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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.
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
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£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.
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.
Steal This Sig
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.
East Coast Brewers
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!
It might look like I'm standing motionless, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away
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?
Super Mario Brothers 3!