You read that right - professional gaming now has a huge venue in China where the best players can train and compete. The Championship Gaming Series league went all out, and it's expected that the CGS 2008 Pan-Asia Final which will be held in the facility will be the most explosive yet. Find all the details at the full article.

Wondering what titles are making it to this year's Championship Gaming Series? The official site has disclosed that two games being prepped for this year's matches are FIFA 08 for the PC, and Forza Motorsport 2 for the Xbox 360. More on this matter is available in the full article.

If you're a World of Warcraft player and a fan of team-versus-team games, then here's news for you: Blizzard has announced that the Championship Gaming Series World Final event will feature Blizzard's World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Arena two-versus-two championship match and a Dell-hosted three-versus-three WoW Invitational Tournament, both of which involve some nifty prizes.

Find out what the prizes are after the jump!

Gamers turning pro aren't rare anymore, and guys spending lots of time to improve their game are more cool than geeky nowadays. If StarCraft is almost South Korea's national sport, it's not impossible for other countries to realize that video games can be good spectator sports. UK broadcasting company took notice, and will now feature the Championship Gaming Series on TV.

Big tourneys have been on TV before, sure. What makes CGS a lot more epic is how the top 20 players will walk away as pro-gamers earning bread by playing games. Still not exciting enough? "Pro-gaming has reached a level of maturity and reach that makes it a natural fit with Sky's entertainment business," said Adrian Pilkington, director of Enhanced TV and Games for Sky.

In other words, CGS aims to capture not only current gamers, but also intrigue others that aren't into gaming yet. Skeptics would say it's not fun when you're not playing, but Pilkington has something in mind. He told GamePro in an interview:

People will watch CGS for the same reasons that sports fans like watching football or golf - because they want to watch the best players make the best plays. Pro-gamers have incredible hand-eye coordination that you wouldn't believe unless you see it. It's important too that viewers get to know the players and their personalities, so we'll be following the gamers outside of the games as part of each show.

Sounds like American Idol, much? Apparently not, because no reality show can beat massive competitions on TV where we can see the best plays in FIFA, Dead or Alive, Project Gotham Racing, and even the classic Counter-Strike.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like PS3 games are on, while the Wii is still under consideration. "The online qualifications have been open to anyone with an Xbox or PC," Pilkington continued.

DoA Central forum member Dahlsim has scored an interview with Dead or Alive creator Tomonobu Itagaki during the latter's appearance at this year's Championship Gaming Series. Itagaki and TECMO Japan reps were at CGS as special guests during the Finals.

In the interview, Itagaki dropped a few hints of what could be in Dead or Alive 5. It seems Itagaki has been leaning towards de-emphasizing the game's tag mode, but will now be reconsidering how much of a presence tag mode will have in Dead or Alive 5.

The de-emphasis seems particularly interesting in light of Itagaki's revelation that Dead of Alive was originally envisioned as more of a tag game than a singles fighter.

Itagaki also expressed interest in Dahlsim's suggestion of adding a feature to the Team Battle mode that would let multiple players participate. If this pushes through, it should help add to the game's community aspect. For the full interview, click on the Read link below.

 

And in the world of competitive gaming, the Championship Gaming Series ladder stage has concluded recently, allowing the current top-five teams in each battlegroup to head for the qualifiers round. The second stage will decide which U.S. and European teams can face off at World of Warcraft Arena 2v2 showdown at the upcoming BlizzCon.

From 13 battlegroups, 65 teams will have to double-team their way through the best of the best for a sure ticket inside of Blizzard's Anaheim event. Regional qualifiers already got their passport to Blizzard's haven some time back, and now it's time for 16 lucky ones (eight from Europe, eight from U.S.) to get their share of the opportunity.

Now while no names have been officially announced, we've gone through the hard way of extracting all the top five teams of all battlegroups and listed them here. Hopefully the list was updated in time for this announcement, but if it wasn't then consider these names not etched in stone.

Click on Full Article for the full list of (possibly) qualifying teams from each battlegroup.

It was recently announced that World of Warcraft will be featured in the Championship Gaming Series (CGS) World Championship. Every World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade player on the European and North American servers have a chance to be drafted for the upcoming season.

Blizzard Entertainment's Community Manager Vaneck posted a message on the WoW Europe forums regarding this very topic and the details on how to be a part of it. The system is quite simple really with a two on two ladder for the eliminations from June 19 to July 3, with the top five teams in each division heading up the qualifiers. This phase along with the drafting is rather complicated so here's exactly how Vaneck described it.

So if you do make it to the top, big rewards are going to be coming your way. You can expect to earn a good US$ 30,000 to a whopping US$ 100,000 annually from both the salary and bonuses, not a bad haul for playing a game you love. So if you think you've got what it takes, sign up for the ladder tournament. Who knows, you just might be the next big star in World of Warcraft.

If you want to read more on this, head over to the full article.

A couple of weeks ago, we brought up the topic of the Championship Gaming Series (CGS). The event is best described as an international gaming league established to treat major gaming competitions like pro sports, and the players like pro athletes. And on the matter of going pro, we know what that means: big payoffs.

In a recent press wire being released, it has been reported that the worldwide salaries and bonuses for this year's tournament season is expected to exceed US$ 5-million in expenditures.

"This is the moment the gaming world has been waiting for," commented CGS' recently appointed Commissioner Andy Reif. "We will be paying salaries and bonuses to our players in excess of $5 million dollars during the 2007 season. The time has come for a new era of professional gaming as sports entertainment. Your chance to be a part of history starts on April 28."

This year's CGS event schedule will feature online and live qualifiers, where players will battle to reach the Regional Combine, scheduled to take place at the Fox Studios in Los Angeles from June 8-10. Players from the Regional Combine will then be drafted into one of six city-based teams at the CGS Draft on June 12 at the Playboy Mansion (LA). CGS online qualifiers for the North American region begin on April 28, 2007 with the first live qualifier to be held at The Bridge Cinema de Lux in Los Angeles on May 11-12.

As for the match details, Each CGS team will carry ten players, allocated according to the league's official games. Five of the ten players will comprise a Counter-Strike: Source (PC) team who will compete in five-on-five matches. FIFA 07 (PC) will be played one-on-one. Dead or Alive 4 (Xbox 360) will have a mixed-double team of two  players, one man and one woman, who will play against other teams in one-on-one matches. Project Gotham Racing 3 (Xbox 360) will be represented by two players on each team, with matches being played in a two-versus-two format.

Those are the details being disclosed at the moment - stay tuned in case more details are announced for CGS' status in UK, Europe, Asia, Australia, Latin America, and the Middle East.

With professional video gaming happening for the longest time, it's no surprise that game competitions as of late are becoming just as elaborate as the world of professional sports. With that in mind, we're introducing the Championship Gaming Series (CGS).

As its name implies, the CGS is an international gaming league established to treat major gaming competitions like pro sports, and the players like pro athletes. The league does so by providing for major prizes for tournaments, doling out instant payouts for competing players, and giving heavy media coverage for game competitions.

To help further things along for the league, it has just been announced that Andy Reif has been appointed the new CGS commissioner. Reif's new post requires him to oversee CGS operations as it develops in its operating areas: North America, South America, UK/Europe, and Asia/Australia. Prior to being appointed as the new CGS commissioner, Reif was formerly the chief operating officer for the AVP Pro Beach Volleyball Tour.

"The opportunity to start a major sports league, with global television coverage in more than 100,000,000 homes through DIRECTV (North America and Latin America), BSkyB (UK), and STAR (Asia and Australia), has never happened before," said Reif, as he commented on the resources that CGS would be given as it started off this year's events.

Keep posted in case the league begins announcing more upcoming events for its current line-up of sponsored games: Counter-Strike: Source (PC), FIFA 07 (PC), Dead or Alive 4 (Xbox 360) , and Project Gotham Racing 3 (Xbox 360).