Video Game Festival 08

The video games festival was an extraordinary event and, for the first time, accessible to a large part of the French-speaking community. Taking place in Paris over the weekend of 27 September, a good number of the CnCSaga staff were in attendance – another first.

The event took place over a single day; Vodka and Nathyel had driven down from the north of France, Odyssee, Arzenist and Zéphyr from Geneva, and Gargeto had travelled by train from Rennes (in western France), Divadawm, for his part, had taken the train from Clermont-de-l’Oise (north of Paris), Tchutch from Strasbourg (eastern France), and Angelos on the Thalys high-speed train from Belgium. As for Kaiser, he acted as our guide in Paris, being a long-time resident of the French capital.

The day unfolded as follows: We met Gregory Queste, Community Manager at EA France, for longer than we had at the Game Convention – the previous event where Tchutch had bumped into him – and we were able to discuss the major milestones in the life of the Community, particularly with the Battlecast Primetime France event that we were about to launch, which earned us Greg’s congratulations for adapting it for the French-speaking community.

Key figures from the community (the CnCSaga staff) were there, answering questions from many of our CnCSaga visitors – we hadn’t expected to receive quite so much support. And afterwards we had a bite to eat – well, Tchutch and Zéphyr, armed with press passes, went to McDonald’s to get some food, as the prices at the FdJV were particularly high for very little.

After we’d had a good feast, at 2 pm the French final of the World Cyber Games (WCG) for Command & Conquer 3: Kane’s Wrath, where Lepidosteus and Leownzall faced off in a live duel in front of a packed audience, captivated by the spectacle of the final match, which Leownzall won. Following this resounding victory, everyone was free to do as they pleased, whilst Leo – having won the WCG C&C France – and Tchutch – as the founder of CnCSaga – were interviewed by EA France.

Shortly afterwards, we filmed the start of Episode 2 of Battlecast Primetime France.

After the festival, we went to a pub to celebrate our get-together and, after a good hour, we went our separate ways to head home.

World Cyber Games

The World Cyber Games were created in 2000 by Samsung Korea and managed by ICM (International Cyber Marketing). In 2001, the first international festival took place in France; the initial qualifying rounds were called the WCGC (World Cyber Games Challenge). It was held in Paris in 2000, but only a few networked gaming centres were involved.

The inspiration:

The competition takes its inspiration from the Olympic Games, with a village set up for the competitors and, since 2004, a different host city each year. Furthermore, teams must consist solely of players of the same nationality, in line with the principle of national teams.

Sponsorship:

Since 2006, the WCG has been sponsored by Microsoft.

Statistics:

Online qualifiers:

In 2008, the 9th edition of the WCG took place at the Porte de Versailles Exhibition Centre, Pavilion 6, in Paris. The grand final of the world’s largest international video game competition was held in Cologne (Germany) in November. Following the French qualifiers, which concluded at the Video Game Festival, the members of the delegation flew the flag for France.

The official disciplines

Six games were selected by the French organising committee:

• FIFA 08 (PC) EA SPORTS 1 vs 1
• COMMAND & CONQUER 3 (PC) ELECTRONIC ARTS 1 vs 1
• COUNTER-STRIKE (PC) VALVE SOFTWARE 5 vs 5
• WARCRAFT 3 (PC) VIVENDI GAMES 1 vs 1
• HALO 3 (XBOX 360) MICROSOFT GAMES 4 vs 4
• ASPHALT 4 MOBILE GAMELOFT 1 VS 1

Online qualifiers

The qualifiers took place in two stages on the TOW website on 17 and 24 August 2008. Each of these tournaments allowed 8 players to qualify for the second stage, which took place in Paris from 26 to 28 September 2008 during the FDJV (Festival Du Jeu Vidéo). In total, 16 players qualified.

List of qualifiers from 17 August 2008

• Knolz (Epsilon clan)
• Enjoy (Xp3rt clan)
• Lepidosteus (Xp3rt clan)
• Expertix (Shark clan)

List of qualifiers from 24 August 2008

• Redfury
• Bapor
• Reaper (Shark clan)
• Leownzall (Epsilon clan)

However, Knolz had withdrawn from the competition for personal reasons. A 16th player therefore had to be found. The TOW organisers decided to give a wildcard entry to the players who had finished fifth or sixth in the two qualifying tournaments. The players in question were Six2000, Alphakiss and Rafiki.

These three players faced off in a mini-tournament – or rather, two players, as Alphakiss did not turn up. The winner of this mini-tournament was Rafiki (Sh4rk) (2–0) against Six200 (Xp3rt).

The final list of participants:

• Redfury
• Bapor
• Reaper (Shark clan)
• Expertix (Shark clan)
• Leownzall (Epsilon clan)
• Rafiki (Shark clan)
• Enjoy (Xp3rt clan)
• Lepidosteus (Xp3rt clan)

You can find all the replays on Xp3rt.com

1st WCG 2008 Qualifying Tournament

2nd WCG 2008 Qualifying Tournament

3rd WCG 2008 Qualifying Tournament

End of Qualifiers

The WCG in Paris:

General information: extract from the rules

The format used for the tournament was 1-on-1.

The C&C 3: Kane's Wrath tournament consisted of two stages: a group stage and a single-elimination knockout stage. All matches were played as best-of-three (BO3)

Match duration: Until a winner was decided

The winner of the match was the player who completely destroyed their opponent or whose opponent surrendered.

If there had been no combat for a certain period during the match and the winner could not be clearly determined, the match would be restarted at the referee’s discretion.

The groups:

Players were divided into two groups, labelled A and B.

Each group consisted of four players, including one seeded player and three others placed at random.

Here are screenshots of the groups from the TOW website (responsible for WCG qualifiers)

Groups A & B:

After a fierce battle, here are the group standings

Group A & B Standings:

After all these battles, we saw Lepidosteux and E.LeOwNzAll on the winners’ podium, ready to play their final on the big screen.

Final bracket