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US Companies Sponsor Pro Gamers
Baddox writes "Professional gaming, which has for some time now been a popular venture in Asia, is finally starting to get some attention from big US companies. Teams for competitive shooters like Counter Strike are getting sponsored by large corporations like Johnson and Johnson. The article poses the question, "Is 'frags per round' going to be the batting average of the 21st century?" "
I'm not trying to troll here, but this sort of thing has been going on for years. Intel and other big names have been sponsoring top clans and individual gamers for a while now. A lot of people have small computer businesses in their towns sponsoring their clans and stuff too. It's very common for internet cafe's to sponsor teams as well. I'm not sure why this is being reported as a "new thing" because it's most definately not.
What many people don't realize is that the internet effectively allows a small group of people that are worldwide to be effectively communicated to by an advertizer.
So...even though the world of multiplayer gaming may be a niche population, the net effectively increases it's value to advertizers because it's easier to reach them through common connections between consumers...in this case the common connection the game they all play.
The same population in the 80's playing a game would not be viable because of how spread out the players are over the world and how disconnected they are from each other.