The World Cyber Games committee has announced its host city bidding plan for the WCG 2009 Grand Final.

All applying cities will go through a "vigorous" evaluation process, where factors such as location, financing, government support, facilities, promotion and city infrastructure will be reviewed. The announcement of 2009 host city is scheduled for March 2008.

WCG first introduced a host city concept in 2002 when Daejeon, a major city in Korea, held the Grand Final. Following Daejeon, a number of destinations around the world played host including San Francisco (2004), Singapore (2005) and Monza(2006). This year, the competition returns to the United States as Seattle plays host, while the event will take place in Cologne, Germany in 2008.

“The World Cyber Games has quickly established a great reputation for contributing to the development of the economies and IT infrastructures (sic) of host cities,” said Mr Hyoung-Seok Kim, CEO of Samsung subsidiary International Cyber Marketing, global organiser of the WCG. “Coupled with the growing popularity of e-sport competition around the world, we believe that selecting the Host City for 2009 will be the most competitive Host City Bid in WCG history.”

WCG features over one million participants from more than 70 countries. Featuring online and offline events, the year-long series attracted more than 1.3 million competitors in 2006. The Grand Final in Monza broke new ground as more than 24 million people watched the competition unfold in real-time, marking the first-ever global, live satellite broadcast for an e-sports event.