The World Cyber Games organizers have announced that the host city for the 2010 edition of their popular gaming event will be Los Angeles, California, in the Unites States of America. Following 2004's event in San Francisco and 2007's in Seattle this will be the third WCG Grand Finals to be hosted in the USA.

Hyoung-Seok Kim, CEO of the World Cyber Games, explained:



A history of the WCG Grand Finals:

The WCG first entered the imagination of Western Gamers with its WCGC event in the year 2000, held in Korea as were the first three official WCGs. With Fatal1ty winning the gold for Quake 3, in a tournament featuring the likes of LakermaN and ZeRo4, and destrukt the Unreal Tournament gold the stage was stage was set for the best Western gamers to travel over and face off against the best gamers from the East.

The 2001 WCG saw ZeRo4 adding to his Quake 3 legacy by taking a gold medal while in the Counter-Strike tournament scheduling conflicts with the CPL's Winter Event, which had bigger prize payouts, saw the Canadian side Legends never Die winning the gold. In the native favourite StarCraft it was the demigod and "Emperor of Terran" BoxeR who grabbed his first of two consecutive gold medals. Likewise in Unreal Tournament the German GitzZz won his first of what would be back-to-back golds.

The 2002 edition saw Quake 3 and Counter-Strike dominated by Russians as uNkind and M19 took the golds. In 2003 Sweden and the USA finally got on the board in CS as SK.swe took the gold medal and Team3D the silver. In WarCraft III, featured for the first time, SK's Insomnia took gold while in FIFA the twins got on the podium with Styla winning the gold and Hero the silver.

The first American event, in 2004, saw America take its first Counter-Strike gold as Team3D won the Counter-Strike: Condition Zero tournament. SK's current racing team member Silver took the gold medal for Need for Speed while in WarCraft III it was Grubby who established himself as a legend of the game with a gold medal performance. 2005's event shifted to Singapore and Team3D repeated with a gold in the Counter-Strike: Source tournament as did Styla who took another FIFA gold. In WarCraft III it was Chinese native Sky who came out on top, a feat he would repeat again the next year.

The 2006 WCG saw the first European city host the Grand Finals, with the selection being Monza in Italy. Here the Poles from Pentagram announced their arrival as one of the world's elite with a gold medal run to take a ridiculous $60,000. In FIFA it was Hero's turn to take his family's third gold medal at the event, the next year he would add their fourth and his second to match his brother's feat. In StarCraft some more legends got their medals as the "Cheater Terran" iloveoov took the gold and the "God of War" JulyZerg the silver.

Back in the USA 2007's event the Counter-Strike tournament was marred by a great deal of controversy surrounding eSTRO's matches against MYM.no and fnatic which saw them eliminate both sides after losing the games but having maps overturned in their favour due to crouch-hopping complaints. Winning the gold out of that mess was France's emuLate behind a legendary mSx performance to deny the Danes from NoA. Creolophus took an unexpected gold in WarCraft III, beating Sky, while in StarCraft Stork, who would go on to win the 2008 Incruit Starleague, won the gold medal.

Finally, last year's WCG, held in Cologne, Germany, saw Denmark's mTw.dk win the gold medal in Counter-Strike with SK-gaming taking the silver. In WarCraft III Grubby took his second gold to deny his arch-rival Moon.

Source: WCG