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Zaf who made the comment about the return over 8 months has since moved to UK team Four Kings who are sponsored by Intel. Some of them are supposably getting a salary from that which is enough to live on.

Some games arent great to watch, I find more fun in watching objective-based games such as RTCW than deathmatches. There is much more tension when there is a specific goal to winning than just watching skilled frags, and everything can be turned over very very quickly, and there is a strong strategy needed to win. Spectator arenas within LAN events arent exactly the sole way to spectate games, RTCW and Q3 have GTV and theres TV for Half Life games also. probably 1-3 thousand people watched almost every RTCW game at QuakeCon (a couple of technical issues meant a few games didnt show), including several hundred from Europe - dispite several of the games taking place in the early hours of the morning. GTV says the peak number of spectators was 3500, quite likely that was the *TV server's capacity, and that is despite 50m Americans having no electricity at the time. Then there's the demo downloads, nearly a thousand people have downloaded the RTCW QuakeCon final from Cached.net alone.

Even still, spectating isn't where most of the money comes from. IIRC game sales made more than the box office last year, and then there's the huge gaming-related hardware market.

Still, I'd agree professional gaming isnt here yet, like someone said already it's more like "semi-pro". Hardly anyone makes enough money to live on, never mind what a pro sports player can make. It has and will keep growing though, and one need is for broader access to the market, such as decent Tv programmes - can anyone think of a gaming TV show that hasnt been comical in how rubbish and clueless it was? GamesMaster and Bits in the UK were almost watchable (thanks to Emily Bouff in the latter ;) ), but still completely shoddy at actually covering games and gaming. The press have been starting to make decent coverage of "pro gaming" online, including those with TV such as BBC and CNN, but it isnt making it onto the screen. IT is getting there though, IIRC the UK Intel Masters tourney got on BBC news and had frequent appearance on CNN.

fatal1ty seems to have made a fair whack of money though. And as a final point, $3,300 from one competition in 8 months is a poor return but what if you're making that from each of several competitions over the same period? CPL, QuakeCon and CXG are three competitions I can think of off hand that offer fairly serious money, CXG in particular IIRC has over $1m of prizes going.

> They claim to observe details that just aren't their while claiming superiority of their particular technology.

It's been well proven in competitive (fps) gaming. For example, at the recent WCG qualifiers, accuracy in quake3 was quite a bit less in the qualifier in California (where the sponsor put LCD's), than the qualifiers in Texas or Georgia (where CRT's were used). Download demos at cached.net, if you have a recent version of q3 and osp.

Very few good FPS gamers use either LCD's or things like wireless mice.

Never had ANY trouble setting up quake3 in linux. Not a GeForce either, a G400 Max. Couple of kernel options and a few tweaks to XF86Config and it was the first "application" I had working on my new Gentoo Linux install besides X

And since I'm already WAY offtopic, I'll mention that the Gentoo Linux install is long but worth it and not difficult at all. The instructions on the website are FANTASTIC. I have never seen better installation instructions in my entire life. I was a hardcore slack user for a while, and this came to be as a bit of a shock. System is nice too :P

Anyway, play q3! and to a lesser extent rtcw! Support your local Cache! Cause computer games are damn fun

I spend nearly all of my gaming hours (30+ / week) playing QuakeWorld and Q3 CPM and I regularly follow the hardcore gaming crowd and tournaments. Perhaps I'm a complete loser (no debate about that) but I find pro quake as interesting as many people find baseball, nascar, whathaveyou. I care about greatly about skillz and strategy and watch pro demos with a passion picking up tricks, level strategy, individual stylisms and more. When someone can pull a trick like shown in FDE II it definately gets my panties moist.

Your Half-Life numbers are a bit disingenuous, as the crushing majority of "Half-Life" servers are actually serving TeamFortress Classic and CounterStrike. There are comparatively few HL servers running straight HL deathmatch [...]

Actually I think you missed the biggest reason that there so many HL servers. Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't CounterStrike automatically publish the server when established (and Q does not)?

Irregardless my point still stands that HL (CS obviously)completely dominates the whole quake family by a landslide (2x qualifies as a landslide to me [we are talking about Quake here!], let alone 10x)

As for the rest: Though the technique has been shown to me, I have yet to develop any bunny-hopping skill [...] Don't get me wrong; I've spec'ed rather skilled bunny-hoppers, and it's very impressive when it's done well, but at my current skill level, it's a hopeless distraction.

Don't let yourself think of such a skill as merely "very impressive" GODLIKE is more like it. Don't believe me? Don't let your opinion of bunnies and other dope skillz rest on less than the best.

From CPL4:
fatal1ty vs Harlsom
Czm vs Xoque
QuakeWorld required.

In all actuality the best way to see the best of the best work the movement in Quake for all its worth is to look into speed running. Speed running is the art and science of completing a single player map as fast as possible. You may remember a slashdot article on quake done quick a while back. You may not know that there is quite a community releasing maps to speed run and redoing classic maps with some radical routes. Here, obviously, speed is king. I mention this because most people can't believe this is legit. Check out a speed run demo, here. dzip required, download here.

Whenever I can, I play deathmatch mode 3 (weaponstay). I detest deathmatch mode 1, since it basically turns the whole thing into a game of keep-away (which is about as fun for me as it originally was in the schoolyard).

I completely disagree with this sentiment. Certainly lots of games are based around keeping powerful items and positions away from your enemy. Chess, checkers, scrabble, billiards... Many games involve manipulating the game world to make life a bitch for your opponent. Everyone calls this "level lockdown", "level control, or "denial of items". This is definately not easy to maintain as multiple respawns (w/100 health) certainly can chistle you down to nothing. Hell, this is most of the excitement when I play. Nothing makes me work/think harder than knocking someone off a quad/red armor/rocket ammo loop.

Kwitcher whinin'," I hear you say, "and go develop your 5k1llz." Well, thanks. Just how, in practical terms, do I go about doing that without some advice? Doing it on one's own tends not to yield helpful results: *blam* [...]

Simple. Start watching some pro matches, speed running tutorials, join a clan, practice like a mofo alone on DM maps so that you do the moves you need to when the pressure is on. Learning trickery in the middle of a deathmatch is just dumb. The alternative is this, you will consistatly lose to DM players who are as good as you but employ the tricks. Let alone those who are better DMers AND know the tricks. They'll be wearing your quad, shooting your rockets, and nabbing your superhealths with frustrating consistancy. So yeah... go develop your skillz. :)

I spend nearly all of my gaming hours (30+ / week) playing QuakeWorld and Q3 CPM and I regularly follow the hardcore gaming crowd and tournaments. Perhaps I'm a complete loser (no debate about that) but I find pro quake as interesting as many people find baseball, nascar, whathaveyou. I care about greatly about skillz and strategy and watch pro demos with a passion picking up tricks, level strategy, individual stylisms and more. When someone can pull a trick like shown in FDE II it definately gets my panties moist.

Your Half-Life numbers are a bit disingenuous, as the crushing majority of "Half-Life" servers are actually serving TeamFortress Classic and CounterStrike. There are comparatively few HL servers running straight HL deathmatch [...]

Actually I think you missed the biggest reason that there so many HL servers. Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't CounterStrike automatically publish the server when established (and Q does not)?

Irregardless my point still stands that HL (CS obviously)completely dominates the whole quake family by a landslide (2x qualifies as a landslide to me [we are talking about Quake here!], let alone 10x)

As for the rest: Though the technique has been shown to me, I have yet to develop any bunny-hopping skill [...] Don't get me wrong; I've spec'ed rather skilled bunny-hoppers, and it's very impressive when it's done well, but at my current skill level, it's a hopeless distraction.

Don't let yourself think of such a skill as merely "very impressive" GODLIKE is more like it. Don't believe me? Don't let your opinion of bunnies and other dope skillz rest on less than the best.

From CPL4:
fatal1ty vs Harlsom
Czm vs Xoque
QuakeWorld required.

In all actuality the best way to see the best of the best work the movement in Quake for all its worth is to look into speed running. Speed running is the art and science of completing a single player map as fast as possible. You may remember a slashdot article on quake done quick a while back. You may not know that there is quite a community releasing maps to speed run and redoing classic maps with some radical routes. Here, obviously, speed is king. I mention this because most people can't believe this is legit. Check out a speed run demo, here. dzip required, download here.

Whenever I can, I play deathmatch mode 3 (weaponstay). I detest deathmatch mode 1, since it basically turns the whole thing into a game of keep-away (which is about as fun for me as it originally was in the schoolyard).

I completely disagree with this sentiment. Certainly lots of games are based around keeping powerful items and positions away from your enemy. Chess, checkers, scrabble, billiards... Many games involve manipulating the game world to make life a bitch for your opponent. Everyone calls this "level lockdown", "level control, or "denial of items". This is definately not easy to maintain as multiple respawns (w/100 health) certainly can chistle you down to nothing. Hell, this is most of the excitement when I play. Nothing makes me work/think harder than knocking someone off a quad/red armor/rocket ammo loop.

Kwitcher whinin'," I hear you say, "and go develop your 5k1llz." Well, thanks. Just how, in practical terms, do I go about doing that without some advice? Doing it on one's own tends not to yield helpful results: *blam* [...]

Simple. Start watching some pro matches, speed running tutorials, join a clan, practice like a mofo alone on DM maps so that you do the moves you need to when the pressure is on. Learning trickery in the middle of a deathmatch is just dumb. The alternative is this, you will consistatly lose to DM players who are as good as you but employ the tricks. Let alone those who are better DMers AND know the tricks. They'll be wearing your quad, shooting your rockets, and nabbing your superhealths with frustrating consistancy. So yeah... go develop your skillz. :)

ZeRo4 was utterly amazing, and he controlled the levels with such skill. He was a totally deserving winner. QuakeCon was a demostration of how Quake can really be played.

I would advise anyone who hasn't done so already to go and download the demos here, and see for yourself.