A lot of eSports fans have questioned the WSVG's lack of a Counter-Strike game (1.6 or source) as a main game in your 2007 world series. Why was it chosen to be a secondary game? Did licensing for TV play a role in your decision? Were you blocked from using Source in your Series?

Let's dispel the notion of a "lack of Counter-Strike". I expect we'll have as much Counter-Strike coverage from each event where it appears as last year. While it is not the foremost World Series game, as last year, it certainly isn't gone!

Counter-Strike was a challenging issue for us, because we do want to do more coverage with broadcast network television-- not satellite, not cable, but broadcast. Keep in mind we were the only entity to do this last year, which put us in 104MM homes in the United States. Network standards and practices are different for, say, CBS than they are for, say, DirecTV. Graphic shooter content is problematic for the network.

The Source vs. 1.6 question was an easy one for us: the top Source players surely will accept the salaries of the CGS, and it does not make sense for us to conduct tournaments that immediately exclude the top players. We also think that right now 1.6 remains the better game for competition. That will change, but it still remains the case today.

But even if we COULD put 1.6 on network, I am not sure we could achieve the same success we could with other games. We feel the game is hard to translate to an unfamiliar audience. Counter-Strike has been featured in the spotlight for years and the general public still doesn't grasp the basic concept. This is a game that works exceptionally well online for the core community that appreciates it. It's a great audience, and a loyal one, but ultimately a small audience. Big for traditional eSports, no doubt, but small relative to broadband video viewership.

So then it becomes in part a question of economics, as I have discussed elsewhere. If the pool of 1.6 teams is smaller, and the revenue sources limited to entry fees and online advertising, it no longer works for CS to maintain the top position in our series and programming. Although it still plays an important role for us, it is a reduced role.

What kind of prize money can we expect for the Counter-Strike tournaments and why are there not CS tournaments at all of the WSVG events? Do you plan on drawing the crème de la crème of international teams or focused more on drawing regional teams?

We will be announcing our prizing structure next week. We chose not to have CS at each event for two reasons: 1) to avoid direct overlap and conflict with ESWC and ESL in Leipzig and 2) to make room for COD2 which we wanted to add this year.

We certainly anticipate the highest caliber competition in 1.6, and will be working with the teams to ensure that they are taken care of. Last year, teams mainly turned out to compete in their own regions and we would anticipate that to be the case again this year. Although with fewer 1.6 opportunities generally this year, we certainly would be happy to see teams making longer trips to participate.

With the established international eSports community focused mainly on CS and WC3, do you feel that your Series can be successful without embracing either of these two games as a title game?

100% yes. We define success in terms of attendance, online traffic, television viewership, and community experience. We do not define our success strictly in terms of the CS and WC3 attendance and viewership. WC3 was a big game for us in Asia, and will continue to be. But turnout for that was lackluster in Europe and the US.