Pro Gaming Network Television Coverage Begins Sunday

The New York Times has an article on a first for pro gamers: network television coverage of a match. Sunday at noon EDT CBS Sports will be airing coverage of the World Series of Videogames. Events will include Guitar Hero II, Fight Night and World of Warcraft 3v3 Arena combat. The article explores some of the challenges of making gaming understandable on television: "The dollars are already quite mainstream. Americans bought about $13 billion worth of video game systems and software last year, more than they spent at the film box office (around $10 billion). Advertisers for Sunday's broadcast include KFC, Intel and the Marines. But for gaming to make it as a major-network TV sport, the big hurdle will be translating a medium that is by its nature meant to be experienced firsthand into a compelling hands-off spectator experience. It is a task that in some ways is no less daunting than that of the early baseball television producers who eventually realized that a camera way out in center field would provide the best view of pitches." Update: 07/28 23:19 GMT by Z : Fixed day of the weekend the show is on.

I for one...

...welcome this extraordinary event. It is high time that the geekier sports such as video gaming be given a chance on network television. Imagine the thousands of gamers that will be affected by this.

Uh, yeah.

But for gaming to make it as a major-network TV sport...

Hey, I love gaming just as much as the next guy (X360 + PC here.. working on finding a Wii).. but IMHO gaming will never "make it" as a sport. It's just not entertaining enough to watch. Games are fun to play, not watch on TV.

Re:Uh, yeah.

Hey, I love golf just as much as the next guy (working on getting into a country club).. but IMHO golf will never "make it" as a sport. It's just not entertaining enough to watch. Golf is fun to play, not watch on TV.

In non-troll-speak: Sports are covered so heavily because of inertia. A few people like watching it, enough to justify coverage, and people who don't really care about them watch it because hey, it's on. I don't think gaming will be any different.

At first....

I agreed with you but then I thought about when I was a child. At one of the local hangout spots there was a street fighter arcade machine where literally dozens of people would stand around for hours to watch this guy I knew in middle school kick the crap out of every person that dared to challenge him with every character there was. Just to entertain himself he would allow himself to get the crap kicked out of him on purpose until he had almost no energy left then proceed to taunt his opponent while he blocked their every move and slowly killed them.

We were all amazed as kids and enjoyed every second of it, how it will play out with adults I'm not sure; but it will only work if they can find gamers who do things that are sufficiently unique and amazing that people will want to watch for extended periods of time.

Plus people watch poker and NASCAR so anything can make it on tv.

Games on TV

I recall when Doom 3 came out, the QuakeCon that year webcast the matches that were being played there (some Doom3 1v1 deathmatch, as well as some Q3 CTF matches there). I was watching these on my living room TV as they were being webcast, and I kind of realized something about watching games or sports on TV -- they are only truly interesting if you know enough about the game to play it yourself.

i.e. being a Canadian, I wasn't able to avoid learning how to play hockey as a child. Not that I'm any good at it, but I know the rules, I know the point of the game, and I understand what it means when different things happen. However, I find Football (either kind, take your pick) mind numbingly boring -- because I never really played them, I haven't really internalized the rules, and don't know enough about the tactics of the game(s) to be interested in them.

Similarly, watching Q3CTF and Doom3 (especially the 1v1 matches), I really got into them because I understood what they were doing, and I could anticipate the reactions and behaviour of the competitors. The same is true with watching (PvE) WoW videos -- I get into them because I understand what's going on.

I have a feeling that's going to be the largest impediment to gaming on TV -- sports rules change very slowly, and not by very much. Even if you haven't watched NHL hockey in six years, you'd be able to sit down and clearly understand what's going on[1] within a few minutes. If someone was watching Q3 videos online six years ago, and then sat down today to watch -- umm, Halo2 or something? what are people playing these days? -- it wouldn't be even close to the same. It would be like watching an entirely new sport every few years.

[1] This does not extend to league management.

Interesting.

Interesting that gaming on TV seems to be coming back into vogue. In the UK, we used to have a show called GamesMaster [wikipedia.org], which was quite fun. People would try to complete 'challenges' issued by the games master (bizarrely played by Patrick Moore [wikipedia.org], with a distorted head). The only one I actually remember was someone trying to complete a track on the SNES version of Mario Kart in a certain time. :-)

It was pulled because some people at the channel thought gaming on TV wasn't wanted by anyone.

I can see the headlines now

Geek sports jocks wow the girls with their 1337 wrist action and fingering skills.

Err, Sorry. Got a bit carried away there. That last bit should read "1337 mouse and keyboard skills"

Horrible game line up.

Guitar Hero II, Fight Night and World of Warcraft

Guitar hero is not really a competitive game, as players are really just playing against a preset sequence, not eachother. It's impressive for a while, but it's more similar to rodeo than head to head competition. Fight Night is hardly competitor quality, especially for a fighting game. I'm assuming it's on the list because of corporate meddling. They could've at least chose a fighting game actively played in leagues, like Super Smash Brothers. World of Warcraft is not balanced enough nor does it have the gameplay for competitive PVP. PVP might be fun, but at a competitive level, class imbalance (which rotates every patch), UI modding, combat skills (especially engineering), terrain imbalance (no projectile clipping), and itemization all play a large factor at an advanced level. Blizzard can make very competitive RTS, but WoW just isn't even close to that caliber.

Not sure how they figure this is a first

xleagueTV - http://xleague.tv/Portal/home.aspx [xleague.tv] a channel dedicated to gaming, regularly show pro-gaming matches (on a show called "The Match").

They also managed to find some people to discuss the match in the studio who actually have an idea what they're talking about - although it is sometimes a bit cringing when they're winging it. Regular contributors involve various pro-team managers and sponsors, and developers.

It's not perfect, but I do find I can actually be entertained by watching people play games like Quake 4, Forza and gears of war, although the players move in a stilted way on console FPS games due to the limitations of the controllers which makes spectating a bit harder.

The parts which don't really work are interviewing the players after the match - most of them seem to struggle to string a sentence together - but then, they're young kids mostly, and they're not there to be witty - I've always wondered why sports shows in general, interview the athletes so much - they're just not talkers. Mind you, the dumb questions don't help: "What's your plan then?" well he's not going to tell everyone his tactics is he, which leaves the obvious answers like "er.. score more points than the other guy?"

They also seem to take the video feed direct from the player's PC, and most fast FPS players have all the eye candy turned off - great for playing, but not so pretty to watch. A spectator view would be better on a dedicated machine with all the prettiness turned up.

It's on channel 279 on Sky.

Demographics?

My first thought when I looked at the article was "What the heck is this doing on CBS!?!" Sure, its wonderful that they're trying to mainstream the competitive side of video games and that the event involves a variety of games (with a noticeable absence of an RTS). But, why in the name of Tassadar are they running this on CBS?

Let's see . . . CBS is best known for its half-dozen procedural crime dramas, an investigative news magazine whose trademark is a device many video gamer players have never seen in real life (a mechanical stop watch), and for being partnered with AOL: your parents' internet. The target demographic for CBS is upper-middle-class 40+ professionals who are getting ready to bury their parents. Ever watch CBS in the morning (The Price is Right, Sunday Morning)? Count how many commercials they run for life insurance, death insurance, investment/retirement firms, and luxury cars. Oh, and Country Music, we can't forget how much CBS loves the soundtrack of the heartland.

Running a video game competition on CBS is like running something educational on FOX. And, no, Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader does not count. And I just can't wait for the running commentary.

"Wow Jane, video games have really come a long way since Pac-Man and Pong!"

"I agree Scott. Hey, do you think the winners will get their prize money in quarters?"

Where is it airing?

I just checked my locale and could not find it. Someone have more info on where it's airing?

Game devs... make competition versions....

Game developers should be making special versions of the games that include multiple camera angles and support for remote control of those cameras.

Imagine a 1 on 1 combat game with head cams, fist cams, low angle shots, birds eye view shots, etc.

Currently games are set up to maintain the challenge for the gamer but few provide support for spectators. This will be easy to work around with MMOG type games, just set up extra players around the arena and use their views... but for games that are more traditional, well the view that's best for the gamers is rarely the best for the spectators.

Apparently not all CBS stations think it tv-worthy

I just looked at the guide for my local CBS station. You know what it has on at noon? Infomercials. Apparently they think they can make more money showing infomercials than videogaming...

The listed Day is incorrect....

After checking my local TV listings in the US, it appears that CBS will be airing the episode on Sunday---not Saturday. sunday, Sunday, SUNDAY at the Colliseum...seum...seeum

geeks

And the geeks shall inherit the Earth... cue 2112

The linked article sucks

They don't even know how to caption their photos correctly - the man pictured on the left is Freddie Wong, not David Briers aka wuLFe.

wtf is with those games?

None of those are games that are played competitively... I mean, common, guitar hero? World of warcraft? There's nothing impressive about being good at world of warcraft... it's just sad.

The only games that are really played competitively are starcraft, warcraft 3, and counterstrike. Why the hell not cover those? They already have huge tournaments...

Lousy game selection...

You want a good game for competitive play? How about UT? Its whole premise is that its a competition to begin with. The only problem with it that I see is that it might be a little bit too fast for the unitiated to follow.

Need to standardize on one game/map for years

Sports in real life do not change their playfields or rules very much (if at all). Because the game and playfield do not change over time, viewers get to know the nuances of strategy. To some extent this is what happened in Korea with Starcraft. Starcraft is an old game and by sticking with it year after year, even though newer games with better graphics were available, it gave viewers a chance to get to know the nuanced strategies and gameplay styles of particular players. In the US, there has been a lack of focus when televisimg videogame competition and no standardization on a particular game. Instead, broadcasters simply go for whatever is the most popular game (hence CBS's choice of WoW and Guitar hero of all things) in a given year, and then switch games completely the next year. The other problem I see is with trying to get people interested in watching videogames of real sports. Why would anyone want to watch Fight Night or Madden when they could watch real boxing or real football?

I didn't like it.

I think we're a long way off from professional gaming. I don't think they're at a point yet where they can be enjoyed from the sidelines like any real life sport. There's a dynamic that's missing.

I think real sports are able to transcend the game itself. There are countless minute variables that affect the game and players. The players have real emotion. They suffer from exhaustion, injury, frustration. There's the interplay between players. There's weather, wind, the grass itself. There's a whole world outside of that particular game. At the same time nearly all sports are relatively easy to relate to and it's simple enough to follow what's happening.

By chance I happened to catch that pro gaming event on CBS and I watched gamers compete in all three of the listed games. All I took from the boxing game was how EA did a fairly good job of texturing but how animations were awkward and jerky.

I've played World of Warcraft and bit and watching those guys compete I had no idea what the hell was going all. All I saw where characters running around towards and away from each other, lights flashing, numbers floating up from these character's heads and the camera wilding spinning around at times. I'd see these numbers popping up but no change in the HP bars at the bottom of the screen. All this would be punctuated by the view of some guy being defeated.

The Guitar Hero competition was exceedingly embarrassing to watch. These two dorks were up there with plastic toy guitars but somehow managed to convince themselves they were rock n roll gods. And as if it weren't lame enough one guy decides he's going to be cool and smash his guitar. I can't imagine very many people think that's cool enough.

Now, this isn't to take anything away from these games. Guitar Hero 2 is an awesome game. But it's an awesome game played in a living room with friends. Not on stage or worse, televised.

Most games today just don't translate well to television. They're difficult to follow, there's no realistic way for a produce to properly convey the action and be able to choose quickly enough what events should be focused on. And games are still too scripted and actions too limited for them to work as a spectator sport on a large scale. Even car racing games, which are closest to the real thing are still lacking.

I also think that when we finally have a game that can be successfully turned into a spectator sport they're going to have to adhere to a very rigid set of rules to ensure consistency. We can't have it like it is now where with each new version and update things change drastically. Well, it can be done, but then you're looking at exhausting extensive resources to ensure proper balance.

When it came down to it the game struck me as advertising punctuated by a bunch of guys playing games that were no fun to watch at best and downright embarrassing at worst.

It wasn't all that bad.

I checked it out today, and you know what, I didn't think it was all that bad. CBS treated it with respect and gave a good primer on the game. The way they portrayed the games were both exciting and informative to those of us that knew the games. The commentators they had knew the games and were able to provide insight. They ran a good vignette of WoW terminology for the WoW section, and even popped up definitions for terms that people may not know.

I was pleasantly surprised with the respect they gave the medium, and hope it continues.

different people different choices

I agree about CBS not being the most optimum choice for a channel given its demographic etc. but maybe this is the channels way of changing its image and try and appeal to a more younger audience...notice the use of the word "try" how far they are successful will depend on how good the coverage is how comfortable they can make the average user feel about the game in question and more importantly how knowledgeable the guys (girls) are who present the event and their ability to convert gaming terms and expressing them in layman terms! An example of that is I watch my nephew play online turn based Pokemon game the graphic are just still 2D images and all the battles take place in the head of my nephew but he gets great joy out of beating the opposite trainers Pokemon's and rule the gym etc. I don't know much about the Pokemon culture (Should I be embarrassed?) but when he explained to me I realized how it could lead to the same cycle the way WOW has level up (not just in numbers but factions etc.) get good gear fight better monsters - rinse lather repeat. But the question is would showing those still images make for good TV viewing? NO!

This is America we're talking about

If you put it on television, people will watch it. I had a linux machine connected to the TV when I was experimenting with creating a media center. My friends would sit and watch the apt-get show.

oooh, bitter! ...seriously, keep an open mind...

oooh, somebody had a hard time on school sports days....

Well, seriously, bullying is a significant and traumatic issue, so I do sympathise with you pal if you had a hard time at school. But don't write off all sports. Keep an open mind and maybe you'll find something which works for you, makes you friends, keeps you fit. Plenty of folks do. One of my best mates at school was "the fat kid" - he left to go to university completely hating sports, came back 3 months later having had a go at scuba diving and loved it. 6 months later and the guy was in great shape, active member of the club, was a heck of a lot lighter, and had a great girlfriend.

Just because you don't like traditional school sports, don't write them all off.

Good luck!

Re:oooh, bitter! ...seriously, keep an open mind..

Well, seriously, bullying is a significant and traumatic issue, so I do sympathise with you pal if you had a hard time at school. But don't write off all sports. Keep an open mind and maybe you'll find something which works for you, makes you friends, keeps you fit. Plenty of folks do.

Not the AC, but one should point out that GP wasn't bashing sports. He was bashing WATCHING OTHER PEOPLE play sports...

Re:lazy..

soon people are too lazy to even play anymore, and just watch when someone else playes. Like with ice hockey and other sports.

Ice hockey? Not bloody surprising; I'd rather watch some other guy getting his head bashed in than having it done to me.

Re:This is no worse

[e-mail] i want spam to the above address, thanks. [e-mail] [e-mail] [e-mail] [e-mail] [e-mail] [e-mail]