Pro Video Game Leagues — Another Economic Casualty 207
Anonymusing writes "Not long ago, professional video gamer Emmanuel Rodriguez earned a base $30K salary plus prize winnings in the Championship Gaming Series. However, with the economy suffering, sponsors like DirecTV and News Corporation are backing out, leaving Rodriguez with a more typical job for a 23-year-old: store clerk. After the demise of the CPL and the Championship Gaming Series last year, the only major pro gamer league left is Major League Gaming, though it expects to turn a profit this year — some of its players earn more than six figures from the $1 million in prizes given throughout the season, while others are putting off college to work on their gaming careers."
A recent story in the LA Times discusses how the games industry slow-down is hitting game developers hard as well. Conversely, the used game market is seeing significant growth — it'll be interesting to see what publishers learn from this.
A little help (Score:5, Interesting)
Digital download FTW! (Score:5, Interesting)
If the retailers aren't careful, they'll kill off their own source of supply. Used games are a big win for them and a big win for the consumer, and a big loss for the publishers. If the retailers drive the publishers to digital distribution ONLY, they won't have anything left to sell.
You'll notice that major bookstores don't sell used books, only new ones.
Within 20 years games may become a service like cable TV, not a product you buy and take home.
Re:Sports Celebrities (Score:3, Interesting)
It's the same reason as why the ancient Romans liked to watch gladiators do battle.
When you watch a sports team play, you are watching the fruits of countless hours of training and practice being put into use. That kind of dedication simultaneously generates awe, wonder, and respect, deservedly, I would say. And it may have been among your many unrealized childhood ambitions to do what they are doing now, or it may be one of your current fantasies, but that bit of empathy that every person has at least a little of puts you into the athlete's shoes if only for a moment. And the brief adrenaline rush from that is extremely satisfying.
That's why people watch sports of any kind. Some are more interesting to watch, depending on how well people are able to relate to it.
Personally, I'd agree with your unspoken sentiments, that it's probably more interesting to be the player than the spectator. I don't watch for entertainment any sport that I play, and I only watch critically the sports that I partake in seriously. It's why I find competitive gaming to be absolutely boring to watch. But this may not be so for others.
Re:The publishers didn't much care. (Score:2, Interesting)
Yeah, to be honest I'd say most companies were actually against it. Valve regularly would push updates that you were forced to use that completely shifted or broke gameplay.
The only exceptions would be Blizzard and ID, both of which run their own tournaments.. but they both keep their competitive play second to attracting new players.
Frankly as a 'pro-gamer', Im glad its crashing down. The scene is awful. Bunch of 16 year old kids who bitch about tourneys not having >$5k purses. Pro gaming used to just be enthusiasts having fun trying to be the best. People would go out of their way to enter tournaments even though they knew even if they won first place, it wouldnt pay for itself. They played because it was fun and they enjoyed it. Youg ot to meet a lot of great peple and have experiences most peple never get.
Now its just people saying "GG BAD EPIC FAIL LOLOL" not wanitng to build any kind of community. Maybe once the money is gone it can go back to people actually looking for enjoyment?
Re:A little help (Score:3, Interesting)
I beg to differ (Score:3, Interesting)
You can check out english broadcasts of games at gomtv.net as they hired an American to do live English commentary of their tournaments. There is a nice archive of games. However the Gomtv tournament is newer and not the best quality wise(as in the best players focus their practice on the other tournaments and their team proleague events). There are fans on youtube that take the korean broadcasts of games and tournaments and dub themselves over the korean commentary. Check out the youtube user account "violetak" or "klazartsc" if interested, there are more than a dozen more other people doing regular commentary and uploading to youtube, mostly of the Korean scene as it is superior, but also of the "foreign" scene (which in this case means any player not residing in Korea).