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On Televising Pro Gaming
GameDAILYBiz has a piece written by Sundance DiGiovanni, the founder of Major League Gaming, on why the time is right for televising Professional Gaming. From the article: "Back in the day I would usually begin by pointing out that until recently there had never been U.S.-based gaming leagues or competitive gaming events that were built from the ground up to be televised. I'd point out that video game tournaments had never really been what you would call "TV friendly" and that in order for the spectator value to translate to television you would have to treat competitive gaming like a sport. That would usually be the point where people would look at me like I had horns growing out of my forehead."
ESPN broadcasts poker, spelling bees, and even scrabble. If they can be profitable, I'm positive video game tournaments can be too.
...is that watching people play games isn't all that interesting to a non-gamer in general. There are only a few types of games that are fun to spectate: Prince of Persia-style games, for instance, can captivate an audience with slick stunts by skill.. but.. there are few games like that.
FPS type games aren't going to be interesting to an outsider, no matter how you dress it up.. unless, maybe it's something like Battlefield 2-- THAT could possibly work, being somewhat 'relevant' to even the common man.
I've heard rumors that games of Starcraft used to be (maybe still are) televised in Korea. Can anyone confirm/deny this?
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"See your favorite gamers whine about spawn campers and call each other n00bs weeknights at 2 AM, only on ESPN 8, The Ocho!"
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Exactly who the fuck wants to watch OTHER people play video games? I mean, it's bad enough to be a video game addict yourself. Now you're going to watch sponsored teams play??
From an article on Korea and the popularity of Starcraft :
On July 22 last year, 16,251 fans gathered at a baseball stadium in Pusan for the All-star game. At the same moment, around six times more people packed Kwanganni beach in the port to see another professional competition _ the online game ``Starcraft.''
Of course online gaming will become a spectator sport. The question is when will it happen? How will producers make it compelling and fun to watch?
The games themselves will need to be modded for spectators with extra cameras, slow motion replays, avatar close-ups with specially modelled expressions.
And the players will need to be larger than life, their games will be perfomances, their interactions with teammates and other teams will become storylines on the "field" and fleshed out by what happens between games. Rivalry, comraderie, tradgedy will all be played out in this new world for the amusement of TV and online viewers.
If baseball, golf and spelling bees can be spectator events then online gaming will eventually eclipse them all. The producers just need to figure out how to make it work.
I don't have cable TV anymore - do they still show BattleBots? Is that type of stuff profitable?
FPS type games aren't going to be interesting to an outsider, no matter how you dress it up.. unless, maybe it's something like Battlefield 2-- THAT could possibly work, being somewhat 'relevant' to even the common man.
What would sell this to the common man if they had celebreties that would scream and shout while playing... I hear Robin Williams likes Battlefield 2 and he likes to play as a Sniper
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Doesn't this defeat the purpose of games? Video games give me a chance to be in the movie.
I would rather play a video a game than watch it. Then, after I die (like I always do in the first few seconds), I'll watch.
Well with Starcraft in Korea being huge enough to almost become their national 'sport' I'd say there is a good market in televised game tournaments, I for one wouldn't mind watching a well played tournament of Counter-Strike or other stuff and I'm sure many other enthusiastic gamers wouldn't and I could see it becoming quite popular.
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The #1 problem with televising a FPS (which, honestly, is what we're talking about here, as opposed to televising a RTS or sports game) is that there's nothing to focus on. If you're watching a ball sport, you have something to focus on-the ball. If you're watching a FPS, you have nothing to focus on. Sure, you can follow one player, but what if he doesn't see much action? You can follow the flag, but what if it gets locked down? So do you watch the middle of the play area? Switch around all the time? I just don't think it's compelling. And I mentioned ball sports up there and dismissed Madden, but I don't think that people would watch a whole game of Madden (or baseball, hockey, whatever) repeatedly. Sure, there's Madden Nation on ESPN, but that's a novelty more than anything else, and it covers much more than the actual games. Yes, they watch Starcraft on TV in Korea, but...that's...Korea. I'm not making a judgment about Korea, but the culture is just much better suited for this sort of thing for some reason.
This is the NFL, which stands for "Not For Long" if you keep making those bulls*** calls.
Or do a Halo tourney with Julia Roberts.
All these games have the advantages that the action is slower (and easier to follow) than normal DM, and the team-sport objective-oriented games of CTF are more entertaining to follow than the frantic mayhem of DM.
the time is right for televising Professional Gaming.
:)
No, it's not. There are several problems with professional gaming...
1. People can't relate Games don't hang around too long...especially in the US. How long is a game popular for? The FPS that has held the most interest in the public eye is counter strike...but even that has it's popularity cut into by whatever the 'fps of the year' is. How many gamers have actually played counterstrike and can enjoy a match played on a high level? I know plenty of gamers who haven't played the original counterstrike, if they've played any version at all.
People can turn on the world series of poker and watch a game they have at some point played a variation of. People can turn on basketball to watch a game they can play in their backyard. Their barriers of entry are simply buying a basketball, or a deck of cards. Entry barriers for video games are higher (even if they aren't that high..)
2. The most popular Genres don't translate Right now, the most popular competitve genres I can think of are FPS games and Fighting games. Both often degenerate into players using the lowest common demoniator to win. One overpowered gun in a FPS game leads to everyone using it. One overpowered tactic in a fighting game leads to players abusing it all tournament long. (Think roll cancel, bo rai cho in MK:Online, unblockable CC in Street Fighter Alpha 2, etc).
3. Game sequels are too radical In normal competitive sports, you can turn on a game/tournament one year, and do the same the next and any rule changes are minimal. When a sequel to a video game comes out, it's often a radical departure from the original when it comes to high level play. UT is very different than UT2k3, Street Fighter 2 ST is much different than Marvel vs Capcom 2. The end result is players can only relate to the version they played.
4. The money isn't there yet I played in fighting game tournaments and a few FPS contests in the late 1990's and won plenty of small tournaments (ie 20 person) and prizes (anyone remember heat.net?). Where is the money to convince me to play a crappy FPS again instead of world of warcraft?
These points can't be emphasized enough. When you watch pretty much any sports game on television except for golf, you are watching the game played on a standardized playing field. The standardized playing field does not detract from viewer interest. In fact viewership would decline if the playing field changed from game to game, because both players and viewers would not get a chance to develop and become familiar with strategies which elevate the level of play. Also, you are normally watching the same home team play, so you become familiar with the player names and strengths/weaknesses.
IMHO, the way to successfully generate viewership for televised mutiplayer computer games would be to feature a game mode like Bombing Run in UT2004, and keep to a single, simple, wide-open map so viewers can tell where things are happening. You would need to establish franchise teams in various cities (or maybe various countries) to generate local interest and give fans an incentive to root for one team over another.
Why do you think so many people like to watch golf or tennis on TV instead of playing it themselves, or playing a videogame version of it? Watching a real professional play the game at a much higher level than you can yourself is inherently interesting/fascinating to a lot of people.
Gaming will be a sport the same day that professional wrestling is included in the Olympics.
indeed..
I can see Andy Kaufman if he were still alive to day making a show about gaming, and have it only show FF7 Chocobo Breeding.
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