Today X3O Professional Gaming announces the release of our Counter-Strike 1.6 division. After a successful year that concluded with their first place finish at the World Cyber Games 2008 US Finals their contracts have been purchased by Gravitas Gaming. Effective immediately Ediz “goodfornothing” Basol, Matt “PaTyoJoN” Iantosca, Dan “mehLer” Mehler, Derrick “impulsivE” Truong and Ben “theNut” Hui will be playing for Gravitas at the ESL Extreme Masters III Global Challenge in Montreal, Canada as well as future events this year.

Nick Fitz, X3O Professional Gaming franchise owner, was asked a few questions by GotFrag.com:

How do you truly feel about the loss of our team?
It is a bit personal for me as I imagine it to be with any manager that tries to build personal relationships with their players, however every transition I have ever made with this franchise has always taken us to the next level.

What can we expect from X3O in the future?
X3O is still one of the strongest brands in North American e-Sports, and we aren’t going anywhere. For the time being we will continue to focus on our existing CoD4, CSS and Quake divisions as well as planning our expansion to possibly WoW and GoW2 next year.

Is it worth looking for a new team as there could arguably be considered only 3 good teams in North American right now?
Of course it is. We are in the unique situation that we can seriously attract most professional players. We are looking to offer our players a very competitive salary within 1st Quarter of 2009 which gives us a lot of options. Other then the new Gravitas Gaming, almost the entire community will be free from contract by the end of 2008. We will probably look to announce a roster in the upcoming weeks and then hand pick any replacements in the beginning of 2009.

Dust-Off, a valued partner of X3O, will continue to sponsor the Team USA Counter-Strike 1.6 team as they represent our country in the world finals. We hope that everyone will tune in and watch as Gravitas works to bring the gold home this November.

This is a big change for the franchise, however we pride ourselves in building teams that have the desire and passion to become world champions, and we will continue to do that in the years to come.
I want to thank our sponsors Dust-Off, Razer, NationVoice, and NextGenServers for their great support this year and through the times of change for us, and of course our community and fans. Without you, none of this would be possible.

Stay tuned to www.x3o-gaming.com in the days and weeks to come for additional updates.