Gamers Unite for Video Game Olympics

The Hobo writes "About 700 of the world's best gamers began battling it out Wednesday, as the fourth annual World Cyber Games got underway in San Francisco. The five-day annual event is a culmination of national competitions held around the world and pits the best players against each other in a variety of widely popular games like Counter-Strike, Unreal Tournament, Halo, Starcraft and FIFA Soccer.

Comments

The winner opened with...

[Anonymous Coward]

...the line "What are you wearing, baby?"


mailto:3dinfo@maficstudios.com

Re:The winner opened with...

[Anonymous Coward]

As the only competitor to actually pluck up any degree of courage to approach, let alone speak, to a female, the winner was promptly elected high priest of geekdom.

Re:The winner opened with...

[Anonymous Coward]

When I do 'cyber games', i usually pretend to be a woman so i get all the attention.

It also leads to the effect of me getting 100's of pictures of fat nerds being sent to me too though...

Re:The winner opened with...

[Anonymous Coward]

I can definitely see why you go through all the hastle of getting attention.

Re:The winner opened with...

[JavaPriest]

Uh oh... could I get that picture of mine...err my brother back then, plz?

Should be a great tournament

[dnixon112]

Despite some early rumors of accomodation problems, this should be a great tournament. Here's some pics of the opening ceremony.
Gallery 1 Gallery 2

Wow

[The-Bus]

The incentive to win is high: in addition to total cash prizes of about $400,000 US, winners get global bragging rights and could go on to professional careers, like Canadian Guillaume Patry. Five years ago, the Quebec-born Patry became the Starcraft world champion and was offered a job as a professional game player in South Korea, initially making about $100,000 a year. His annual salary is now estimated at about $500,000 and, as the star of a Korean Starcraft TV program, he needs bodyguards to protect him from his fans.

Well done. Didn't think there was that much money in videogames.

In other news, the word "Cyber" hasn't been cool since 1988. Please don't use it anymore.

Re:Wow

[Lisandro]

Seriously, more power to him. But who exactly pays him a salary? No pun intended, i've always wondered - it seems quite a sum for sponsorship of a relatively niche "sport", and i always thought the ones who decided to try making a living out of computer games aimed at competition prizes as their main income.

And, Starcraft? I know South Koreans are crazy about that game, but still... does people still gather arround to see someone playing it? I always thought that was one of the main problems with "cybersports"; if you play soccer, you're pretty much playing the same way people did 50 years ago. If you play Counterstrike and pour man-hours into it, who knows if you'll still be playing it the near future.

Re:Wow

[julesh]

In other news, the word "Cyber" hasn't been cool since 1988. Please don't use it anymore.

I think people should feel free to use it, as long as they use it in a way consistent with its actual meaning. (For those who don't know, it refers to controlling physical processes.)

Re:Wow

[MobiusClark]

Not bad for a Canadian, eh?

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

£400,000 sounds impressive. But that's the total prize pool. Split it maybe three of four ways, to reflect the fact that there are several games being played. Then, in the cases of the game with the biggest prizes (Counter-Strike), divide it by five to reflect the fact that this is a team game. You'll find you're left with less than $40k per player... probably significantly less. The CPL and the WCG are the only competitions with any prizes of note. You'd need to win both of them in one year to make an even vaguely comfortable living out of this, at a "job" which demands insanely long hours if you want to keep your edge. Professional gaming is a long way from being reality. Long may it remain so!

And treat any stories or figures you hear quoted about gaming in Korea with extreme skepticism. Gaming *is* big there, but a lot of what you hear in the West is pure invention on the part of gamers and pundits wistful for some supposed far-off gaming utopia.

Re:Wow

[Dot.Com.CEO]

Well, for those who don't know, "cyber" comes from the greek verb "kyvernein" that is also the root for the word "government". It means, oddly enough "to govern".

"Cyber" has been used in its present (non)sense since some obviously idiotic academic or journalist thought it sounded cool. Other such idiotic words were "Matrix" as a superset of the internet and I, for one, am glad they are dead. Leave them there.

Re:Wow

[sgant]

This is more proof that the Korean Peninsula is a real real goofy and wacky place!

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

"But who exactly pays him a salary?"

Money comes from the audience and sponsors, just like with any other sport.

"does people still gather arround to see someone playing it?"

Yes people are watching games live and on TV.

Re:Wow

[z0ink]

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of kids squander all their money on video cards (the primary promoters of large events) and half a dozen crappy titles a year - hoping to become 'a pro.' This really is a big scam. In racing, golf, any other sport the payouts roll all the way down. In gaming, typically, only the top 3 get payed. Airfare and a week of living in a hotel is not cheap. Not to mention it takes either knowing somebody with a lot of cash or already being a top team to get a sponsorship - but even then you'll be hard pressed to break even.

This stuff isn't all just a bunch of having fun on the internet either. The serious competitors work like dogs to get to where they are at. I like games as much as the next guy, or perhaps even more than, but once you start playing something 8 hours a day it becomes a second job -- one that you have to pay to work at.

Re:Wow

[DigitumDei]

Well in South Korea obviously it is popular enough to make a ton of cash off advertising since enough people watch the games. Once you have that, it is always possible for a select few to make a small fortune off playing a game.

Funnily enough if you watch any old soccer matchs, the game was indeed quite different. Strategies were different, a few seemingly minor rules differences can mean a complete change in strategy. Now in the last 10 years games that were popular have changed immensly. But with the release (as of today I believe) of CS:Source, valve is making sure that this game continues into the next generation of computer games with the same style of game play, just better graphics. I don't think it is out of the realm of possibility that a version of CS (although definitely more advanced graphics wise) will still be being played in 10 years time. Even if there isn't, there will be some team based objective capturing fps game that is popular. (speaking from experience, if you can play cs well, you can move to other games and play them well in very little time).

Also, I think what South Korea has going for them is that they don't have this "gaming is a waste of time" attitude. They see gaming like any other sport, something to be practiced and perfected, and any time spent in that pursuit is not wasted. When the world treats amatuer gamers like they treat amateur football players (american or european), then you will truely see professional play take off.

Re:Wow

[Domini]

Soccer vs. Starcraft?

For one thing the life-expectancy of a soccer career will be about 10 years... pretty much nearly as long as Starcraft has been around.

But that is not really the point I'm trying to make... if you've played one RTS, then you've played them all. Once you understand diffrent armour types, damage types (piercing/splash/etc) group tactics, queueing, build orders, build trees, then they are all basically the same game.

Same goes for FPSes... have a sure hand, know the map, move fast, time the power-ups, and if you play in a team, work well together... then you should be able to swop between different games easier. With perhaps the exception of Quake3, which is unique in it's movement skills. (but has rather limited uncomplicated weapons)

-shrug-

Makes sense really.

Re:Wow

[Lisandro]

Same goes for FPSes... have a sure hand, know the map, move fast, time the power-ups, and if you play in a team, work well together... then you should be able to swop between different games easier. With perhaps the exception of Quake3, which is unique in it's movement skills. (but has rather limited uncomplicated weapons)

Given, the game mechanics are similar, but i was refering to the, um, mastering of the game, if you will. CS and UT2k4 are both FPS but are played in a complete different way; i've seen excellent players of UT get quickly frustrated in CS, and even in Quake 3. When these people train as a team, they don't learn the mechanics of FPS, they practicaly study the maps and tactics of their game of choice. It's the only way they get the requiered edge. Which won't do them much good if they swicth title.

"Professional gamer" is awfuly broad, and covers a multitude of different games and game styles. Following my own example, if you play soccer you can be pretty sure rules won't change so dramatically your training would loose so much value overnight.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Excellent post. If I was at home, rather than work, and had access to my mod points, I'd mod you up. I've seen countless gamers burn their lives away in the belief that "going pro" is just around the corner. The vast majority of them, and even then only the very skilled, will never earn more than a couple of $50 vouchers for games and hardware. And yes, if you want to play these games seriously, you need to put a hell of a lot of time and effort into them. 12 hour days are pretty much a must, which when you factor in the rather paltry prizes on offer, means that even the absolute top players will be very lucky to earn minimum wage. If you get a good sponsor, they'll pay your travel and hotel costs and maybe foot the bill for an occasional hardware upgrade, but you can forget about making any kind of a living off them. You can't even play the game for fun any more, as being seen getting killed by Joe Public on a random server might put your sponsors off.

To be honest, though, I think this problem is wider than just professional gaming. I grew up in Manchester, England. Living near the most commercially successful soccer club in the world meant that we had huge numbers of kids who were convinced they were going to make a living as professional footballers. Consequently, they never put any effort in at school and never earned any qualifications. I must have known at least a dozen kids like this, probably more. Last I heard, every single one of them was either unemployed or in a dead-end job on minimum wage. There's got to be some way of getting through for kids that you're more likely to become rich through a lottery win than as any kind of professional sportsman. How many people seriously base their futures on the assumption that they'll win the lottery?

Re:Wow

[dnixon112]

Let me just say that I think your anecdotal evidence that "countless gamers burn their lives away in the belief that "going pro" is just around the corner." is off the mark.

As someone who is familiar with the Counter-Strike 'pro' scene I can say that the vast majority of people play for the fun of competition and are well aware that only the top few can make a living and that their best bet is to stay in school. People don't drop school to play video games, they play these games for entertainment, and if they want to spend some of their money on attending a tournament where there is a chance to win some money so be it. (it should be noted that WCG pays for all accomodations to the finals for all players) Among the top teams, perhaps they do put in more time then is healthy, but again I can assure you that they are all well aware that this is not a strong career move, it's just plain old fun and if people are paying them to do it, all the better.

Re:Wow

[Quo_R]

More like 15-20 years..

Re:Wow

[jebell]

In racing, golf, any other sport the payouts roll all the way down.

No. In racing and golf, the payouts go SOME of the way down. In most other professional sports, the players are paid salaries with various incentive-based bonuses. There's a ton of kids out there who work their asses off in various sports, believing they'll be the next Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods but never make it even close to the pro level. This is not to imply that participation in sports is a waste of time - quite the opposite. I think it's infinitely more valuable than playing video games all day.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Anecdotal evidence? I ran a major online CS league for over a year. I spoke first-hand to many people who were engaged in doing exactly what I said. I've seen all of this myself and even met some of the people involved in real life.

Re:Wow

[SamSim]

I always think that the main aspect holding back professional competitive videogaming is the spectator aspect. Videogames have always been designed (with greater or lesser success) to be entertaining for the players alone. As yet I'm not aware of any videogame that is also designed to be entertaining to watch, even for a non-gamer. Spectating a game of - for example - Counter-Strike is insanely confusing for someone who has no idea what is going on, especially if the map is far too large to perceive all at once, and you can only follow one character at once. And unless you have some direct experience of the game it's difficult to appreciate the skills of the players too.

Re:Wow

[Domini]

Um.

And what about game series?

Like Starcraft Warcraft and possible follow-ups? They are all similar... then there is also Quake 1/3 and the future of 4. A new counterstrike?

Sure, crossing boundaries may be difficult, but not quite as difficult as switching from soccer to bowling. I know many national players personally who do very well playing CS after they were pretty good at playing Quake3. (But then being good at Quake3 makes it easier to master other games, but not the other way around...)

Can't wait for Quake4... even though I'll probably retire as a gameer before then. ;)

Re:Wow

[jgartin]

>>Spectating a game of - for example - Counter-Strike is insanely confusing for someone who has no idea what is going on...

Spectating a game of - for example - baseball is also insanely confusing for someone who has no idea what is going on. Most people who spectate at any event/sport have some prior experience with it. How many middle aged men watching Monday night football didn't play on their high school team?

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Gaming (mainly SC) is huge in Korea. There are several players (Grrr, Nal_Ra) that can make over $500k (US) per year. There are many huge corporations (AMD, Gillete, SK Telecom) that sponser teams, and the players make money for every televised game that they play.

I read that over 6 million people tuned into the Starleague (a big SC tournament) finals that was broadcasted live. Given South Koreas low population (compared to the US), and their low average wage, many SC players make quite a nice salary there (realize that most of the players are in their late teens).

Also, another tournament was held in a Korean city which had 80,000 spectators for the finals. That is a huge number considering that a baseball game happening at the same time in the same city only drew 20,000 spectators. (Not counting games, baseball is the second most-played sport in Korea, behind Soccer.)

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

South Korea is still crazy about Starcraft. Last serious finals in a pro league gathered about 100.000 live spectators (it was near a beach) and more than 6 million watching on TV, so yes Starcraft is still pretty big in Korea :)

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

There have been quite a number of games tried on TV in Korea. A lot of them aren't very interesting to watch (CS is not a very good spectator sport, Warcraft III neither), which is why Starcraft is still so popular : it is always nice to watch, sometimes spectacular.

Re:Wow

[pdo400]

Lots. Lots and lots and lots. And have you ever been to a sports bar during Monday Night Football? How many of the women there even played football on the playground as a child?

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

"I read that over 6 million people tuned into the Starleague (a big SC tournament) finals that was broadcasted live."

And just when you thought humanity couldn't get any more stupid.

Re:Wow

[kjones692]

What about William Gibson's coinage of the term "cyberspace" in his 1984 novel, Neuromancer, which referred to a massive cooperative hallucination, often also called a "matrix" of data?

Re:Wow

[Dot.Com.CEO]

It was fine in the 80s. Pity it didn't die then.

1984... Seems like yesterday I first read it...

Re:Wow

[The Kow]

If it sounds like a job to you that probably explains why you don't do it. Some of us enjoy spending long hours practicing.

And your analogy of all the money going to the top 3 is related more to the fact that there isn't as much money in eSports (as they're often called) yet. Quake hit the scene in late 1995/mid 1996. Actual tournaments started up around then. That was the first real exploration into what we now know as eSports. The PGL, Quakecon, and events like this were less than 10 years ago. Golf's been around for what, over a century? Racing? Virtually pre-historic.

The venue simply hasn't matured yet. Still, it's shown a steady increase year after year, and so far there's little to no indication that it won't continue to, as long as organizations like WCG and the CPL continue to grow as they have.

Re:Wow

[NivenHuH]

I live up about 8 blocks from there.. I didn't wanna bother with competing though.. i mean.. what's the point when there are SOO many people? It almost seems like it'd lose it's fun..

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Woa, newsflash.. Something needs to be rated before it can be overrated..

Keep the sport clean!

[BaltikaTroika]

So would overclocking be considered "performance enhancement"? ;)

BaltikaTroika

Re:Keep the sport clean!

[dotwaffle]

To be honest, if you're sad enough to play computer games for a living (says here sitting at a Linux workstation at university trying to organise a meeting for the computer society) then you will probably never need "performance enhancement" :)

Geddit? No? Honestly, wasted! Wasted I tell thee!

Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

We can reach world unity and peace... through bloody virtual conflict!

Re:Finally

[Schreckgestalt]

This is modded as funny, but should actually be insightful or interesting, as there certainly is more to the sentence.

Although most psychos or school-shooters had contact with bloody computergames, it doesn't mean that every computer gamer is a psycho (also applies to terrorism and islam).

I think that the more people play games, the less they are likely to go out and actually kill somebody. Not that I'd ever wanted to really kill anybody, but after a hard-working day, nothing can calm me down better than a nice little round of my favourite FPS (and drugs, of course).

Re:Finally

[cap'n foolsy]

it's not so farfetched. if we worked out our aggressions by playing games instead of actually waging war, wouldn't that be so much better?

Gamers for Peace!

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

Dont think that would work... there will always be sore losers who will eventually resort to physical violence...

Machines specs ?

[mirko]

So what are the specs of the machines ?

Do the players have to bring theirs or is it considered fairer to have them all use the same ?

Re:Machines specs ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you look at the photo gallery? All of the machines are already set up using the exact same parts, even same keyboard and monitor.

Re:Machines specs ?

[mirko]

OK, so it's a global solution, what are their specs ?
Do the player take the machines home after the contest ?

Re:Machines specs ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to play a fair amount of Couterstrike.
The team I was part of was good enough to place fairly well in some of the larger LAN-tournaments, such as the qualifying competitions for the CPL (Cyberathletics Professional League, or something like that). All the major tournaments I played had preconfigured settings on tournament provided HW and if you as much as openened the console window, that was enough to have you either warned or disqualified.

visa rejected for european player

[perler]

in a german games television show they had an interview with a german warcraft player who qualified for the WCG but it's visa to the US was rejected. the only problem was (as he described it) that he had the german /and/ the turkish citizenship (which is quite usual in germany, we have some 3 million turkish immigrants (out of a population of 80 million)).

i think the US is shooting it's own foot if they continue to behave this way. a lot of people here already wait with their holidays in the US in the hope, that the obligatory fingerprints when entering the US will go away sometimes (which i doubt personally)

PAT

Re:visa rejected for european player

[Anonymous Coward]

What?

Where?

Not here, this place is cool.

Re:visa rejected for european player

[KombuchaGuy]

A lot of CS Players had a similar problem. They all ticked the 'sometimes' box for the "Are you a terrorist?" question on the Green Card.

Re:visa rejected for european player

[perler]

rofl..

PAT

Re:visa rejected for european player

[crimson30]

The same thing has happened to europeans for Magic: the Gathering. I know at least one player who couldn't attend Worlds, it having been held in the United States this year.

Re:visa rejected for european player

[Anonymous Coward]

Hehehehehe

Professional Starcraft Player

[asuzuki]

From the article:
Five years ago, the Quebec-born Patry became the Starcraft world champion and was offered a job as a professional game player in South Korea, initially making about $100,000 a year.

His annual salary is now estimated at about $500,000 and, as the star of a Korean Starcraft TV program, he needs bodyguards to protect him from his fans.

Thanks, that made me feel really bad about my job.

Re:Professional Starcraft Player

[Anonymous Coward]

he needs bodyguards to protect him from his fans.

OMG ZERG RUSH!!!!!

Re:Professional Starcraft Player

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep in mind that his fans probably aren't nubile teenagae girls...

I wanna see...

[ayjay29]

I wanna see "Triumph the Insult Comic Dog" there...

The Star Wars premiere was great, but i bet he could really rip into these guys.

Anual olympics?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry but is it just me that reacts to "anual" and "olympics" beeing used in the same post?

Turkish!?

[ImaLamer]

No... I believe it was because the CIA had learned of an earlier "Cat Stevens" CD purchase the player had made...

Re:Turkish!?

[OP_Boot]

Oh dear - another slashdotter who reads Private Eye.

At least acknowledge your sources, you plagiarist.

FIFA Soccer is a poor choice.

[jonathan_atkinson]

Why oh why are they playing FIFA?

All true football fans know that Pro Evolution Soccer is by far the better game, both in terms of realism and depth. Sure, FIFA may have the licenses, but PES is the most accurate simulation, and offers much more competitive and enjoyable multi-player. I for one can't wait for PES4, as I believe it'll be playable on XBox Live (and I may even be tempted to purchase an XBox just to play this single game). I could always stick to the PS2 version with a multi-tap and some beers with my mates...

--Jon

Re:FIFA Soccer is a poor choice.

[grumbel]

Has far as I know thats mainly because Pro Evolution Soccer lacks decent network support, which no matter how good it is as a game by itself, makes it pretty much unusable for any kind of eSports and internet gaming.

Re:FIFA Soccer is a poor choice.

[SilentSheep]

Not only that, Pro Evo 4 has acquired the licence to IIRC 6? european leagues, so it will be even better!!

Oh the hours i've wasted on that game, bit worried that PES4 is going to be better, i need to get some work done at uni!!!

Re:FIFA Soccer is a poor choice.

[Fred_A]

Well, everybody knows that Operation Flashpoint has the best simulation by far yet everybody plays Counter Strike.

I guess they picked popular games, not realistic ones.

Starcraft - 1997

[cbx_cbx]

its quite amazing that a 7 years old game is found at those competitions.

It shows that not everything is graphics/3D/FPS etc.

I Remember playing SC im my old P100... Very cool.

Let me get back to my UnrealTournament[*],Fifa[*],Madden[*] etc[*]

[*] - Insert current year

Re:Starcraft - 1997

[yourassisowned]

try the warhammer 40k Dawn of War for an excellent replacement

Re:Starcraft - 1997

[HarvardAce]

You're still playing Madden 2004? Don't you mean [*] - Insert next year?

Seriously, did someone from the car industry come over to the video game industry and start naming projects?

Re:Starcraft - 1997

[Anonymous Coward]

Warhammer 40k lacks balance and a vast array of strategies. There's no air which IMHO cuts down the game severly as there is no element of swift play thus it's entirely a ground war which gets repetitive quickly and micro'ing is almost useless except to retreat and add more to your squad, the bigger squad always wins from what I've seen.

Re:Starcraft - 1997

[flewp]

This is the 2005 season of football. Therefor, it's Madden 2005. Got it?

Re:Starcraft - 1997

[HarvardAce]

That's funny, because the NFL lists last year's records under the "2003" season. So what happened to the 2004 season, if this is the 2005 season?

correction: Re:visa rejected for european player

[perler]

to correct myself, as reported here (it's in german, use the fish):

not the visa itself was rejected but a special entry permission which was neccessary to arrive to the WCG in time. they refered him to the normal visa application process which takes around 1,5 weeks - but which has no use when the WCG starts today..

PAT

Dear Slashdot

[Cybertect]

We notice that your recent story titled "Gamers Unite for Video Game Olympics" contains an unauthorised use of the word 'Olympics', a trademark that is owned by the International Olympic Committee.

Cease and desist immediately. Failure to do so will result in legal action seeking punitive damages.

Yours sincerely,

IP Freely
Partner
Sue, Grabbett and Runne
Solicitors for the IOC

I know you're out there

[Moo Moo Cow of Death]

Anyone remember Fatal1ty? Quake player from a long time ago? After winning all those tourney's and being declared Quake champ and all he started up his own little shop selling stuff with his name on it and the ever famous "fat pad" an extremely large mouse pad because of his ultra low mouse sensitivity.

Anyway, he comes by every now and then and hangs out with us and tells us what he does. He plays video games for 8 hours a day to practice and does endorsement deals. That's right, he plays video games for a living (and drives around in a painted alien vs. predator hummer he won).

I only wish I was half that lucky :)

Re:I know you're out there

[atkinsd]

you don't hang out with fatal1ty, he played quake 3 and unreal tournament 2k3, and it was a little ford focus not a freakin hummer...gg


and oh yeah...you don't hang out with him

Re:I know you're out there

[radish]

Having to drive a novelty Hummer? Christ, I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.

Daley Thompson!

[Anonymous Coward]

But surely no video game olympics could be complete without Daley Thompsons Decathlon?

Steve.

Many players not allowed to compete

[Anonymous Coward]

Half of the Counter-Strike team from Serbia was rejected, too. No reason given by local embassy, no idea what it could be, as all of them are very young, and there's no notable difference between those who were permited to enter USA and those who haven't. The entire team stayed at home. Maybe next year the tournament should be organized in some country which is more open to visits.

Re:Many players not allowed to compete

[perler]

right, and i seriously doubt, that the US will have a lot of international events in the next years. have fun in your hole.. ;/

PAT

Re:Many players not allowed to compete

[Anonymous Coward]

I seriously doubt you know what you're talking about. /not an American, but thinks it's pretty sad that Germans with neo-Nazis and Communists in state parliament should be lecturing anyone. Clean up your own backyard.

Re:Many players not allowed to compete

[operagost]

The entire team stayed at home. Maybe next year the tournament should be organized in some country which is more open to terrorists.

Fixed that for you.

Re:Many players not allowed to compete

[rxmd]

Maybe next year the tournament should be organized in some country which is more open to visits.

Maybe next year the tournament should be organized in some country which is more open to terrorists.

Fixed that for you.

Note the following, however:

• Any serious terrorist will get into the US anyway; after all it's got a long, basically uncontrollable land border with Canada and another, slightly better controlled with Mexico. It's a bit like copy protection on CDs: it pisses of the legitimate users, while the bad guys just laugh and circumvent the system
• Most of the 9/11 perpetrators would still get into the US under today's legislation
• this way the US is alienating a lot of people whom they might actually want inside their borders, scientists, for example. I've got a German colleague who recently got a professorship at a US college... he's a specialist on Islamic Studies, focusing on Islam in Russia. He had serious trouble getting the paperwork done because of the visa and stamps from strange countries in his passport. Look at the percentage of US Nobel Prize winners born outside the US, for instance; would you rather have had them turned away at the border? Granted, CS players from Serbia aren't probably ranked very high on the agenda.

Re:WHAT HAPPENED TO THE PARAGRAPHS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you see, back at the UHFSEIAWVOU, we used to empower our executives to enable collaborative efforts centered around a sophisticated webworked-infrastructure, using dog-slow Java. However, we have stripped off the Java, and now everything runs smoot and fast.

San Francisco, nerd capital of the world.

[TheNarrator]

Wow, It was only last month that I ran into some guy from Norway who was here for the world championships of Magic the Gathering.
San Francisco is in danger of losing it's hip image and turning into some sort of nerdly paradise!

Re:San Francisco, nerd capital of the world.

[Anonymous Coward]

Duh, why do you think they built Starfleet Command there!?!

Re:San Francisco, nerd capital of the world.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hip image? The only image that ever comes to anyone's mind when they hear "San Francisco" is a bunch of fags in spandex and biker leathers.

any other parallels with olympics?

[circletimessquare]

are we going to have drug testing? no caffeine?

are we going to have boycotts? the muslim world boycotting all civilization iii competitions because cities can build cathedrals instead of mosques?

are we going to have cities competing to host? i think seoul will host the next 25 olympics then, considering their massively superior bandwidth infrastructure as compared to the rest of the world

are we going to have sports no one watches? minesweeper for example? ;-P

are we going to have judging scandals? are we going to have overwhelmingly nationalistic audiences? etc.

Re:any other parallels with olympics?

[dnixon112]

are we going to have cities competing to host? i think seoul will host the next 25 olympics then, considering their massively superior bandwidth infrastructure as compared to the rest of the world

From 2001 until this year every WCG finals took place in South Korea. However, starting last year cities do in fact compete to host the WCG, and San Fransisco was succesful in their bid and got to host this years event.

are we going to have sports no one watches? minesweeper for example?

Yes, Halo and FIFA are not nearly as popular as Counter-Strike, Warcraft and Starcraft.

are we going to have judging scandals? are we going to have overwhelmingly nationalistic audiences? etc.

Judging scandals have already happened, in last years Counter-Strike tournament the Brazilian team was ruled to have used a bug in the map and forfeited their half, giving an easy victory to the US team. Meanwhile the Brazilians claimed the US had used other bugs without penalty. This 'double standard' prompted a barrage of inflammatory comments from Brazilians on many of the related websites.

Where's DEE DEE ARR?

[Bega]

I'm kind of, sortof, disappointed at this event and having no Dance Dance Revolution (or other dancing game) competition, while it's name is "Video Game Olympics".

Bemani? Argh!

[bi_boy]

Missing? Three words. Dance Dance Revolution.

Re:Bemani? Argh!

[Oddly_Drac]

"Dance Dance Revolution."

Only in America and Japan.

A career in professional gaming is possible

[HappyFunnyFoo]

It is possible to make a living, a very good one at that, playing StarCraft in South Korea at a top competitive level. Guillome Patry (mentioned earlier in this thread) did so for an extended period of time; however, he recently has retired from professional StarCraft because he wasn't making enough, and was living off of his savings. Guillome Patry first became famous when he won the Blizzard Brood War Ladder championships two seasons in a row as X'Ds~Grrrr..., taking home twenty thousand. The top players now are SlayerS_'BoxeR', iLoveOOV, and [ReD]NaDa, all of them terran players. Boxer is referred to as the "Terran emperor" and his 3 DVD boxed set about StarCraft has sold more copies in South Korea than the entire Matrix series. This stuff is insanely popular in South Korea. However, in the U.S., there is no hope for professional gaming, unless you eventually move to Korea to play StarCraft. The biggest you can walk away with is a WCG grand prize once per year, and that's usually taken by Koreans anyways. For non-SC players, don't expect to ever make a living as a pro-gamer. For some reason in the U.S., pro gaming has not taken a foothold, and most non-starcraft players are in the U.S. or Europe. [ReD]NaDa recently signed a contract with KTF team and several TV stations (yes, Koreans have 3 dedicated TV shows to gaming, particularly SC) which earns him a six figure income for a long period of time, not including his tournament wins. There's more out there, but these are the highlights. Now get practicing at StarCraft: Ten hours of it a day is about how much most progamers play. Nobody can keep up with Koreans because of their dedication at this level to the game. -Foo

Re:A career in professional gaming is possible

[b4jts]

Ever heared of a guy named Fatal1ty?

Has a motherboard with his name attached to it coming out soon. The guy plays FPS, not SC.

http://www.fatal1ty.com

Re:A career in professional gaming is possible

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember X'Ds~Grrr I played him in a 3v3 on PoS. Luckily I had a friend playing with me and he had 2 newbies on his team. Anyways to make a long story short by the end of the game he was accusing me of cheating. Ha ha.

The whole match went like this. I was Zerg bottom left corner and he was terran mid right. He took an xp in the bottom mid and started pumping wraiths, I got ovie carrying and speed and some upgraded hydra's, trashed his XP and then went on and trashed the bases he was attempting to setup in the middle.

I caught him while he had his pants down, before he could mass enough wraiths+BC's.

Re:A career in professional gaming is possible

[HappyFunnyFoo]

Grrrr doesn't play 3v3. Furthermore, he hasn't played on battle.net in years. Plus he doesn't play money maps.

Re:A career in professional gaming is possible

[Anonymous Coward]

Not the AC you're responding to but: he said he played XDs~Grrrr, the name he used years ago, you know, when he played on battle.net... How can you say he never plays 3v3? Maybe a long time ago he did. And since when is Plains of Snow a "money" map? It's an 8 player map with about as many extra mines all surrounded by obstacles... not exactly BGH...

Don't think you know what you're talking about.

Re:A career in professional gaming is possible

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, People playing in the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour travel the world and can rake in some serious cash. While this is still a select group, there have been examples of American teens making $300,000 worth of prize money in a year.

Re:Bemani? Argh!

[bi_boy]

Europe also.

There known as "Dancing Stage." Exact same game, just different name.

Konami also released Dance Dance Revolution in Korea to directly compete with Pump It Up, licensing Korean pop songs even for what came to be known as Dance Dance Revolution 3rd Mix Korean and 3rd Mix Korean Version 2.

Quite a contrast in games

[cttforsale]

After Playing unreal Tournament, Playing Halo will be like running knee deep through syrup.

plagiarist

[ImaLamer]

plagiarist? you've got to be kidding me right?

Re:plagiarist

[OP_Boot]

No - not kidding.

Ok, I should have put a smiley in, but if you look on page 3 of Private Eye, issue number 1116 ,1st October 2004, that joke is there. Albeit in cartoon form.

Re:plagiarist

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it's just becuase it's such an obvious joke. Quit reading that crap too, it'll rot your brain.

Re:plagiarist

[ImaLamer]

I should note, I've never read the Private Eye and I've never even heard of it until you brought it up.

Thanks though.. play again sometime.

Not all RTS games are the same

[WARM3CH]

if you've played one RTS, then you've played them all.

I don't believe in that. The strategy you take in a RTS is more than knowing the armors, units and such. The mechanics of different games are so different that there is no uinque formula to play them all. In StarCraft if you waste the resources, soon they will finish and a single unit of the enemy will be able to take down the whole city of yours. But in a game like Total Annihilation, the resources are infinite and simply sending 100 units (yeah, 100s, not like 10s in starcraft) to attack a city of your enemy is practically useless in a 2 minutes he'll recover to the same situation as before. For an experience gamer, it's the mechanics of the games, not the stats of the units that matters.

Campers?

[KidThunder]

When I first read the headline, I read it as "Campers unite for Video Game Olympics." Probably amounts to the same thing ;)

Most Stupid Things US Goverment Do

[Anonymous Coward]

They refused to give CounterStrike/WarCraft player of China visa, Because they can't prove themselves
have enough salary to afford...

Should be Classic/"Old School" Matches

[Spencerian]

The games should have (unless I missed it there in the article) an old-school gaming competition, with arcade games such as

--Atari Star Wars (the sit-down vector game with the sharp controller)
--Street Fighter
--Tron (Playing this game had applications outside, where that trained fast-twitch finger that shot spiders also worked wonders on the naughty bits of women. Girls have a special button of their own, if you know what I'm sayin'.)
--A few pinball games
--Atari Lunar Lander
--Tempest
--Bererk
--Robotron
--Defende r

I could go on. I could add Galaga, but it's STILL played to death in my mind...

I'd be SO the Professor in a match like that. School's back in, sucka!

Re:Should be Classic/"Old School" Matches

[glowimperial]

How about live Robotron 2084 for the real Olympics? I'd say we've reached the point morally and socially, where it might be a worthwhile and acceptable idea.

Not a lot of variety...

[Thag]

Counter-Strike, Unreal Tournament, Halo, Starcraft and FIFA Soccer.

That's like if the real Olympic events were pole vault, another pole vault, another pole vault, and boxing.

Re:Not a lot of variety...

[Anonymous Coward]

So you have 3 shooters, 2 RTS games, 1 Sports game (soccer), and 1 racing game. What other genre has a widely-played competitive game?

Re:Not a lot of variety...

[Anonymous Coward]

They could have Super Mario Kart... maybe a good game of CivNet.

Also a lot of real Olympic events are just people taking turns competing for highest score, like Diving or the Pole Vault or whatever. So that would open up all kinds of interesting competition for best score amongst classics like Ms. Pac-man and Galaga.

Re:Not a lot of variety...

[Anonymous Coward]

How about fighting games... Tekken, VF, SF, Soul Caliber...

Re:Dear Cybertect

[RichardX]

We notice that your recent post titled "Dear Slashdot" contains unauthorised use of the words "cease" and "desist", and furthermore is a cease and desist notice. As I am the holder of the patent for "Method of causing cessation and desisting of activities by a third party via the means of sending a 'cease and desist' notice" I require you to immediately cease and desist in your use of cease and desist notices.

Yours spuriously,

Sue Eweblind
Pardner
Yee-Haw Legal Cowboys inc.

Linux game machines

[yourassisowned]

I would like to know how many of these gamers are using a *NIX system....

Best Players?

[waspleg]

or the ones with teh most money and closest proximity to CA?

you will never find The Best at a tournament, cause we play for fun ;)

Re:Best Players?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's true. The best players I've ever played are non-competitive. It's funny, a couple good players, and no "clan" stands a chance.

Starcraft...

[Poleris]

... don't only Koreans play that game? Why is it in the World Cyber Games? :)

Re:Starcraft...

[Anonymous Coward]

No.

Believe it or not, there are many people around the world that play Starcraft. Patry (as mentioned in the article) is Canadian and he used to be an SC progamer. Rekrul and Assem are two American players that are currently living in Korea, trying to make it as progamers.

Finally in the USA

[genner]

Finally, they get to play in the US.
South Koreans and Germans beware.
Not going down so easy this year.

Re:Finally in the USA

[genner]

And the US looses the first round of stracraft to the netherlands. Sigh....

Re:correction: Re:visa rejected for european playe

[operagost]

Tough luck, then. He should plan in advance next time. I do NOT want people rushed through immigration.

Oh thanks :)

[Cybertect]

nt

Re:Unfortunately

[Anonymous Coward]

the world seems to think this is a funny comment, truth does seem funny to ignorant homo-sapiens

Damnit Mom!

[Sentry21]

If my parents had bought me a computer like every other kid in my neighbourhood, and paid me some cushy allowance so I could upgrade it, then all those nights of sitting in my room until 7 AM would have paid off!

How am I supposed to hone my skills if she's always nagging me to 'get a job'? That's what I'm doing! Sigh. Parents these days just don't understand.

And no mom, I'm not a terrorist. They have the ugliest skins.

--Dan

I Want My Smash TV!

[Tackhead]

> How about live Robotron 2084 for the real Olympics? I'd say we've reached the point morally and socially, where it might be a worthwhile and acceptable idea.

A few years ago, someone told me about a show called "Survivor". Believing that we'd finally reached the "Running Man" stage of society, I wondered how the legal arrangements, and concluded that they used a shell corporation and some small country that would change its laws for the right price. Five minutes into the premiere, when I discovered that people got voted off the island in Survivor, rather than starved or killed, I turned the TV off in disgust.

1982: Robotron 2084
1988: NARC
1990: Smash TV ("Big money! Big prizes! I love it!")
1992: Total Carnage ("All we are making is baby milk!")

We've played live NARC for decades, waited 12 years to finally beat General Akhboob's baby milk factory in Total Carnage (we missed the code to unlock the pleasure domes, gotta try again), but I still want my Smash TV!

Like you said, it's Eugene Jarvis' world. We just play in it.

Re:I Want My Smash TV!

[glowimperial]

I too am bummed that the idiots on "Reality TV" aren't being "weeded out of the gene pool" via much harsher penalties or competition.

Inevitably, there will be televised "death contests/matches" sometime in the near future. People will be unable to not watch.

They need to work on their advertising.

[JavaLord]

Did they advertise this anywhere? When Unreal Tournament was at the peak of it's popularity (2000) I played for #1 on the OGL 1v1 Deathmatch ladder, and I never even heard of these video game olympics.

Re:They need to work on their advertising.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a very well known competition, at least in the Starcraft community.

Actually....

[WindowLicker916]

I looked into this since I am going to be int he bay this weekend and thought I might swing by. They are not even playing Counter-Strike, they are playing Condition Zero. Now that's just lame!! Hardly anyone plays the damn game. Valve/Sierra?? must of offered some insentive for the tournement to have Condition Zero and not Counter-Strike. It's a shame....I would of really liked seeing some of the best CS players going at it. Sigh...

I agree.

[sonatinas]

Winning Eleven far surpasses anything FIFA tries to do. No one in the states will play winning eleven because konami does't market it. Also, just because FIFA has 3 million teams doesn't mean its better. FIFA can make all the changes it wants to their series, but it is more an arcade soccer game than Winning Eleven, which is simulation.

I want to see

[phorm]

A final round, where they introduce an as-yet-unknown FPS or RTS game. Perhaps just a nicely customized map that nobody has played might do as well.

Real skill comes in how you adapt to a new situation, the rest is practice (this applies to more than just gaming, of course)

Re:I want to see

[dbretton]

Super Mario Brothers 3!

Re:I want to see

[HikeFanatic]

Nah...now about Pong?

none of them

[Anonymous Coward]

whore

Re:none of them

[yourassisowned]

damn. I am glad I know how to dual boot ;-)

Re:Bemani? Argh!

[Oddly_Drac]

" Europe also. There known as "Dancing Stage." Exact same game, just different name."

And whenever you see them, they're forlornly alone and unloved. That's the thing that I was getting at.

As a former attendee

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to say, the WCG company handled the event completely wrong. Those of us that signed up for BYOC (bring your own computer) for the tournaments were whispered great-nothings in our ears - a daily UT2004 tournament for the newest Nvidia video card, free swag to attendees, all night gaming, etc.

Then about a week and a half before the event, we get an email saying "Sorry, plans have changed". They now close at like 10pm, free swag is only given to those there on Saturday, no more UT2004 tournament, and the video card prize is in a lottery only given to 1 person for the whole week. Oh and the new game? Joint Operations!

Sorry, but in the greatness of UT2004, Joint Ops blows. I was there during the last San Francisco LAN held by PDXLAN and Nvidia when they tried promoting Joint Ops - they gave the game away for free and people still wouldn't play it. It's like someone saw BattleField and Codename:Eagle and thought "Hey, this game would be better if we added a 100 people!" but totally forget the key points that made the game fun.

Anyways, to each his own but if a company promises one thing and less than 2 weeks before says "Sorry, we canceled the tournament, changed the prizes, taking back the swag and making you get out after 10pm" then here's a hearty FU.

Here's My Chance!

[SlipJig]

Maybe I'll finally have a chance at winning a match in UT 2004 now that all the ringers are offline playing in a tournament :-)

"Monster Kill", here I come!

Huzzah!

[crimson30]

Are you saying they might be easier to rip into than this guy?

Re:Huzzah!

[Anonymous Coward]

Definitely. The Dragonmaster actually laughs at the starcraft players! How's that for pathetic?

From the article:

[crimson30]

"The card game mixes elements of chess, fantasy baseball and role-playing strategy."

There is NO role-playing in professional Magic. That's like saying there's role-playing in professional Poker!

Re:Dear Cybertect

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I know a law firm that can help you guys. Feel free to contact:

The Law Offices of
Dewey, Cheatum, and Howe

Some photos of the Opening Event

[zr-rifle]

I work for the Italian GSP in charge of selecting the our country's national team and sending them to San Francisco. A lot of the hassles came from the young age of the partecipants (some of them only recently turned 18) and the fact that, for the first time, it was going to be a BYOC LAN. For this reason we had a hard time finding sponsors willing to give the team some decent hardware on which to play. We didn't have any luck so the players had to scout ahead and fin a place where to rent some monitors. Good luck in finding a place where to warm up and practice a bit.

Another problem was that the hotel is no way in a decent walking distance from the place where the games will be played. So players not only have to drag along their stuff to the battlefield, but also have to walk quite a bit to get there.

Fortunately, our guys seem to be quite positive about it. It's great to travel so far and represent your country. Even if it's videogames we're talking about. And, believe me, you get pretty popular with girls about the whole thing. "What? You came all the way from Italy to play... videogames? charming!"... hehe, pretty amusing stuff.

Anyway, check out the pics

Mod parent up

[Planx_Constant]

Man, I wish I had mod points. Good reference.

Video Olympics

[tomcode]

I am the master of Video Olympics. Nobody twists a potentiometer like me! Bring on the Pong!

I used to rock Starcraft

[CrazyJim1]

My only challenge was XDs'Grr and hes in Korea gaming it up. I'd have records like 72-0. Koreans all play the same because netcafes are social. Other countries don't have the communication, but there are lies that stand in front of truth and good communication isn't always healthy to an optimal strategy. People that could think for themself could build good strats.

DDR

[Second_Derivative]

I would love to see a large scale tournament like this for DDR sometime (google for 10K Commotion -- it's a webcomic based around a fictional event of this scale).

Being good at DDR isn't a walk in the park either, you have to be in good shape and have a pretty impeccable sense of rhythm. Good players can keep up with the 10 step per second step charts at the top end of the difficulty range, the best can hit every single step in those songs to within 30 milliseconds of the beat, which is the criterion required to achieve the maximum grade of AAA. Suffice it to say I'm not quite that good (although I've managed to get a few AAAs on the easier songs...)

Ugh

[TheBot]

Haven't they played CS and SC enough yet? Geeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeez

Oblig. 'Good Morning Vietnam' ref...

[Wraithlyn]

We go around asking people, "Are you the enemy? Whoever says yes, we shoot them." ;)