WEC 2014 announced in China;Promises $800,000+ in prize money across four different titles

This article was originally published on GameSpot's sister site onGamers.com, which was dedicated to esports coverage.

A press conference held last week in China has brought the World E-Sport Championships organisation into the limelight after they announced a new large scale esports event which is set to be hosted in just a few months from now in Hangzhou, China. WEC are planning to host the event with a prize pool of 5,000,000 RMB (~$803,000 USD) across four different titles, Warcraft 3, Starcraft 2, Hearthstone, and of course, Dota 2.

The funding for the event has been provided by a Hangzhou-based company going by the name of Diba (D8) Networks Limited, who have announced ambitions in establishing a top tier games industry presence, in addition to goals of solidifying Hangzhou as a center for global esports.

The World E-Sport Championships organisation is not to be confused with the group that launched earlier this year after the closure of the World Cyber Games organisation where multiple members of the core staff broke off to reform under the a new banner known as "World Esports Championships Games" backed by the Aegis Gaming Network and Beijing-based Global Mobile Game Confederation with a goal of filling the gap left by the departure of World Cyber Games. WECG confirmed earlier today that they are still planning to host their own event later this year in December.

The structure of the tournament will see an online qualifiers held across four primary regions: The Americas, Europe, Korea and China. With the grand finals being held at a currently unconfirmed location in the city of Hangzhou, China.

The organisation promises an action packed main event with high level production and are enlisting the help of Zhejiang Television show host Hua Shao as a special host for the finals.

A preliminary timeline for the qualifiers and finals has been released on the site. The Dota 2 qualifiers will span across most of the month of August, starting from the 1st to 24th of August. The offline finals that will be held in Hangzhou are currently planned to occur between the 6th to 8th of September.

Signups for the China region are currently available through the official WEC site here. News regarding the other regional qualifiers will be available at a later date.