Gamertell

Here’s great news for Gamertell readers who own a Nintendo Wii. Titanstrike has organized a Super Smash Bros. Brawl Tournament with cash prizes over at SmashTournament.com. And Gamertell readers get an exclusive discount on the entry fee…

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As the scalding heat blows across the east coast, Xfire predicts cooler weather for June 2008 due to three events with Blizzard’s World of Warcraft: Meet Team Millenium, a broadcast of the Sunwell Raid Redux and the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational in Paris…

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With Grand Theft Auto IV‘s release is less than a month away (April 29, 2008), developer Rockstar Games is still trying to guarantee that gamers have a all-encompassing, all-great gaming experience. To this end, Rockstar has launched Rockstar Social Club, a new website that will provide gamers leaderboards, performance-based competitions and awards.

Rockstar Games announced in a press release that GTA IV will be the first title supported by the website it plans to support all of subsequent titles as well. The registration for the service will commence April 15, 2008, and all you need to sign up is an Xbox Gamertag or a Playstation Network ID.

As for GTA IV-specific Social Club features, Rockstar is promising the following…

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Titanstrike online is proud to host this year’s Miss Video Game 2008 (MVG 2008) online tournament.

I recently caught up with Francisco Diaz the co-founder of TitanStrike to find out what it is about all about.

“Titanstrike, a platform for gamers that seeks to blend the best of social networking with cutting edge gaming services including a tournament engine that allows sponsors to create and manage events,” Diaz explained. “The Titanstrike platform also has flash forums, gamer profiles and instant chat to power interaction within the community. The goal of Titanstrike is to provide an ideal environment for online competitions so the Miss Video Game event was a natural fit…

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I ran into Zach Wigal (pictured right) online well after our interview for the “Teen with a Dream” story and was glad to hear his dream came true. He and his friends were finally able to host a Halo tournament through a CyGamZ fundraiser held in November 2007.

He told me GOF was able to raise $500, which was used towards community service projects within his area and that this year he and his friends are hosting another Halo tournament event called Gamers for Giving February 29, 2008.

“I believe last we spoke about GOF happenings I told you we had a small fund raiser for our organization at a LAN center called CyGamZ planned, and that we were still discussing possible dates and things for our big comeback event, Gamers for Giving,” Wigal said when I caught up with him earlier this week. “Well the CyGamZ event has ended, and we’re 100% focused on Gamers for Giving, which is a Halo 3 tournament combined with a 3 day straight PC LAN.”

Wigal plans to “raise at least $7,500 dollars to help families and kids who struggle with Autism,” he explained. “All profits made from the event are…

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Okay, all you lone wolves out there, its time for you to howl ‘cause it’s all about you during this years upcoming Million Dollar, Halo 3 Tournament. X Factor announced last week (November 8, 2007) that it will maintain the original tournament format for its $1,000,000 Halo 3 Competition.

Though public outcry was said to be fierce for the tournament to expand to include team based gameplay, X Factor announced that 4 vs 4 competitions will not be included in the tournament scheduled for Tuesday, December 18, to Saturday, December 22, 2007, at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Dallas, Texas.

At the counsel of its partner, The Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL), X Factor decided to keep the FFA (Free for All) format of competition for the December 2007 tournament. X Factor VP of Operations commented, “Changing the format of the Halo 3 Competition just six weeks before the event seems counterproductive to us. At minimum it will certainly dilute our focus. We thank the CPL for advising us on these critical matters and we hope the community realizes all they do behind the scenes to support e-sports.”

However, don’t be worried that the public outcry fell on deaf ears. X Factor has already announced that they are planning a second Halo 3 tournament sometime around spring break 2008 that will include both team and FFA competition formats.

So don’t get your panties all in a bunch. You’ll get your 4 vs 4 action soon enough. Otherwise, registration is still open for the $1 million FFA so there’s still time for you to step up to the line.

Via [CPL News] Tournament Site [Extreme Winter Championships]

Xfire is accepting registration now through November 13, 2007, for its first ever Xfire User Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Tournament and Live Online Gaming event scheduled for November 15 through 21, 2007.

Players can join other quickly forming clans and teams on Xfire or create their own by November 15, 2007. Once established they can challenge other clans or teams in this user-only tournament for a chance to win a variety of awesome prizes.

Prizes include an Enthusiast Gaming PC for first place winners, second place winners may receive an XFX NVIDIA 8800 Series Video Cards, Fatal1ty Gaming Headsets for third place winners and a Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Professional Series card for fourth place winners. The technical specifications for the first and second place prizes are not listed and will be announced later. During the event gamers may have a chance to win signed copies of the new COD4:MW for participating.

During the tournament on November 15, players will get a chance to speak with the COD4:MW development team, Infinity Ward, from 3 to 4 p.m. and then challenge the team for a friendly bout of modern warfare from 4 to 5 p.m.

On November 16, players can ditch their friends and go one-on-one online gaming with professional gamers from 4 to 7 p.m. The tournament will continue moving the best players forward in match brackets all week until the final championship round held on November 21.

For those gamers who have not played the game a demo is available for download on the Xfire website. To ensure fair gaming, Xfire requires all participants to download and install the Punkbuster anti-cheat client. Tournament rules and requirements can be found on the Xfire tournament registration website..

Read [Xfire Tournament Rules] Site [Xfire] Site [Call of Duty]

Due to high cost of hosting, the World Series of Video Game series has reached its toll and has been shut down as of September 13, 2007. All remaining events scheduled this year have all been canceled by its organizer Games Media Properties who posted the following statement on the WSVG web site:

“Effective immediately, Games Media Properties will no longer produce the World Series of Video Games. The remainder of the 2007 season in Los Angeles, London and Sweden is canceled…

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I have met some amazing people on the internet and throughout my years as a reporter for a military-themed newspaper. But to find one individual that refused to give up his dream and strive to make a difference is a heart-warming story that needed to be told.

In December 2006, Zach Wigal, a 17-year-old Junior attending Saline High School in Saline, Mi, along with his friends worked hard for nine months using their own money to make their dream of hosting a Halo 2 tournament scheduled for March 24, 2007 come true. Only to have the dream crushed three days before the tournament when his school’s superintendent yanked his rental permit. All because the game was rated M for mature by the ESRB.

Wigal and his friends not only lost all the money that they’ve been saving for the event, but watched a dream he’s had since his freshmen year in high school go up in smoke.

“We had been planning the event for months and was even granted approval to use the building by our town’s rec center far in advance,” Wigal said explaining what happened. “Over 300 people registered for the event my friends and I really put a lot of work into. Long story short, 3 days before the tournament was supposed to take place our superintendent got a call from our townships public safety director, (who apparently belongs to the Parents TV council) and convinced her that Halo 2 was “corrupting the minds of America’s youth” and in a nutshell told her my friends and I were degrading the Saline school facilities by hosting a Halo 2 tournament in the building.”

Wigal and his friends were disappointed, but were not ready to give up on the tournament just yet. They tried to negotiate with the superintendent and even offered to send out parental consent and liability forms to all the gamers who already registered for the event. But when he realized that she was pretty adamant about stopping the event and was not going to change her mind ... the tournament was officially canceled. When news of the tournament’s cancellation spread across the internet through blogs, bulletin boards and chat rooms - gamers worldwide voiced their outrage and soon after the Gamers Outreach Foundation was born.

“Our tournament was canceled based on the notion that games like Halo are somehow corrupting the minds of America’s youth. I strongly disagree with that perspective as I hold more to the philosophy that videogames are competitive, fun, interactive and a great way for people to socialize with one another,” Wigal explained and said he and his friends have come up with a new way to host their tournaments - a Gamers for Giving Charity tournament. “We’re currently negotiating some possible dates at the venue we’re looking into. The event is going to be a Halo 3 Tournament / 3 day straight PC LAN event. The PC LAN will most likely start on a Friday afternoon and will go until Sunday morning. All profits made from this event will be donated directly to charity.”

But the event had to be more than just a regular charity function, Wigal said his goal is to show that gamers are not a plague of society and plans to eventually help break down the negative stereotypes gamers have been receiving lately.

“GOF is a non-profit organization to encourage gamers to donate to us (hoping the tax break would offer some benefits to people). Our plan is to run the event using donations made by gamers,” he said then added that once the tournament is over, GOF would eventually work hard to break down the negative stereotypes gamers and games have been receiving lately. “We’d be able to use our favorite past time to help people. A bunch of us have been interested in getting involved with some charity work, what better way than to use videogames? We’re just a bunch of guys, who are sick of the stereotypes associated with gaming, (especially when Jack Thompson comes out and claims people are “training themselves” on Counterstrike 1.6) and to break those down we want to start getting ourselves involved with community and charity related projects using video games.”

Wigal said he has many plans for future projects, but tries to stay realistic in their goals.

“We’re fairly new, so I think one of our biggest challenges at the moment is just getting the word out about our organization. While we certainly don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, there are a ton of gamers who I think would be really interested in what we’re doing (and obviously we need the support of our fellow gamers in order for our organization to run events),” Wigal said. “Hopefully as we begin to build on our organizations philosophy of integrity and trust, (we hope) more gamers will start to get involved with our future outreach programs and events we plan to run. Our hope is that by actively getting involved in charity and community work, we can take a more pro-active approach towards building a positive reputation for gaming.”

Currently Wigal is working with CyGamZ, a LAN center in Michigan for a benefit extravaganza this year on November 10. The event will be a Halo 3, Counterstrike 1.6 and Guitar Hero tournament. Prizes for the event is sponsored by MYTHLOGIC, a custom performance computer company who volunteered to raffle one of their computers at the tournament.

“We’ve got some concepts in the works that aren’t quite ready to be discussed yet,” Wigal said. “But much of our future will be determined by how well our first few events do.”

Read [The Saline Reporter] Also Read [Halo Bungie News] Listen to Podcast [Gamer Girls Radio]Site [Gamers Outreach Foundation]