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What is Digital Games? How does it all work? How can I participate?

Play Games. Have Fun. Make Your Country Proud.

The Digital Games program includes global online competitions across a number of games and gaming platforms. Whether you prefer shooting games, strategy, sports, racing, fighting, or casual games, whether you game on a PC, Xbox 360, or PLAYSTATION®3, the Digital Games has a competition for you. And, on top of the global online competition, the Digital Games includes a live final for one platform for each game in the program, which will be held in October in China as part of the Our Olympic Organizing Committee's welcome events hosted by the China Government!

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How does it all work?

The Digital Games world is divided into 5 separate regions. So, you first have to find which region your country belongs to, and join that region's group. "Your country" is defined by the country where you hold a passport (or could get a passport if you don't currently have one). *** NOTE — if you are playing a team game, make sure all of your team members are from the same country. Although you will be playing against teams from throughout your region, each player/squad is representing a single country. Here are the five regions:

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How can I participate?

The competition structure varies slightly depending on whether the game you play ends with a Regional Final or the Global Final - read below for more details.

For the each region, there are 3 major steps:

1. Regional Qualifying Ladder
2. Regional Final
3. Global Final (for some games/platforms)

Regional Qualifying Ladder

The Regional Qualifiers take place in a 1.5 month-long ladder competition, from June 11 through July 27. You join the ladder for your game/platform, challenge other players/squads, play matches, and gain points based on both how many matches you win AND how many matches you play. Click here for more information on how the ladder works.

At the end of the Regional Qualifying Ladder, we do two things:

• Award National Medals (Gold, Silver and Bronze) based on your ranking in the ladder compared to other players from your country. If you are #500 overall in the ladder overall, but are the highest-ranked player/squad from your country, then you are the Gold Medal winner from your country!
• Determine who advances to the Regional Final (see below for details on that process).

Regional Final

Each game/platform will have an online Regional Final of 32 players/squads, from mid-August to mid-September. To fill those 32 spots, we will go down the Regional Qualifying Ladder rankings from top to bottom and invite the top player/squad from each country until we have filled all 32 spots. If we have invited one player/squad from every country in the ladder and have not yet filled up all 32 spots, we will go back to the top of the ladder and take a second representative from each country until all spots are full. The Digital Games Regional Final will be a single-elimination bracket, with the top 3 players/squads being awarded Gold, Silver, and Bronze Regional Medals.

Global Final

For each game, we will select one platform to advance to the live Digital Games Global Final in China in October 2008. For example, if a game is available on the PC, Xbox 360, and PS3, we will hold a Regional Qualifying Ladder and Regional Final for each of those three platforms, but only one will advance to the live Global Final in China.

If your game/platform is included in the Digital Games Global Final in China, there will be a certain number of invitations assigned to each region, and we will use the results of the Regional Final to determine which players/squads get those invitations. In other words, if your region has 4 invitations to the Global Final for your game, then the players/squads who finish in the top 4 spots in the Regional Final bracket will get the invitations. The number of invitations to the Global Final for each region will vary from game to game - stay tuned for an announcement soon about how many invitations will be given to each region for each game.

The players/squads who choose to accept their invitations to the Digital Games Global Final will compete live in China as part of the Our Olympic Organizing Committee's welcome events hosted by the China Government. The top three players for each game will be awarded Global Medals (Gold, Silver, and Bronze). (Note that invitations to the Digital Games Global Final do not necessarily include travel arrangements or compensation.)

That's how the overall program will work. For more details please visit the official game page for the game you'd like to play, and if you have additional questions feel free to post in the Digital Games Forums. Enjoy the competition!

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