AMD Sponsors Pro Gaming Team 54
Dillon Hamilton writes "AMD has chosen to sponsor Team NoA, a 6-member professional Counter-Strike team, with their latest hardware along with other unspecified support. NoA (Norwegians of America) is composed of three Norwegian players, two Americans, and one Canadian. All but one of the players (the newest addition and a Norwegian) currently live together in California to practice for the upcoming Cyberathlete Professional League championship tournament in Grapevine, TX, as well as the E-Sports World Cup in Toulouse, France. AMD will presumably be flying Ola Moum, the new member, from his home in Horten, Norway to the States as part of the deal. This is definitely a huge step forward for the concept of professional gaming, not only in the United States but worldwide. With teams like Team 3D and Schroet Kommando getting sponsored by bigger companies, (Subway, NVIDIA, and Shuttle in 3D's case) who knows where this might be in the next few years?"
Lies! (Score:4, Interesting)
In a football game, there's really only one thing that you absolutely must concentrate on at any given time to follow the action, and that's the ball. Sure, there's plenty going on otherwise on the field, but seeing the receiver leap up and snag a long pass is more exciting to watch than the left tackle blocking a rusher.
But what do you focus on in a FPS? You can follow a single player, but you miss a lot of the action. You can focus on a spot, but again, you miss a lot of the action. Even as a free-floating spectator, there's too much going on to take it all in. Even if the game has objectives like places to plant explosives, you can't just focus on that one spot, since most of the action is away from there, anyway.
And in a RTS? Well, the early game buildup isn't terribly exciting. At least you can focus on a spot when two armies clash, so RTSes have that going for them. Still, it's a long way from football.
I think the essence of the problem is this: most FPSes and RTSes have a large element of deception, or at least concealment to them. You try to avoid revealing your location to your opponent. The problem is that this makes it more difficult for a spectator to watch because he doesn't know what to expect. In sports, there's much less concealment. Oh, sure, they try to keep their opponents from knowing their gameplan, but you at least know where the players are. If you want to make a FPS watchable, you need to stick all the players in a space where a spectator can see the whole area at once without much obstruction, while still being able to tell what's going on. Naturally, this might ruin the game itself, but that's hardly the point, is it?
Re:Lies! (Score:3, Interesting)
Exactly why I can't understand the fascination with watching golf. I enjoy playing it and would give a kidney to be able to do that for a living but I'd rather watch grass grow than watch pros play it on TV. Regardless, there's still a mass market for it, so who knows, maybe today's PS2/XBox raised generation are the TV mass market of the tomorrow for professional video gaming.