Today some disappointing news came out about this year’s World Cyber Games finals. Apparently the WCG is having some financial trouble, and as a result, will only be sending two national finalists from the United States to the WCG Grand Finals in Korea this December. The real kicker is that the finalists will be from the League of Legends and Crossfire tournaments. That means that the StarCraft II and Counter-Strike 1.6 finalists will have to pay their own way if they want to play in the Grand Finals.
Rather than providing for the SC2 and CS finalists to travel to Korea, the WCG will send them to the WCG Pan-Am games in Sau Paulo, Brazil this November 4th-6th.
The main reason for this change in plans is that the WCG is having some troubles with their sponsors. The main sponsorship partner for the WCG is the electronics company Samsung. Apparently the Samsung executives who were involved with the founding and management of the World Cyber Games for the past decade have had their roles shifted in the company. The new management team within Samsung have been cutting the budget surrounding the WCG.
Hopefully there is a big resurgence in interest about this years WCG, so that Samsung will see the merit in hosting a world class event like this.