ESWC moved

[----GLUK----]

ESWC Grand Final moved to fourth quarter of 2009.

http://www.sk-gaming.com/content/23036- ... nd_of_2009

[Dec]

Another victim of the great financal depression, I wonder if we'll see a drop of participating countries too this year.

[bmg4ever]

just a hidden cancel.

means if they dont find a sponsor until the fourth quarter, they have to finally cancel it. its just delaying this decision.

i honestly expect eswc to be canceled now in late october this year or that it will be in asia, that are the 2 only remaining possibilities.

my bets are on the cancelling

[001101010010]

sad

[w1lla]

Qoutes of the press release

Paris, March 20, 2009 To the ESWC 2009 National Strategic Partners Dear Partners, We have to share with all of you important facts and issue we are facing. We have sent you a survey 3 weeks ago to get your feedbacks on the global and local impact of the economical crisis on your ESWC operations. Thank you very much for your fair and precise answers. The conclusions of the survey are that everybody is affected by the crisis and that very few of you are able to name a signed sponsor. This is not a critic; we are exactly in the same situation today. None of the past ESWC partners has yet renewed its support for 2009, except for the institutional subsidies of Ile-de-France. No new partner is ready to commit on financial support of events operations in 2009. The IT & Hardware market is very affected here in Western Europe, as probably in the rest of the world. Sponsorships and communication budgets are the first to be canceled in such situation. And as E-Sport stands as a niche value for most of the brands, it is even more difficult. So we have to react and take important decisions to avoid a global failure of ESWC in 2009. 1/ To date we ask you to suspend your national license fee payment until further notice. You all need the maximum flexibility in the management of your budgets. 2 / We will not announce additional games to the ESWC. There are many reasons for that. First, the publishers of the wished games are unable to provide a global license to use the game in our competitions. There is no financial issue in the discussion open. They just cannot commit at the moment on global operations. We have waited, as you know, for 3 months now for their final answers. We think it is enough. In addition, more games would increase all production cost and prize money to finance. In the current situation, that is not reasonable. So the best we can do today is to let you manage national operations on the games you want under the brand ESWC, but those operations might not have direct link with competitions of the Grand Final.
3 / We will suspend the upcoming Grand Final of June to postpone it to last quarter 2009. We are actively looking for new opportunities, in France as in other countries. We think it is a necessary move to let more time to find financing and to prepare the event. As Games-Services is also facing a serious cash flow crisis, the event might be organized by a third part such as a licensed partner or a new business owner. As mentioned, we are ACTIVELY following any lead to secure the organization of the Grand Final 2009 and we are open to work on all opportunities. 4 / In consequence, you can continue your ongoing national operations or you can also suspend it and postpone your finals if you think this is the right move to make. The ESWC Asia Masters shall be organized as scheduled as it is entirely financed by local Korean sponsors. Following the survey, we are informed that some of you will have to cancel or postpone their operations. We will support any of your decisions as we need also your understanding towards the very difficult decisions we have to take. The public announcement of point 3) shall be released in the upcoming days. The soonest will be the best. We think that you also need some time to share the info with your partners and to organize your local communication. Thank you very much and let’s hope for better days for ESWC this year. There is no good method to announce such information so please excuse my style and be convinced of my deepest sympathy. Matthieu Dallon President

original link:

http://files.eswc.com/press/data/letter ... 202009.pdf