Zen Method from Gamerz Funk in Taylorsville, UT took home $500 for second place this past weekend in the ggCircuit $1,750 League of Legends tourney.

Last weekend was a big deal for me.  I am starting my 9th year in the video game (LAN) center industry.  It was December 10th, 2004 when I opened the original eBash location with 18 Xbox stations (the originals, not the 360) and 14 computers.  We have come a LONG way since then as a company and my perspective of the industry has changed quite a bit as well.

The other big milestone last weekend was the return of ggCircuit to the tournament scene.  ggCircuit was started back in December of 2008 by my buddy Jason McIntosh and myself to try and organize LAN centers throughout North America for hosting tournaments, leagues and other events.  We ran 33 events over the next 16 months paying out over $21,000 in cash prizes!  Here is a list of what we ran over those months:

1/3/2009 – Halo 2v2 – $750
1/18/2009 – Madden – $350
1/24/2009 – Gears 2 – $1,500
2/14/2009 – Halo 4v4 – $1,000
2/21/2009 – CoD 4 – $1,000
2/22/2009 – Madden – $250
2/28/2009 – Gears 2 – $1,000
3/13/2009 – Halo FFA – $750
3/14/2009 – Street Fighter 4 – $300
3/21/2009 – Halo Wars – $300
3/28/2009 – Gears 2 – $2,000
4/11/2009 – Street Fighter 4 – $300
4/18/2009 – Halo 3 4v4 – $2,000
4/26/2009 – Gears 2 – $500.00
6/27/2009 – Halo 3 2v2 – $1,000
7/25/2009 – CoD4 – $1,000
8/8/2009 – Gears 2 – $1,300
8/15/2009 – Halo 3 4v4 – $1,340
12/5/2009 – MW2 – $1,000
1/2010 – Xbox Gamerscore – $800
1/2010 – MW2 FFA – $250
Q1 2010 – MW2 League/Tourney – $2,500

As you can tell, the events became less dense towards the end of the first life cycle of ggCircuit.  It was a TON of work for Jason and I settling in each weekend to be online and admin matches across sometimes as many as 15 different game centers.  Over those 16 months some centers who were great supporters went out of business (which is common in this industry) and others just stopped running events with us because of the amount of work it requires.

About 2 months ago we hosted a League of Legends tournament at our main store and I was encouraged that maybe, just maybe, the industry might be ready for ggCircuit to start.  I put some feelers out with the LAN center groups I am a part of on facebook and inside the iGames forums.  Sure enough, people were interested.

So this past weekend we re-launched ggCircuit with a $1,750 payout tournament for League of Legends.  On Saturday, 38 teams played at 10 different LAN centers from Canada to Hawaii at their local game centers to crown the top 2 teams from each store.  Then on Sunday those 20 teams entered the championship brackets online to crown the top 3 teams.  You can check out the entire championship brackets here:

http://ggcircuit.com/Brackets/LoL-12-8-12/championship-brackets.aspx

Congratulations to Yolo Kimchi Squad from Eudemonia for taking home $1,000 for first place after fighting back through the loser’s bracket and beating Zen Method from Gamerz Funk twice in the finals match.  Sesame Street All Stars from PC Gamerz in Hawaii took home 3rd place and $250.

The fun thing now is that after a weekend of gaming I can release the pre-season game center rankings which is my super secret formula based on how well teams perform and how many teams each center attracts for ggCircuit events.  Ladies and gentlemen here are your pre-season center rankings:

#1 – Gamerz Funk – Taylorsville, UT (380)
#2 – PC Gamerz – Aiea, HI (350)
#3 – Midgard – Mount Pearl, Canada (260)
#4 – Eudemonia – Berkeley, CA (250)
#5 – eBash – Terre Haute, IN (160)
– Save Point – Morgantown, WV (160)
#7 – eBash – Charleston, IL (140)
– Galaxy Gaming – Sioux Falls, SD (140)
#9 – DIZeLAN – Azusa, CA (130)
#10 – Gaming Utopia – New Albany, IN (70)