcasting it will be impossible and cooperation with networked organizations is very difficult, it will be difficult to even send out Korean representatives”
Continuing, he added that “They are currently considering including Blizzard Games as an official event under the condition that they do not broadcast the games within Korea and Korean representatives are not playing in the WCG”.
WCG will soon release information regarding the official events of the WCG 2011 Grand Final
More information about the situation can be found by clicking here. For the original article on ThisIsGame in Korean, click here.