The E-sports movement is becoming more and more important as time passes by. There's a competitive urge in all of us and gamers tend to take that urge and exploit it to get better at the games they play. Without it, we wouldn't care when someone thrashes us in Call of Duty 4 multiplayer or when someone beats us up in an 1 on 1 game of Starcraft.

As the multiplayer scene grew up and as broadband became more reliable and accessible tournaments have begun to appear, initially created from the bottom up by enthusiast gamers and then created from the top down by companies that see tournaments as perfect gaming events. On one hand, they get to promote their games to a wide audience and on the other hand, they can also reward experienced and capable players, the kind that make up the demographic core for any game out there.

Blizzard is one of the companies whose games enjoy almost unrivaled multiplayer success, so tournaments are a given. The company has now announced the opening of the registration period for the World of Warcraft 2008 Arena Tournament.

The tournament will take place on a number of special servers, a cluster for each region, where the player can register and then create up to three level 70 characters from scratch. All abilities and all options are available. After the creation phase is complete, the characters will receive some of the best PvP and raid gear available in the game.

The battles themselves will feature teams made up of three players. They'll get a chance to meet up and form coherent teams for about two weeks at the beginning of each round. Then the team ratings will be reset and the tournaments will start. Each qualifier round takes around 6 weeks of player vs player team combat.

Blizzard is not going easy on the money for the tournament. The main prize is some 75,000 dollars while the team that triumphs in each region will get some 15,000 dollars. There are various other cash prizes for lower placings. The cost of entering the tournament is 25 dollars.

More info and the chance to register at the official site.