Wow. Last we heard, the WSVG was going gangbusters. They had events appearing on CBS, they were working with Blizzard to make Arena PvP huge, and their president was extremely optimistic about the future of professional videogaming.

But earlier this afternoon, the World Series of Videogames shut its doors, and announced that all of their future events are cancelled. In their notice, they cite the "challenge of securing adequate revenues" to keep up their big events (they had tourneys planned in LA, London, and Sweden yet this year). Games Media Properties, WSVG's parent company, says they will continue to grow the "online advertising network" of websites-- which sites these are, we're not sure.

Again, wow. GotFrag has already talked to Pandemic about the closing, and they say they're going to go into a "waiting game" as regards to professional Arena PvP, and that they're "deeply disappointed" in WSVG's "inability to finish out the season." They, too, had no idea this was coming. Will someone else step up into the WSVG's place in professional gaming promotion? Blizzard was doing a lot of work directly with the WSVG in terms of presentation, and while it's hard to say this will be the end of professional Arena PvP, there's no question this will have a major effect on professional gaming at large. The World Series of Videogames as we know it is no more.

Thanks, Jason!

Update: Curse has more, including players calling it "a huge blow to WoW professional gaming."

With the arena system introducing a new kind of competitive PvP to the World of Warcraft, we're seeing our first professionally sponsored WoW arena teams. While Blizzard continues to market WoW to a core casual audience, the introduction of paid professionals into the arena brackets is anything but casual friendly. (Not that I've ever been a good enough PvPer to hit the top levels, but it was always nice to look at the arena gear and dream!) And the truth is we've probably only just seen the beginning of such sponsorships. Says Stephen Schoder of Check Six (sponsors of team ZERG IT UP):

In the future you will soon find that Blizzard has tweaked the game to near perfection [in regards to game balance] in preparation for mainstream eSports competition.

There's a whole new world of gaming out there, and Blizzard is only just getting its feet wet.

[Via 1up, with thanks to Dave for the tip!]

One of the top 5v5 teams has become one of the first groups of WoW players to become professional gamers-- Curse reports that CheckSix Gaming, an e-sports agency (or should that be promoter? sponsor?), has picked up ZERG IT DOWN as the first professional 5v5 arena team (one of the first actually, see Update below). CheckSix also sponsors Counterstrike, Call of Duty, and BF1942 teams, and while they say they were skeptical Blizzard would be able to make WoW a part of "eSports," the arena system is what put it over the top-- it provides a quantifiable way to determine which team has the better players.

ZERG IT DOWN is made up of players in Insurrection, a guild on the Horde side of Tichondrius (the team is currently second place in the Bloodlust battlegroup). As part of the deal, CheckSix is sponsoring the whole guild-- they've put up a new website and are running a Vent server for them. In return, ZERG IT DOWN will serve as CheckSix's official team at future Arena tournaments. If there are any, that is-- the only real competition is currently the ongoing ingame season, but it's not a stretch to think that in the future, gaming tournaments will set up shop in Azeroth and pit certain arena teams against each other. In fact, Blizzard could probably benefit from helping them do that-- one of the team's leaders speculates that some Arena matches would benefit from seeing a normalized gear system, which currently only Blizzard could implement, if they even wanted to.

But it's awesome that these guys were able to pick up a sponsor, and even more awesome that a company like CheckSix was willing to take a chance and bring WoW into the growing realm of professional gaming. Congrats and good luck to both of them.

Update: Almost simultaneously, Boubouille sent a tip (thanks!) that Team Pandemic, another gaming sponsor, has also picked up another Arena team-- it's Power Trip, currently the first place team in Bloodlust. Looks like we've got our first professional rivalry.

Update2: Curse has an interview with Power Trip.