The first two seasons of ESL Extreme Masters have seen Turtle Entertaintment raise the prize-purse and extend the reach of the tournament. Now, before the third season, they have chosen to bump it up to a hole new level.

From $185,000 in Season 1 to $750,000 in Season 3 - that is a markable increase. With the increase, ther is also some changes from ESL though. In the first two seasons, WarCraft III was one of the two main games, but for the coming season, the RTS has been replaced by another Blizzard-title; World of Warcraft. According to ESL, this move has been taken because WoW has a higher spread - and a bigger potential than WC3.

The tournament will be played much like the last two seasons; with national qualifications and group-stages after that. Regional Finals will decide who is going to the Grand Finals at CeBIT 2009 - with China and South Korea having their own stand-alone qualifications.

Read the full press release right here:

Intel® Extreme Masters season III spans three continents – 750,000 US Dollar prize money – Offline tournaments around the globe

Cologne June 19th, 2008 – The Intel® Extreme Masters, global league of eSports champions, starts into its third season. It is the global premier league of the Electronic Sports League. The Intel® Extreme Masters consists of three continental leagues: Asia, America and Europe. The American and European continental le ague seasons culminate in a continental final. Country finals will be hosted in the Peoples Republic of China and the Republic of South Korea. The best eSport teams and players of these finals qualify for the global finals at CeBIT 2009. Starting at Games Convention 2008 in Leipzig, Germany, multiple offline tournaments will be carried out around the globe prior to the global final. The world's best eSport clans will be playing on the highest peforming Intel Extreme Processors on Alienware Systems from Dell's Gaming group fighting for a prize money of 750,000 US Dollars. Counter-S trike 1.6 (5on5) and World of Warcraft (3on3) are the disciplines of the Intel® Extreme Masters season III.

ESL TV and its worldwide partners are going to provide live coverage of the Intel Extreme Masters Season III. Free low quality streams and high quality Pay TV streams will be available via IPTV.

„The Intel® Extreme Masters is the first global league of eSports champions. Since 2006 the tournament has continuously grown in size and participating countries. Anybody can participate and qualify for the global final. This is the true league of eSports champions“, says Wulf Franke, Product Manager Intel® Extreme Masters of league operator Turtle Entertainment GmbH from Cologne, Germany.

Turt le Entertainment and its franchise partners in seventeen countries operate the Electronic Sports League and the Intel® Extreme Masters, the league of eSports champions.

More information can be found on SK Gaming, where Carmac has conducted an interview with Wulf Franke, Project Manager of Extreme Masters.