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So, the Americans won the Halo and CS titles, the Koreans won Starcraft, the Brazilians won Need For Speed, the Germans won FIFA Soccer, the Japanese won DOA ... seems about right.

Counterstrike isn't deathmatch, it's about terrorists and the counter-terrorists.

Where is Q3 here or here?

If you're really serious into FPS games (as in, making money off it, and believe me that's happening; See The CPL, ESWC, WCG) then over the last year or two mice have really advanced.

First of all the new ergonomic designs simply make it a lot easier to make large mouse movements across a big pad since your fingers are positioned somewhat on the sides instead of totally over the top. Most big-time FPS gamers use a lower sensitivity and a large mousepad surface.

Second, the optical sensors in the mice have advanced as well, for example with Logitech's MX518 supporting 1600DPI as opposed to most 800DPI sensors. That makes every little movement you make much more accurate.

Whether it's really making a big difference at all in terms of aiming and skill, it's probably something that wouldn't be explicable by a gamer but you could just "feel" like the mouse is more responsive.

I'd say changing the ladder speed from fast to fastest removes a great deal of micro tactics. So many tactics, I could make a good argument that there would be less skill involved.

Have you ever played a ladder game? Playing any starcraft game on the speed of fast is so slow it makes me want to stab myself repeatedly with a blunt object. I would argue that playing on fastest involves more skill since you have to make quicker decisions and control your units more effectively, etc; fastest is not warp speed or anything.

If map hacking was stopped in its tracks early on, Starcraft may still be popular today.

Yea, map hacking was/is a big problem (if you play at a high level of competition now there are ways to mostly stop it which are enforced), but Starcraft is still doing well considering when it was made. It is still in http://www.worldcybergames.com/ and still has a good following if you check out the battle.net servers.

Don't think there are any videos, but your best bet would be to grab the replay files (weird "seems to only work in IE" registration required) and load it into the games.

I attended the Starcraft, Warcraft and CS finals and they were pretty exciting to watch. Although, with only one screen on the starcraft and warcraft, the observers sometimes missed some action. Even on the CS finals, they had one screen devoted to the overhead map and one screen rotating between players, but they missed some really awesome kills when there was a lot of action going on. That's probably why the replay files would be better than video since you can control the camera. The only hitch is having all the games needed to watch the replays.

I just can't help myself; go over to the hall of fame.

Nerds are funny :)

I guess you could check out the World Cyber Games :)

Unfortunatly its uninformed opinions like this that hinder gamings growth. Allow me to sling some answers back:

* Anti-social (With sports, you are pretty much forced to play with someone else)
- A decreasingly less valid point. Multiplayer games (regular and MMOs) are becoming more popular each day, and new generations of games are introducing increasingly complex social interactions among players. Not to mention the hundreds of clans, communities, and fansites that spring up around popular games.

* Waste of money (Kicking a football once you have bought it costs nothing, but arcade machines eat coins)
- Gaming is no more expensive than many other popular sports, like Hockey or Football. All that equipment costs a LOT, just like a sw33t rig and a couple of games. "Just a football" would be better compared to, say, "Just a Gameboy" or "Just a no-name pocket game", as they're both shadows of their respective 'sports'.

* Lack of exercise (Sitting around the house all day)
Not gamings strong point, I agree. But why does it have to be? Not many people are looking for physical activity in gaming... thats what a gym or pool is for. (Unless you REALLY want to combine the two.. then you can go play DDR :p)

* No chance of professional achievement (as, say, with popular sports)
- Bzzt. Wrong, wrong, and wrong. Some of these people have six figure salaries. Thats a lot more impressive than a hell of a lot of careers.

* Addiction (I've never heard of someone who played/survived an 8 hour match of soccer, and still wanted more)
I guess you'd be interested in hearing a little record or two that happened recently. Worlds longest game of hockey: 130 hours. There were even an attempt or two around where I live that clocked in at 87 hours (ice was melting). Now thats h4rdc0r3.

* Viewed as being "mindless" (Chess, and other boardgames aren't - but even then they have a social element, professional rankings, etc.)
- So inaccurate, its almost laughable. Games are not all 'mindless'. A high level match in a FPS or RTS entails as much strategy as a game of chess, easilly. Planning, reactions, feints, counters, etc... its all there.

* Violence (Contact sports are violent too... but not in the deliberate blood-splatting way some video games are)
- Also a valid point, but its interesting to note that extremely violent games are virtually never the ones chosen for professional competition. Most violence in games is purely symbolic anyways. Would chess be considered violent too if the pieces bled or exploded when they were taken? And lets not forget the king of violence: Boxing. Nice sport, but you can't really look at that and then start pointing fingers at games.

* The loser sub-culture stigma (Anyone here old enough to remember the 1981 film "Joysticks" ?)
- Ah yes, a very large stumbling block. But like all good things, it will take time before gaming grows into a more mainstream role. Gaming is downright infantile compared to the age of most other sports. Hockey is what... 150 years old? Gaming is... 15? Call me in 85 years and we'll see where things are at. ;)

* Fanatical Christians think role playing games are evil (I'm not kidding on that one: they reckon that creating character as a personification as oneself is idolatory, and then giving them magic powers makes it all look worse.)
- Mod me flamebait, but since when did it matter what a tiny slice of a religion thought? What kind of power do they even weild? Are they the Illuminati or something? Christianity isn't even the largest religion globally, never mind the small portion of bible-thumping whackjobs that view games as the "tool of the devil". Their skewwed viewpoints are of little consequence to the rest of us.


G

They've just ended: http://www.worldcybergames.com, held in South Korea, with competitions in Counterstrike among other games with competitors from 37 countries. I think, with a pricemoney of $300,000.- , the WCG is a more important game event than the CPL.