Is Gaming Really a Spectator Sport? 105
njkid1 passed us a link to a GameDaily article on the upcoming DirecTV Championship Game series. There's big prize money at stake, dozens of teams are flocking to the banner of the event, and promoters are talking the event up as something that can't be missed. All of this begs the question: Is competitive gaming a spectator sport? Is the culture of videogaming conducive to mass-market entertainment? Will Counter-Strike matches draw enough of a crowd to maintain advertiser interest at future events? What's your read on this new entry into American gamer culture?
Presentation (Score:3, Informative)
1. Firstly, you really need people that are interested in the sport. If there are 5 people that still play doom, it may not be the best candidate for a media event.
2. Once you have a loyal throng of fanbois just waiting to absorb all the godliness of the event, you still need to present the event in a way that attracts them to it.
A very classic example of how NOT to present sports coverage was when Fox started to broadcast hockey. If there are any Hockey fans out there, you know what kind of unmitigated disaster that was. The camera work was bad, the glowing puck was really annoying and it just didn't have the same feel that more traditional hockey broadcasters had already learned to do right (at least in Canada, eh?).
Find a format that people seem to like. Be flexible in the beginning allowing for glaring problems that fans may have. Once you get that winning format, tighten it up so that people watching from event to event will feel comfortable with how the program flows. This will go a long way in encouraging existing viewers to tune in again, and it allows those viewers to effectively talk about whats going on without them having to second guess themselves.
3. Choose your medium carefully
Can anyone here see a problem with video game championhips being broadcasted over the internet? Wouldn't one assume that it is: 1. cheaper, 2. reachable by nearly 100% of anyone that would care to watch it anyways.
Just putting it on the idiot box doesn't automatically make the event any more attractive to watch. I tuned into the spike VG awards one time and I couldn't watch 5 minutes of it before being so repulsed I had to kill it. It just seems that the plain text end-of-year awards on web pages holds my attention longer than their monkey show.
Thats about all I have to say about that. In conclusion, yes it -can- be a good idea, but make damn sure that what you're selling is something that your fans would actually watch.
Yes, but the scale is small (Score:3, Informative)