The Purposelessness of FPS Professionalism

Doley writes "Over at GotFrag, there's an article discussing the financial and evolutionary problems related to professional FPS gaming. The piece explains: 'Regardless of how many fans exist, how many people play Counter-Strike, how many tournaments take place, or how many sponsors participate, Counter-Strike will never truly be a sport. Never will the players make an excellent living playing the game. Possibly, in time, the top teams from each country will be able to make a decent living - a living that we are all capable of making by simply attending college. However, because the majority of cream of the crop players and teams cannot make Counter-Strike a true career, the purpose of the entire structure and making it to the top is destroyed. Until purpose is put back into our community, the situation will continue to worsen.'"

Comments

Re:Inherent Problem...

[Apreche]

While I mostly agree that watching people play video games is generally not fun, there are exceptions.

For example, I can't stand playing Final Fantasy games anymore. But watching someone else play is great. I get all the plot without putting in any of the effort.

Also, watching fighting games can be awesome. Lots of ooohs and aaahs when people pull off crazy stuff or weird things happen.

Lastly its always fun to watch stuff like Mario Party because it's crazy go nuts.

Also, Dance Dance Revolution is the major exception. It was designed for spectators and players combined.

Saying FPS cannot be sports is premature

[servognome]

Multiplayer FPS have only been around for 11 years (DOOM). For the most part the games have been designed for the single player experience, multiplayer was not an important part up until 5 years ago. The genre is very young. Professional sports didn't become multi-billion dollar operations in 5 years. There are stories of pro football players having second jobs to survive during the early years.

That said, there are issues with computer games which will need to be dealt with for the popularity to rise to those of sports:
1. High Turnover - As soon as CS2 or something better comes along, everybody will drop CS. Major sports don't have as significant change. You then establish a player legacy, the best will remain the best, people follow careers and teams. If suddenly they changed basketball to have 15' baskets the game breaks, its no longer about players who dunk, its about the purest shooters. The technology needs to get to a point where one game can have decades long legacy.
2. Following the action - the technology needs to be developed for good spectator views. There just hasn't been any focus for developers to work on this. Hockey is a sport that suffers on TV because its hard to follow the action. If things aren't presented well, it just becomes confusing.
3. Widespread play - People like to watch what they play. There is a small population that has a good computer, broadband access, and enough money to dish out on a $50 game. Compare that to spending $20 on a football/basketball/soccerball and going out to the park. As technology becomes more widespread the number of people interested in FPS games will rise and so will the fan base.