Hardware Makers Woo Pro Gamers

Thanks to Wired News for their article discussing PC hardware makers, and their marketing efforts aimed at gamers. The piece suggests: "High-stakes video-game tournaments may be all the rage, but the real fights occur behind the scenes, where companies spend millions trying to get their technology directly into the hands of gamers." It goes on to point out the big competitive gaming deals: "Nvidia... ponied up $125,000 for QuakeCon, $30,000 for the Cyberathlete Professional League's Unreal Tournament competition and $350,000 for the winners of the Make Something Unreal game-design competition... AMD spent more than $300,000 on this year's QuakeCon." And the largest LAN parties are now greatly sought-after: "The closed bidding and increased competition has forced companies to pour more money into these tournaments or face losing coveted sponsorships."

Comments

does this really influence the hard core gamer?

[fireduck]

it seems to me the hard core gamers are going to be less influenced by who is sponsoring an event and more influenced by the latest benchmark scores. who cares if nVidia is sponsoring QuakeCon when their card is 2% slower than ATI in 3Dmark? (and, yes, i am aware of how useless benchmarks are when companies optimize their drivers for them). I can't see anyone dropping $500 on a card just cause they saw the big shiny adverts saying nVidia inside at quakecon...

On the other hand, the casual gamers really don't care as much about the high end hardware, nor are they really aware of computer gaming events or who the sponsors are.

maybe i'm wrong and people really are influenced by advertising. but it just seems that the people who are putting together their computers are savvy enough to know the benchmarks and will go with what is best...