After months of presentations, proposals, and a lot of behind the scenes work, I am excited to officially welcome you to the new World Cyber Games USA! Although this is the first year ESS will be the Strategic Partner for WCG USA. we have plenty of experience competing in and powering both WCG USA and the WCG Grand Finals over the past ten years.

This year's US program will feature an exciting lineup of game titles that includes StarCraft II, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, League of Legends, Counter-Strike 1.6, Crossfire, and Tekken 6.  We'll be hosting free to play online qualifiers across each game that will feed into the US National Final to find the best in the US, crown our US Champions, and send Team USA onto Korea to compete in the eleventh annual World Cyber Games Grand Final.  We want to share the excitement and drama of the country's best gamers battling it out for their ticket to the US National Final, and so each online qualifier and the US National Final will feature free online broadcasts from top matches.  More information on the US National FInal will be released in the coming weeks.

Don't see your game in the WCG USA 2011 lineup of games?  Don't worry!  We're currently working with publishers to add promotional game titles for online and live competitions.  The first promotional tournament was held this past weekend at the Samsung Experience for Call of Duty: Black Ops, which featured 22 teams (maximum) competing for over $2,500 in cash and prizes.  Head over to the forums and let us know what games you'd like to see included in WCG USA.

We're going to continue to add new features to the WCG USA website, and in the meantime we encourage you to compete in qualifiers, enjoy the online streams, participate in discussions, and make us.wcg.com your home.

Welcome to the new WCG USA and be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter as we'll be running ongoing contests and giveaways!