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Games Entertainment

AMD Loses QuakeCon To Intel 44

Posted by Zonk from the kind-of-like-the-chip-market dept.
The Inquirer has a report that AMD has lost sponsorship of the QuakeCon event to Intel. From the article: "As the official CPU and title sponsor of QuakeCon 2005, Intel will be providing its Extreme Edition tournament systems and servers to host the tournament and bring your own computer (BYOC) games. As AMD news site AMDzone.com says, with such close competition between Intel and AMD when it comes to high performance gaming, this could be bad news for AMD and tip the scales in Intel's favour. Intel is clearly trying to get a leg up on the eSports front, having sponsored other big events such as Bloodline and successful gaming team 4kings, it seems that Intel wants to have its name associated with all things e-Sports. "
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AMD Loses QuakeCon To Intel More

AMD Loses QuakeCon To Intel

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  • AMD missing strategy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by superpulpsicle ( 533373 ) on Thursday July 21, 2005 @09:54PM (#13131653)
    When AMD had the #2 product, no problem. Intel won every deal.

    Now that AMD clearly have a better product, why are they not winning?! They loose events after events, OEMs after OEMs. Apple, Dell, Quakecon for starters. They can't just rely on enthusiasts.

    • Re:AMD missing strategy (Score:4, Insightful)

      by bersl2 ( 689221 ) on Thursday July 21, 2005 @10:27PM (#13131872) Journal
      That's a funny statement, "They can't just rely on enthusiasts." The ones I talk to are absolutely smitten with them at the moment. It is common knowledge (well, everywhere except the known Intel-whoring sites) that the Athlon64 beats the Pentium 4, hands down, in everything but multimedia encoding. And their (single core) processors are better priced than Intel's, and they overclock better than Intel's too. I don't think I have to mention the thermal parameters either.
    • gee, i wonder why with amd cpus, being much much faster for gaming, why they don't garner any sponsorships.

      gee, i wonder.

      my arm is very strong.

    • AMD doesn't have nearly the fabrication capacity that Intel does.
    • I for one don't really care if AMD is the fastest or not. They have always had better pricing value for good performance. And since Intel likes to things like this [theinquirer.net]. I don't think I will be supporting them with my money. Also, learn the freaking difference between lose [reference.com] and loose [reference.com].

  • Why can there only be ONE sponsor? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by WidescreenFreak ( 830043 ) on Thursday July 21, 2005 @10:30PM (#13131896) Homepage Journal
    I don't get this. When you watch NASCAR (I don't, thankfully), you see cars that have more visible sponsor logos than visible paint. Dozens and dozens of sponsors per car - not just one sponsor.

    When you watch a show on commercial TV or you listen to a commercial radio station, you hear various commercials for several companies - not just one company.

    What is so flipping special about QuakeCon that they can only have either AMD or Intel as a sponsor? Why is there apparently some kind of shame in letting both companies sponsor it? Oh, look! There are other names besides Intel that are sponsoring QuakeCon! Why is AMD not allowed to be one of them?

    This militant, extremist attitude that there can only be either Intel or AMD - but, heaven forbid, not both - is ridiculous. And, frankly, you can't tell me that Intel won because they're better at gaming. Sorry, I don't believe that and the numbers normally side with AMD from what I've read; however, that does not mean that one party should be excluded. They're willing to pay up. Let them. Then let Intel's and AMD's PR fight among themselves.

    If anything, it means that the gamers lose. With paid sponsorship by AMD now verboten, the prize packages are smaller than they otherwise might have been. Who knows? With AMD's support the prizes could have totalled $250,000 instead of the current $150,000.

    Ridiculous and sad (in a pathetic way) at the same time.

    • Re:Why can there only be ONE sponsor? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Tanmi-Daiow ( 802793 ) on Thursday July 21, 2005 @11:07PM (#13132169) Journal
      Its not that there has to be one sponsor. Its rather an image thing. AMD and Intel are competing companies. Would they really want to share the limelight with their competitor? All the companies on the NASCAR cars are NOT competing products. In fact they have little to nothing to do with each other, and often are owned by the same company. That is why both AMD and Intel can't sponsor it.
    • Okay, I can either mod you down for being flamebait, or counter your argument. "Militant, extremist attitude". Seriously. Yes, NASCAR has multiple sponsors, but if you RTFA, it says "title sponsor". Yes, QuakeCon, like pretty much every event that has sponsors, has multiple sponsors. But as in most cases, they are not competing companies. If you read about the xbox360 ad on the laundromat across the street from where sony was unveiling the ps3 in Japan, you'll notice that sony paid the laundromat money to t
      • I can either mod you down for being flamebait

        That's right! Don't bother saving those mod points to bump up someone else! Use them to censor those whose points you disagree with! That's the intolerant, Slashdot way!

        Oh, wait. You responded. Nevermind. (Yeah, that will probably get me nailed at flamebait or troll, but - karma be damned - it felt good to say.)

        if you RTFA, it says "title sponsor".

        And that justifies what appears to be locking AMD out of sponsorship completely?

        it would be pr
    • Because Intel is willing to spend more money to be the ONLY sponsor than AMD can pony up for it to have multiple sponsors.
    • Domain. When you see a car go by advertising McDonald's and Home Depot, you know that they're not competing.

      I have yet to see a car with Ford and Toyota on it, or a Microsoft/Sony co-branding. I don't see how this is any different.
    • The event will have multiple sponsors, but for the record even NASCAR only has one "headlining" sponsor each race. It's the Subway 500 or the CocaCola 450 or whatever. AMD can probably still can (and probably still will) have a smaller level of sponsorship.

  • I dont care who sponsors quakecon, neither do the people that run it or attend it, hell almost all of them probably have an AMD system anyway. Let Intel waste money trying to convince a market they abandonded to listen to their PR about how "cool and fast" their chips are.
    • Let Intel waste money trying to convince a market they abandonded to listen to their PR about how "cool and fast" their chips are.

      The only market Intel has lost is the hobbyist market. This will be very good, and effective, PR for them. The audience they are targeting is far more than those who show up to QuakeCon. AMD owes their position to PR and outreach to gamers and hobbyists as much as it does to actual performance. If PR did not work companies would not be spending so much money on it. And as muc

  • Let's stop this right now. Video games are not sports. Or even e-Sports. Sports, by definition, require physical exertion. Call them gamers, for sure, but don't put them in the same class as people who actually pry their collective asses out of the chair to go raise their heart rates for a few hours. :P

    </soapbox>
    • I've exerted myself physically while playing counterstrike. It's not extreme like some sports, but I've gotten stress injuries from it (example: burst capilaries in my palm, causing red dots. This is caused by too much repetion on the keyboard).

    • Sports, by definition, require physical exertion

      They do? While a dictionary would support that view [reference.com] on first glance, it's interesting to note how dictionaries note the relationship between a game [reference.com] and a sport.

      I'd define a sport as any game taken seriously (competitively). Which would include things such as poker tournaments, chess tournaments and golf - none of which require physical exertion. (*pokes golfers*)

    • Re:Ok, Let's stop this right now. (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It is not black and white.

      Look at the sport of freediving - where most of the events require minimising any sort of physical exertion so you can last for longer on one breath.
      Compare to the "videogame" Dance Dance Revolution, or even Counterstrike, where average exertion levels are higher than freediving.
      Compare the sport of car racing vs. car simulators, where physical exertion levels are near identical.

      Wherever you look, you'll find that the physical exertion required varies wildly from sport to sport,
      • Compare the sport of car racing vs. car simulators, where physical exertion levels are near identical

        I take it by "car simulators" you mean Gran Turismo and the like? In which case, I say, WTF??!!?!?

        F1 drivers (as a good example) are extremely fit, as the physical exertion of a race is huge. Think about being cramped into a small, hot, metal box for 2 hours, experiencing constant 5G swings in all directions, while keeping your head pointed in the right direction to see where you're going and maintaining
      • whoa whoa whoa....find me one game where i can race a car and have a manual transmission with a clutch, stearing wheel, and shifter that feels like im driving a real car. Shifting up a gear isnt as easy as hittin a button....(unless its one of those crappy shiftronic systems with no clutch) But if you can find one, lemme know....cuz im interested...seriously.

    • Re:Ok, Let's stop this right now. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Sparr0 ( 451780 ) <sparr0@gmail.com> on Friday July 22, 2005 @02:10AM (#13133008) Homepage Journal
      So is DDR a sport? (thats the arcade game where you have to 'dance' on arrows on the floor in time to the video/music)

      What about golf? Or darts? Shuffleboard?
      • I never considered golf, darts, or bowling (amongst others) to be sports since there is no means for any player to affect any other player's score... they're all just single player games with score comparisons at the end (like comparing centipede scores or whatnot). I don't understand why they're considered sports at all.
        • That's one of the most exclusive, albeit understandable, definitions I have seen. You just excluded pole vaulting, rowing, hurdle jumping, shot put, most forms of timed racing (swimming comes to mind), gymnastics, etc... All told about 3/4 of the olympics.
        • What about lawn-bowling, crokinole, pool, etc - various low-exertion games in which players can affect each other.

          And consider a marathon, or a ralley, where the rules try and avoid letting the players affect each other, and the entire form of interaction is psychological. In a 100 meter dash, the other players might not exist - and yet you hear players talk, and they talk all about the "strategy of pacing the other players" etc.

          And then consider curling.
    • Professional snooker is a considered a sport in the United Kingdom (and probably in other places too). They don't really do any more physical movement than a Quake player. And apparently they sometimes even drink a bit of beer while playing. So sport doesn't have to involve physical fitness.

      I do consider professional Quake, Counter-Strike etc. a sport, but not as a very serious one. Quakers and Counter-Strikers are teenagers and students who probably will do something completely different for a living in t
      • Many professional sports played today originally started as playground sports. Some that are really old have their origins forgotten, most however have changed significantly over the last century. Others, such as racing, always required money (thus excluding younger players).

        Pro gaming is big in some countries (Korea), its more a matter of public acceptance. As the public acceptance grows, so will the money, and with it the pro player who makes gaming his career.

        Obviously we're still in a growing phase wi

  • Silly article slant (Score:5, Insightful)

    by HunterZ ( 20035 ) on Friday July 22, 2005 @12:20AM (#13132622) Journal
    I thought TFA was being a bit melodramatic by suggesting that gamers would actually care who is sponsoring an event like that. Everyone on the block knows that AMD's 64-bit CPUs are the hot item for gaming PCs these days, and for at least several years now AMD has enjoyed a reputation for providing the most bang for your buck with cheaper, more easily overclockable processors.

    Really the only holds Intel has over the gaming PC sub-market are old-school brand loyalty -- they have a reputation for releasing the most stable CPUs, combined with a now false stigma of leading the way with the CPU technology -- and a now crumbling monopoly on pre-built systems.
    • Exactly.
      Power and price is what matters to the bulk of gamers, not who sponsors what.
      Intel has the reputation of outpowering amd ONLY at very high price and ONLY for a not so noticeable gain.
      amd own that market. :)
  • Cue the "Intel is evil" and "AMD deserved to be the sponsor" comments.

    Why did Intel get picked? Probably because they offered more money.
    "It always boils down to money, dammit. America is terrible! Down with Intel! All praise AMD!"

    Remember that it is a SPONSORSHIP. The product doesnt really matter, its the money that makes "sponsor" more than just a weird sound that comes out of your mouth.
  • I'd like to see the tourney winner bash the Intel box he got stuck playing on. The only good thing being that all the other players get stuck on Intel boxes too.

    Of course if the BYOC's get to play all the way to the top of the ladder, then it might really be an eye opener when an AMD guy wins...
    • Uhm when you are done eating your bowls of hype, I was just wondering WTF difference you think it makes whether you play quake on an AMD machine or an intel.

      Neither processors have any issues running ANY iteration of quake. If you believe otherwise, you're either a fanboy , stupid, or most likely a combintation of the two.
  • I bet this will be exhibit #1337 or so in the AMD v. Intel case.

    Any takers?
  • I highly doubt the impact that this is actually going to have. I consider myself an "enthusiast", but seeing Intel banners rather than AMD banners at QuakeCon really isn't going to sway my thoughts about performance, nor is it going to erase the knowledge that I have that AMD64's perform better for gaming.

    "Oh Intel is sponsoring QuakeCon? I guess I should buy an Intel processor"

    The real crime comes when companies sponsor games, and those games get optimized for the company that's sponsoring *cough*battlef

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