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Gaming Tourneys Coming to U.S. Television
greig writes "DirecTV is aiming to bring to the states what the South Koreans have been enjoying for years: regular broadcasts of videogaming tournaments. Games at the first tournament were Battlefield 2, Counterstrike 1.6, Halo 2, Project Gothem Racing and Dead or Alive 4. The initial broadcasts of the exhibition invitational are on the free DirecTV channel 101 this weekend. Is this the first step to escalating videogames to the status of the X-Games and poker?"
Taken from the about section: "The Championship Gaming Series will launch as a league starting 2007; however, in 2006, we will broadcast 3 television events: Championship Gaming Invitational, the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) Winter Finals and an event that will be announced shortly."
Granted Korea has a large market for this sort of televised event with particular emphasis on games (if memory serves correct) as Starcraft and its vein being one of them.
There is also the possible connection to real life sports. But that is what I base this on. Real life sports can be an entertaining event to watch with people physically battling it out on a real life arena.
When the entire event is virtual it loses alot of the lure to be an enticing live event. Sure in one country it has a following but is this more of a cultural event or is merely a sign of things to come?
To me, watching soccer doesn't seam like entertainment. Look at when a couple of kids are kicking ball at the school yard, do you see people watching the action? No, those who are interrested in the game wants to jump in too.
However, i DO enyoy watching Starcraft matches, to learn from the masters and to watch spectacular moves. There's definitely a market for theese events, perhaps even a bigger market than for minor sports like tennis or pool.
There is most certainly a market for this.
For example, I actually detest Street Fighter III, Third Strike but look at:
The Infamous Daigo Parry
KO versus Daigo
which I admit were some of the greatest gaming footage I had ever seen. Listen to how the audience goes nuts during the entire thing; it was like watching art unravel before your eyes. The most telling thing was that a lot of the people in the audience knew aboslutely nothing about the game, but were going nuts anyways.
I also think a game show like Game Center CX from Japan would work well in the states. They take a comedian who plays through retro games and attempts to beat them before midnight. Arino Shinya's attempt to go through Ghouls and Goblins and his reactions to and comments on the game were pretty hilarious.