NiP Wins Counter-Strike CPL

raskolnik writes: "Ninjas in Pyjamas beat out Xtreme3 in a *very* close series of matches to win the $50,000 purse at the CPL today. Coverage is on ShackES and Domain of Games. Congrats to both clans!" $50,000 isn't quite a NASCAR purse, but nothing to sneeze at. When will this be on ESPN?

Comments

Someone has tried it already.

[AltGrendel]

I forget who, but some cable channel tried televising this sort of thing. Turned out to be very boring. All they did was setup a couple of cameras to show the contestants. They should have tapped into the video out. THEN it COULD have been interesting.

But they won't think of that, will they.

Yea, right.

Re:Someone has tried it already.

[crisco]

Half-Life's engine does this now, they have assorted spectator modes that allow first person, third person following, free flying mode and a map overview mode with little icons for each player. Valve software has also set up spectator mode proxy software that allows lots of people to watch a feed.(But you might already know that and be talking about something else).

The real trick would be taking multiple streams of this and editing it in with some good commentary. Think NFL style, with the replays, different camera angles, etc. You could probably do it on a low budget, just taking the time to make it flow and make it slightly interesting to someone that might be a gamer but not real familiar with CS. But you can't oversimplify, you alienate your core audience of hardcore gamers.

ESPN

[MisterBlister]

It'll be on ESPN approximately...never.

There's a ton of issues with online gaming that will relegate it to niche status at best for the foreseeable future.

One of the biggest issues is that the game of choice changes too often due to progressing technology -- compare this to baseball (or even newer sports) where the rules and gameplay remain relatively the same..In the gaming world, the game of choice changes about once every year, or two years at the most. This causes a few problems, one is that it is very confusing to spectators who don't play these games themselves and two is that it limits the options for having 'star players' ala basketball, etc.. Today's top CS players aren't likely to be the top players of tomorrow's game-of-choice. Very few 'pro level' game players dominate in more than one game, as the short history of this activity has shown.

Secondly, gaming just doesn't have much potential as a mainstream spectator sport. Sure, people that play these games all the time might appreciate the skill involved in winning the top gaming tournaments, but to people who don't play these games, they have no basis for understanding this skill. In traditional sports they can still be impressed by the human factors involved -- eg. "wow that guy jumps real high", or "wow that guy runs real fast". When it comes to gaming, there's no context for them to make any relationship like that unless they game quite a lot themselves, thus the spectator potential is very limited.

Re:ESPN

[Boiling_point_]

Sure, people that play these games all the time might appreciate the skill involved in winning the top gaming tournaments, but to people who don't play these games, they have no basis for understanding this skill. In traditional sports they can still be impressed by the human factors involved -- eg. "wow that guy jumps real high", or "wow that guy runs real fast".

There are plenty of sports with "specific" skills that aren't immediately apparent to the casual observer - think of batting techniques in Cricket, or the teamwork needed for many sports, especially football(s). Not knowing "how" someone is really good isn't always crucial to enjoying watching them play.

For Counter-Strike, I believe the most accessible, enjoyable aspect is seeing the teams work coherently - this is a difficult thing to capture from a third-person perspective, so would require expert commentary to work well.

There's nothing about online gaming per se that is non-teeveeable - that's why the term "spectator sport" was invented: to differentiate certain sports from other, boring-to-watch ones.

Think for a moment about how the impact of television has affected the rules of many sports - different scoring systems, rounds timed to fit timeslots (eg. day/night Cricket was invented by the media) Granted, there are limitations with current games that will prevent them from getting airtime on Sundays, but that will change once someone designs a game both for players' and spectators' enjoyment from the ground up.

It was on ESPN

[Anonymous Coward]

Point in fact people, this CPL tournament WAS covered by ESPN.

More niche than Lumberjacking and BoardBreaking?

[glrotate]

I think there is a small, but large enough, market to make presenting this feasable. Hopefully ESPN2 will find a way to package it properly and get it on the air.

Re:It's on right now... in Korea

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and $50,000 isn't even that large a prize in Korean terms. Lots of top SC players from North America and elsewhere go over to play professionally. It's hard to understand exactly why Koreans are so addicted to competitive gaming, but someone should figure it out, and try and get this sort of thing going in the rest of the world. If it works in Korea, why can't it work elsewhere?

Re: ESPN and Future

[jradkowski]

I am a writer for Challenge-us.com a hardcore gamer site. Ive been gaming competetively for roughly 2 years now and yes $50k is nothing to sneeze at but it wasnt the most ever awarded. A $150k purse _WAS_ the most. (approx a year-year and half ago) This, however, was the first major Counter Strike Tourney so far and I am guessing many more to come. (None so far have matched up to this scale) While I am not a Counter Strike (CS) Player I have kept an open mind about it, even though I am a hard core quake3er and what I saw today on HLTV was amazing. The games were well played and I also like what control the spectator got in watching. Now step back and think of this... CS is a FREE MOD for HL. Yes FREE, and it gets this much attention and is this large, its just baffling that they don't have more problems then they already do.

On the net there are quite a few bots and hacks out that some of the filtering doesnt get. Its slowly being changed but from what I saw today as far as gaming and teamplay and fun I think I will be playing counter strike a bit more then I do already.

As for ESPN... their cameras WERE there and yes it will be airing sometime in a special I think. As for gaming TV... its already in the works/reality. G4 was announced by Comcast and should be available soon!!!! I will definately be ordering that channel when its available, should be interesting to see how much they cover. (Consoles to hardcore gaming I am assuming)

Joe Radkowski
aka
D|S-Syn