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."

Comments

Re:The major problem...

[AsiNisiMasa]

I think that's what he means by saying it needs to be presented as a sport. Think about how many people pay ridiculous amounts of money to go see a pro-football game... They could much more cheaply see a college or high school game and probably with greater ease. The problem is, sports aren't actually fun to watch for most of the spectators. People like pro-sports because they feel connected to a team or to certain players and the outcome of the game actually becomes meaningul in that way.

As it stands now, which of the world's best gamers wins the most games doesn't matter to anyone at all, but if they each had fans then the competition between the resulting camps would fuel interest and spectation. Gambling would probably help get that going, as much as I would hate to see gambling over games.

Re:Starcraft in Korea

[xtieburn]

Yes indeed.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-664893404 3675888354&q=starcraft

I believe the players are quite famous as a result.