Slashdot Mirror
Pro Gamers Can't Scrape By?
An anonymous reader points to a Wired News article discussing the harsh nature of professional gaming. According to the piece, "Professional gaming is in its infancy, providing few players with the means to live without any other job. Still, the competition for those sponsorships is cutthroat." Even for the elite team covered in the article, there are issues: "Game Point lost in QuakeCon's Wolfenstein finals, which cut their prize money down to $12,000. It was disheartening for the team, particularly since five members said the time constraints necessary to maintain this high level would most likely force them to retire." So, is pro gaming really semi-pro gaming? A player points out: "If you work for eight months and you divide up your hours, the amount of money that you make is minimal."
It was never ment to be made money on playing games, so don't whine when it doesn't.
What about the Olympic GAMES, or the X-Games, etc. Besides, what makes computer games any different than chess. There are professional chess players who live off it, its only inevitable that computer game players eventually will. The only problem is that there is only one game of chess, while there are a myriad of computer games. Therefore while one can be the best chess player in the world, a computer gamer can only be say, the best Quake , UT, or Warcraft III player in the world.
Photos.
Is gaming such an interesting spectator sport? It's more interesting to play than watch someone else. And if you want to watch someone else play well you can do that using your own screen and some server on the net. If someone gets promotional dollars out of games it's going to be the game makers not the players.
And what about the players themselves. Can you see yourself (or anyone) worshiping someone for their their ability to click really fast for endless hours in front of a screen? It's all about personalities and their ability to promote products.
Reliable, Great Value Hosting: $7.95/mo 2.4G/120G
Games are suppose to be fun to play, a way of exscaping reality.
Not a way of providing yourself an income. I thought this sort of thing when away when the so called dotcom boom fizzled.
Time for people to relise that there's more jobs out there than ones that involve sitting at a computer, and guess what, they do pay enough to live on.
Easy... it's not an spectator game. It's fun for the players and that's it. You can't fill an amphitheater of people paying $15 bucks to see five or ten guys duke it out in a Quake deathmatch. You can't sell pay-per-view rights for the same reason.
Why not? Maybe it's because people somehow admire the performers at some level, and a computer game screams neither physical fitness/skill (sports) nor brain power (chess, etc).
It will always have it's admirers, but so will horseshoe tossing.
No sig
I have absolutely no doubt that gaming on a "professional" scale is incredibly difficult, takes hours on days on weeks on months on years of practice... Is far beyond %99.999 of the populace's capabilities... But COME ON... Anyone who honestly believes that they "should" be able to earn a full living playing video games is completely fooling themselves. There are two parts to any business transaction - there has to be someone receiving the money, and there has to be someone willing to PROVIDE the money. Exactly who are they expecting to provide the money? Spectators? As people have already pointed out, nobody wants to buy a ticket to watch people play Quake. Game companies? Why should they? The company made the game to sell it to you, not to give you thousands of dollars to play it for a living. And no, it's not good "advertising" or "promotion" or whatever. The only people who really care to watch "professional" gamers playing game XYZ is people who already own game XYZ and are already really into it. Maybe it's a harsh realization for some, but yes, if you want to earn a living, you have to work for it. Meaning an actual job that someone is willing to pay you to do. Stop acting so surprised that you "professional gaming" isn't making you rich or famous, no matter how good you are.
...Also, I didn't know Buggalo could fly.
The first is a game you can download and train with. It is an okay animated slighly odd to use fight game. The second is lot less clear but the ads for it make it looks a bit like the total war series. Lots of formations of soldiers fighting it out. (nice animation)
But yeah I think that current games make extremly poor TV entertainment. But then again quake? That is like a drunk punchup compared to a thightly regulated boxing match. Just try to make a running commentary on a quake match
Player [34_the()_[t53]] just picked up the gun. oh and got fragged. and he is back and he frags that guy and he gets fragged.
So though luck guys but it looks like you have the following options
So in short I find this article to be in the trend of "Hey we made millions in the dotcom days. But now people seem to expect us to make real products". Yeah cry me a river. Oh well at least they are not aimbot cheaters.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Nowadays you spend something like $50 to start playing in baseball (a glove, a ball and maybe a bat) and golf costs around $100 per person (rent the equipment). Gaming equipment on the other hand costs around $1500 and up. On top of that there is learning the game physics (for FPS games at least), the map designs (a MUST for RTS games), the balances of the units and weapons (a must for FPS games) and the clever tricks that can be used in a game (shooting through/around walls in FPSes and using underused tactics for surprise in RTSes.)
Which one sounds the most difficult to pick up on? Golf, baseball or so-called "professional gaming?"
I don't know, but today I turned on my TV and was flipping through the channels when suddenly I saw professional poker being played on TV. There were commentators, and everything. It was nuts watching too, it completely blew me away to watch hundreds of thousands of dollars change hands every few minutes. If someone finds poker interesting enough to put on TV, then I'd hope pro gaming would get a chance. I watched poker for about 20 minutes, out of sheer amazement that something like that was on TV, but if something as boring as watching a group of guys playing cards can hold that many people's attention, why couldn't watching someone's avatar run around and kill 5 of his opponents armed solely with a knife?
And come on, golf is about chasing a tiny white ball around outside...if you want to keep track of the damned thing so much, why not stop hitting it so hard? Golf is the eptitome of boring in my opinion, I'd much rather watch someone blow up their oppenent than try to hit a ball the least amount of times. And how is it harder to get into gaming than baseball/golf/etc.? Have you seen how much golf equipment costs? It's an upperclass game for people with nothing better to do with their time, for the most part. Sure one could argue that a $1500 PC to play games on is expensive, but a PC isn't just for playing games, it's got a number of purposes not related to gaming. You don't need an expensive PC to be good at a game either, just as you can argue that better equipment in anything could reflect on your abilities. Find me another useful use for a baseball glove or a golf club and I'll give you some sort of prize.
On top of that, there's plenty of pointless "sports" on tv, like fishing, bowling, pool, curling, hunting, etc. I enjoy fishing, playing pool, and all that, but I can't stand watching it. Some people do enjoy watching it, though that's beyond my comprehension. People really good at fishing can win millions in tournaments, same with bowling, or pool, though I'm not sure about curling (it is an olympic sport afterall) or hunting. So why can't someone really good at clicking a mouse at the right time make thousands from it a year? No, there's not a lot of physical skill required, but most of the people who make money bowling or fishing are more out of shape than me, and people still like watching it for some reason.
I think that if, just maybe, gaming were "officiated" properly and the games were interesting (watching someone play Quake3 isn't all that interesting, but if a game or two were created for the specific purpose...) you'd probably get a decent amount of viewers. Probably the same kind of people who think watching battlebots on TV is great, and dare I say it, people who like "professional wrestling" or some other such nonsense. Maybe if these "professional gamers" had some kind of interface to the game other than a mouse/keyboard, like a VR gun to aim, a floor that sensed physical movement/direction/speed, and stuff like that, more people would find it interesting. Or maybe I'm completely wrong and it's just something that will never catch on in any form.
Gaming has become an acceptable form of entertainment though, jocks along side geeks can enjoy playing the same game, the uncool stigma has been mostly lifted. Just as there are plenty of people who hate watching golf, I'm sure there's plenty of people who would hate watching a professional deathmatch. We'll never really know until it either fades away completely or catches on big.
Until then, these "professional gamers" should quit their bitching that they're not making enough money. I'm sure there's plenty of people who wish their salary were based on their frag count, it's just not realistic right now to expect that. These people should be happy they're getting any money at all for doing it, as I'm sure the pioneers in baseball/basketball/etc. were. You're playing a game, if it's not enough that you're having fun while making some cash, maybe you should give it up.
The olympic games, the x-games, and professional sports are SPECTATOR sports. People want to watch it because it's exciting. The money comes from the fans. Nobody wants to watch a batch of geeks staring at their monitor while twitching every so often. Nobody wants to watch others play the game when they could play just as easily. That's why there is little money. Make it viewable, make it exciting, and then the money will come.