Exclusion of Quake III: Arena from WCG 2003 : Official Position of the WCGOC

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First the WCG Organizing Committee would like to express its gratitude to the Quake player community for their active participation and interest to date. This decision was an extremely difficult one to make, and much internal as well as external debate was undergone before reaching the conclusion. It is a shame that we cannot address the Quake fans around the world this year, however, we will always continue to monitor the international game scene to update our official games, and thus Quake may see a resurgence in the years to come.

To explain in more detail, we apply many criteria and measures in the effort to select official games for the WCG each year. Among these criteria, several significant conditions are as follows.


1. The positive outlook and willingness of each games publisher in working together with the WCG
2. Support of the publisher in technical areas for the optimal operation of competitions in each game.
3. Game and genre trends worldwide


Out of the many criteria we apply, including the surveys and polls that in which many of you may have participated, the above three are of special relevance to the decision to exclude Quake III: Arena from the WCG 2003. Although many efforts were made to approach and hopefully work together with the publisher of this game title, we have not had success as the publisher has made it clear to us that they are not willing to be associated with the WCG. Thus, after numerous efforts to reverse this negative into a positive, we have been compelled to drop Quake III: Arena from the official game event lineup this year.

A strong requirement for the successful operation of each years WCG is ensuring full efforts to maximize the stability of all operations, especially technical issues, in order to deliver the smoothest event execution as possible. The publisher of Quake III: Arena has made it clear that no assistance of any kind will be provided to us.

We release this statement to clarify that we have made every effort to work together with the publisher of Quake III: Arena. As stated previously, ensuring that we continuously improve operational excellence of the WCG is a key goal, and this effort requires the cooperation of all involved in its organization, including the game providers.

The decision of the publisher to rebuff cooperation with us in making the WCG was a shock to us, as we are sure the exclusion of this game title was a shock to many fans and players. However, we hope that this statement will provide you with the reasoning behind this decision, and that you will see that it was not made unilaterally.

Thank you for your understanding and continued interest. We will continue our best efforts to work with all publishers to ensure that great games are included in the WCG.