But here’s a question for you all, as gamers. If you still don’t see how ‘eSports’ could be a quality spectator event, what would help you change your mind? Why are you not interested in watching such events? Is there a second ‘generational’ shift that needs to occur even within the gaming community for a pro scene to evolve here? It is already a very mature overseas with many players making six figures Australian money.

If you missed the coverage, here’s a wrap of everything we talked about:
World Cyber Games 2008: Australia Is Here
WCG 2008: Team Immunity Bootcamp with SK Gaming
WCG 2008: Opening Ceremony Wishes WCG Was Olympics
WCG 2008 Day 1: Australia’s Counter-Strike Nail Biter
WCG 2008 Day 2: Glade Downs Tough Korean in Warcraft 3
WCG: Other Australian in Cologne for GH3, PGR4
WCG 2008 Day 3: Aussies Go Distance in Halo 3 Deathmatch
WCG Day 3: Immunity Goes Down Fighting

Guitar Hero 3 rep TwilightDawn, aka Joel Brooks (pictured enjoying some Rock Band on a side stage in Cologne), had a tough draw and failed to escape the group stage. Considering the two qualifiers from his group later met again in the Grand Final, this was one of many examples of a WCG system that needs a seeding system to ensure all players, particularly the best, get a fair chance to advance and face off at the appropriate stage in the tournament. In Project Gotham 4 we had cam_, aka James Davey, in the hot seat, but he failed to get into top gear in his qualifiers. Hopefully they made the most of their reward for winning the Australian titles — a trip to Europe!

A semi-final against France’s SSK. turned into a very exciting affair, with the Australian’s taking the first of three maps. Trailing for most of the period on the second, a late comeback saw a Grand Final berth so close at hand, only to fall a single kill short, 101-102, pushing the tie into a third map.

From here the wind was at France’s back, Australia again trailing throughout and while they were never far off the pace they just couldn’t recover from the early deficit. France through to the final, Australia into the Bronze medal play-off.

Australia faced the USA in the play-off and never quite found their earlier form, losing in straight sets though never by any great margins. This was a superb outing for the Australian Halo 3 team. With little opportunity to play top flight teams from overseas (almost all big competition in Halo is tied up in the North American MLG series) this was a show of pure talent taking on more experienced opponents. Some more time facing up to mature competition and who knows what is in store for these guys next year?

The Aussies proved once again that they know how to cause a stir, with a win on the pistols round launching the team into a rousing chorus of cheers that pumped them up while deflating the very surprised Finns. On their favourite map, Immunity showed the world they are not to be taken lightly, running out to take a 1-0 lead in the best of three match. Gameplay were visibly shocked, heads in hands followed by a quick exit to recover and regroup. On return, some nasty exchanges in the game chat channel occurred, with the Finns showing some bad sportsmanship toward the dominant frag factor on the Australian team, Ben O’Reilly (BenoR).From this dazzling start, a bigger crowd than ever was drawn to see if the Australians could pull off their biggest upset yet. But it just wasn’t to be. Gameplay came back with their A-game and Immunity struggled to find answers. Some flashes of brilliance remained, but not enough to close out the second map they needed, going down 1-2 in the end.

But in defeat there was plenty to write home about. Immunity drew an enthusiastic crowd for their final match, and plenty of those were Europeans who picked up the scent of an underdog with real bite. Yours truly couldn’t get close to the team’s play zone for the final map, such was the three deep crowd of watchers.

This can genuinely be notched up as the Australians earning some serious respect on the world stage, and their week spent with SK Gaming in the lead up was clearly time well spent.

And whatever else happens… WE BEAT THE BRITS!
Whatever the sport, isn’t that ALWAYS the way things ought to be?

After an early loss to a Danish competitor GLaDe should have had the best of, things turned around dramatically with massive wins over WhO from South Korea and nEphBone, who ultimately finished second in the group from the Czech Republic. WhO finished 4th behind our Aussie RTS master, who could have moved through to knock out phase if not for the cheap early loss. But with two notable wins from the tournament, Pender still goes home with some tidy notches to add to his War belt.

Things got even better from there, with comfortable wins against Greece (21-9) and Portugal (20-10) putting them in an excellent position to advance to the next round.

Norway were the second big threat in the group, and a win here would see Immunity a sure thing to top Group B, which would be a major shock to most tournament onlookers. After losing the toss and starting on the weaker side of the map, Immunity had a cracking start, but failed to capitalise and struggled to get back in the game before dropping the match (11-19). From here, a devastating three-way tie for first loomed, which could see our boys miss out based on a points countback…If Norway lost to the UK, the three-way tie would occur and before the round began Immunity was well behind on points. What was needed in the final round was to absolutely obliterate Georgia, the weakest team in the group and playing on Immunity’s best map. The best outcome in the other match was a win for Norway, but that match was in the lap of the gaming gods.

A perfect start against Georgia with a 15-0 sweep of the first half, and the boys just rolled on from there to take out a perfect 30-0 win, wrapping up the result well before the Norway-UK match that could still decide their fate.

The Norway v UK match was a very tight affair, running right down the the wire with the UK claiming a close victory (16-14). The three-way tie complete, the countback was in effect but thanks to their massive 30-0 victory Australia pushed past the UK to claim second place in the group by just rounds.

An excellent result for Australia, making it through to the single elimination phase of the tournament. Congratulations to Team Immunity for making a genuine mark in the first day of competition.

The opening ceremony itself featured a lot of WCG dignitaries being majestically marched into the arena, a flags ceremony (which was the best bit — 78 countries taking part this year), a speech by CEO of Samsung, then the Mayor of Köln (that’s Cologne) declaring the event officially open. I think there was more after that, so it may have been awesome after that. I was way too jetlagged to stick around to find out. Hope that doesn’t make me a hater. When I think about it, I’m not sure what would make for a fun, exciting opening ceremony that would cater to a gamer audience from 78 countries.

Anyway. The games are now officially open. Bring on the action!

You see the posters on the wall? That’s a bunch of novelty-sized cheques SK has won. The next shot is the other end of the room, along with a crapload of trophies. I even spotted more giant cheques tucked behind furniture! Hit the jump for the trophy shot.

I’ll deliver more updates as the event kicks off.