Major League Gaming (MLG), the professional videogame league, today announced the launch of the MLG PC Circuit played on HP Blackbird 002. The kick-off event will be held alongside MLG’s Pro Circuit event in San Diego June 13-15 and will feature Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade and over $20,000 in prizes.

"We’ve just come off our Meadowlands season opener, which attracted a record-setting 12,000 players and fans. Working with industry leaders HP and Blizzard Entertainment will allow us to reach more of America’s 40 million competitive gamers," said Matthew Bromberg, CEO of Major League Gaming.

The 2008 MLG PC Pro Circuit competitions will be played entirely on HP Blackbird 002 gaming PC’s. Created with gamers in mind, the award-winning HP Blackbird 002 Gaming PC is highly configurable and features liquid cooling and innovative thermal chambers to keep critical components cool while running next-generation games or other demanding computing tasks.

"HP is bullish on PC gaming across the globe and we’re honored to help MLG as it launches their new North American circuit," said Rahul Sood, chief technology officer, Voodoo Business Unit, HP. "The HP Blackbird 002 was designed specifically for this level of intense competition. We can’t wait to see MLG contestants pwning their opponents with it."

The first MLG PC Circuit event features Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft, the world’s most popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game, with more than 10 million players worldwide. The MLG PC Circuit will continue throughout the 2008 MLG season with additional stops in Orlando and Dallas, and other PC titles may be added in the future.

The expansion of MLG into PC gaming competition leverages two of its competitive gaming sites, GotFrag.com, the leading PC-gaming coverage site, and MMO-Champion.com, a leading World of Warcraft competitive strategy site. San Diego tournament coverage will be broadcast live on GotFrag.com all weekend long, with more than 20 hours of live programming and expert commentary.

The live broadcast of the first 2008 MLG Pro Circuit competition in March generated more than 750,000 video streams, 130,000 hours of video and over 600,000 on-demand views on MLGPro.com.

Registration for the MLG PC Circuit San Diego event begins on May 15. For more information on the MLG PC Circuit, visit MLGPro.com, GotFrag.com or MMO-Champion.com.

About Major League Gaming

Major League Gaming is North America’s first professional videogame league, and its only sanctioning body for pro gaming. MLG operates the multi-city MLG Pro Circuit, presented by GameStop and powered by Xbox 360; produces compelling competitions for national television, broadband and mobile distribution; and exclusively represents the best gamers in the world. It also operates a thriving online community and online tournaments for millions of gamers at mlgpro.com. MLG, founded in 2002, is based in New York City and is privately held.

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