Posted on 08/09/2008 6:03:08 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Attention will be riveted on the Olympic torch Friday during the opening ceremony of the 29th Olympiad, but in cyberspace, another torch relay is under way to promote visibility of a “sport” not yet ready for prime time in Beijing. It is the digital torch of the World Cyber Games, being passed from country to country, ultimately to land in Cologne, Germany, on Aug. 11.
World Cyber Games? That’s right: pro video-game play.
Before anyone snickers, remember that sports channel ESPN routinely showcases poker tournaments, which arguably involve even less athleticism than video-gaming. Indeed, competitive video-game leagues have contracts with ESPN, MTV, and DirecTV, draw as many as 80,000 paying fans to arena events, and boast dozens of formal teams that pay salaries of up to $90,000 a year, putting video-gaming on the cusp of mainstream competition.
“Video games are only getting bigger and more pervasive,” says Michael Kane, author of the book “Game Boys: Professional Videogaming’s Rise from the Basement to the Big Time.” “So the question is, what about the kids who are the best at it? Will they be rewarded for their ability? That’s the attempt being made now, and they are moving forward with baby steps.”
As recently as two years ago, he says, some 15 young aspirants were making roughly $20,000 each. Today, as many as 90 full-time professionals make as much as $90,000 a year, he says.
The World Cyber Games (WCG), which get under way in Cologne Nov. 5-9, is one of three international leagues devoted to promoting, showcasing, and ultimately profiting from video-game competition. (The Championship Gaming Series and Major League Gaming are the others.)
Every sport has its Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods.
(Excerpt) Read more at features.csmonitor.com ...
Keep on rockin' in the Free World!
Video gaming is just a from of wanking ... without the tawdriness. Totally self-absorbed, does nothing for relationships, but otherwise harmless.
My guess is that is that industry wants to make a "sport" out of it and push the cometitive nature of it in that manner...having "games" and playoffs, etc. that they have more than enough interest and more than enough money to make it hapopen.
Marketing wise, it would probably be a good move fore them too.
Single shooter or player games are good for one on one competition and would lend themselves to individual competitoion up to championships. But there are plenty of team player games that suit themselves well to team competition and would also suit themselves well to playoffs up to national and even world levels.
Marketing wise, it would be a good move for the industry to organize and move that way as a whole if they could pull it off...it is already happening on its own in any case.
A game is a contest that requires mental but not physical exertion and the outcome is empirically determined (high score, fastest time). Video games fall here as does chess, checkers, poker, etc.
Sports require mental and physical exertion and the outcome is empirically determined. Races and most games with balls fall here.
Events require mental and physical exertion but the outcome is determined by judges. Figure skating, gymnastics.
Games don't belong in the Olympics. AFAIAK, neither do events but NBC needs the ad revenue from chicks so what can you do?
Kind of like the BCS.
I am a former video game reviewer (1983-84, Video Games, Video Gaming Illustrated magazines, Video Games Report TV show) and was covered in the local paper in an attempt for the arcade Kick-Man record, and I see this as not being very practical.
Arcade games: there are just too many, and turnover is constant, and the settings vary from unit to unit. Also, the controls may be worn out on some units.
PS3/Wii/Xbox etc: Still way too many games. Importantly, some of the games will have “cheats” and bugs that can be exploited for quick and easy high scores. Will these be addressed in the rules?
I enjoy video games, but like pinball machines, the category cannot be thought of as a classic sport or game like poker or pool, because the substance of the games change constantly. I’m not talking about the evolution of a game like NFL football. If Johnny Unitas were reincarnated as a 25 year old, he would have to be told the rule changes and accept the plays being called in, and maybe get more conditioning. After a month, he’d be fine. What he learned about passing and moving in the pocket would still be relevant. Pity the poor Pac-Man or Space Invaders (or Kick Man)champ of yesteryear. There is no interest in what he used to do, and except for his reflexes and memory skills, there is nothing he can bring forward to play the new games, which will soon be old games. It is the nature of electronic gaming that it is largely based on novelty and an ever changing scheme in an effort to ... sell more games.
Video Games are no more a real “sport” than pinball machines (”Tommy” notwithstanding). They are fun, they have their place, but making Wii skiing a “real” sport would just be silly.
Obviously, your attempts at gaming always resulted in your being killed and never knowing what hit you before you even got settled in your seat.
I always have some issues with gaming as a sport or even “eSport”.
There are games like Halo, Doom, Quake, Call of Duty etc. where balance is a non-issue and skill is the only deciding factor.
Then you have the sports games like Madden, NHL/NBA/MLB 08 etc. where a player can be made or broken on the team model he adopts. NFL New England > Miami, NHL Detroit > Tampa etc. Where many competitors are playing the same rosters.
Last but not least you have completely broken games like World of Warcraft that is an elaborate game of rock/paper/scissors that try and claim they’re trying to become an eSport yet can’t be because paper can’t beat scissors, scissors can’t beat rock and rock can’t beat paper, ever, so what’s competitive about that?
There’s tons of skill involved in gaming like this. Don’t believe me? Ask your kid if he could ever have been a Halo 2 player with a 40 rating.
Yep. tremendous mental activity taking place. That's why kids always look so dazed after a gaming session. Their brains are worn out. I'm not a big gamer although if I had infinite free time I would be but when I do play, after a couple of hours, my brain is shot and I have that same 1000 yard stare. I feel like it's about 3:00pm on the last day of finals week.
Since I work all day in front of a computer terminal, the fatigue I experience from gaming is not due to staring at the monitor for a couple of hours.
Isn’t it past your bedtime?
Depends on the timezone
; )
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