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Is Gaming Really a Spectator Sport?
njkid1 passed us a link to a GameDaily article on the upcoming DirecTV Championship Game series. There's big prize money at stake, dozens of teams are flocking to the banner of the event, and promoters are talking the event up as something that can't be missed. All of this begs the question: Is competitive gaming a spectator sport? Is the culture of videogaming conducive to mass-market entertainment? Will Counter-Strike matches draw enough of a crowd to maintain advertiser interest at future events? What's your read on this new entry into American gamer culture?
I don't know how big the market is, but I'd watch stuff like this. It would be nice if you could watch some pros and learn from how they play.
I don't really watch any sport, I find it rather boring to watch.
Sport is something you should do, right? Well if not, then sure, gaming is a spectator sport. Some will like it, other won't.
Golden Tee golf has been on espn!
Really, how different is this from traditional sports? You're watching people compete in a game you enjoy who are better than you are, and that makes it exciting. As to if it has a mass-market appeal, that is harder to say. There are a lot of video games out there as compared to how many different professional sports there are, so it has to come down to a few popular games to get mass penetration.
Keep in mind many professional sports have rules tailored to make the game exciting for fans. I totally expect a successful video game to do the same eventually.
Honestly, I think presentation matters far more than most people would ever let on ...
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If you only looked at the XFL you'd probably assume that there was no market for professional football in North America
I think (know) you could make 'professional' videogame playing a spectator event but the important part is that the type of game you play must be understandable by the majority of people who have very limited understanding of games, must be fair, and must remain fast paced. I could be wrong, but I suspect that if Blizzard had the option that a person could be a spectator to the Battlegrounds you would see quite a few people watching for reasons other than cheating/
I don't know if it's as much a question of if a game of any type is a spectator sport but more of if the type of person interested in a certain of game is a spectator.
From my experience, I'm not a spectator. Not to say I can't appreciate a good play/move in a sporting/gaming event but the idea of actually watching an entire game doesn't do the trick for me.
Beyond video gaming I've also played paintball and skateboarded for several years. I can't stand to watch either of these. I don't think it has to do with the watchability of the game/sport but rather my ability to watch and not do.
Oddly enough these activities have low draws in TV ratings. Maybe the type of person who skates, plays paintball or plays video games just isn't the same type of person to sit down with a sixer of Bud Light and scream at a TV set.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
There's spectaters for about anything. And sponsors will follow.
People watch bowling. Pool. Pro Paintball. Once late at night I caught a demolition style "race" of trucks pulling campers (the drivers had sponsors).
It doesn't really take much of an audience to get sponsors. The key to lining them up is for the event organizers to make it clear to the sponsors who will be seeing their ads. If the spectaters interests and the sponsors are in agreement, then the deal works. I'd bet one could find sponsors for snail racing because there will be someone watching.
So I see no reason why computer games can't be either.
It's not.
We can argue semantics all day long, but any activity you can perform just as well in with a rigourous training regimen of cheez-its and mountain dew, is not a sport in any way, shape or form.
PS2 is not a sport, bowling is not a sport, and golf is not a sport.
Only the lamest of the lame want to watch some guy play video games.
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... do you know how annoying it is to have someone looking over your shoulder offering advice you don't need or criticizing your every move? :)
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We'll fish that honkin steamer out of the gene pool eventually.
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I think you are right, and I think there is another aspect involved, the social aspect. This is one reason that any new sport will have a tough time attracting an audience. As the audience itself is part of the draw, if you don't have one, you'll have a tough time getting one. Watching sports gives you something to talk about. Watching sports with friends is a fun social bonding experience. Going to a game gives people that comforting "I'm an accepted part of the herd" feeling.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
PBS, I think, ran a documentary recently that explored the South Korean video game competition phenomenom.
What they kinda found is that you need to know the rules and nuances of the game to appreciate watching it.
If you don't know that, you can't appreciate what's happening before your eyes.
I'm a big sports fan and while I know the rules of practically any competition sport enough to understand what's going on, I have no clue about the finer points of the sports apart from the few sports I watch frequently. The sports I don't know enough about I don't really enjoy watching especially if I'm with someone who does know the finer points. The whole experience just goes right above my head while my friend is hollering about some magical play that just happened.
The same applies to watching video games. I'm a relatively good racing game player and I most definitely enjoy watching the great racers compete against each other, because I "get" how they race so fast. I'm not very good at Halo 2, and I just can't get into watching competitive Halo 2 matches, because I just don't see what's so great about the performance of some of the top players.
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I think gaming has potential as a spectator sport, but I'm not too confident in the ability for it to be presented well. Up till now the only show I know of that ever tried to make a spectator sport out of gaming was Arena and they did a horrible job of it. The matches were always cut down to a couple of minutes, meaning everything tended to be very disjointed.
I'm not sure FPS is the ideal genre for a spectator sport either. The number of players and the limitation of the first-person view make it tough for the audience to really keep track of what is happening and where all the players are.
RTS games may make better viewing. They tend to last longer and the overhead view, coupled with the slower pace should make it easier for an audience to follow what is going on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElsA0rSGqjc
One way this could work is to have some damn good in-game cameramen. Otherwise, the audience is stuck watching an unattractive geek sit down playing with a keyboard/mouse combo. Hardly exciting. Yea, i've seen plenty of player POV shots and "surveillance" cameras that track the in-game action, but if they were to actively follow the action with some dynamic camera angles it they might have something.
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... You got to World 8-2, now let me play!
It's more of a workout. Although sometimes I get my son bringing over 4 or 5 teens and only two or three can play at a time, so I guess that means 2 are spectators.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
With football, baseball, hockey, etc., I either lack the talent, equipment, playing area, or teammates to frequently play those sports. That's not to say that people only watch these sports because they themselves cannot play them, but imagine if everyone had access to an NFL arena and a half-decent team...and you were 15 years younger with a solid throwing arm. Now, would you rather watch or play football?
:) But we're all in the same room, drinking and cursing when we lose a level. It just wouldn't be the same if I watched the match on television from hundreds of miles away.
Why would I want to sit around watching other people play Counter-Strike when I can go into the other room, fire up the PC, and play the game myself? I can watch the best players duke it out after I've been killed and sent to spectator mode. I imagine gamers would initially be the largest audience for these things...and gamers want to play games.
Gaming *can* be a spectator sport; I love watching my friends play games that I suck at
Most of the contest games are FPS and it's difficult to show the "action".
In football you are given a bird's eye view of the playing field. You can see strategy, movements of other players and the objective.
In a video game you see impossible to read chat logs, the manic movements of the player and at times the flying ghost spectator mode that clips with a FOV of ~100 degrees.
It's unacceptable. I've tried to watch a game. The announcers are pathetic too but that has little to do with the viewing aspect of the contest.
I watch most of the sporting events except hockey. I don't understand it and it moves too fast. I'm sure any non-geek feels about the same watching a live FPS contest.
Also, FFS, POKER has been made entertaining!!! How? Stats and coverage. I don't see it happening in a game unless it's some "The Island" Xbox tournement.
I wouldn't mind watching other people play. Since I can relate to the action that's happening on-screen, it would make the experience all the more enjoyable.
With CPL and MLG quickly growing in popularity as they have, I see no reason why gaming couldnt make the jump to a more publicly accepted level. There have been specials popping up all around featuring popular gamers, and how they are making the move to the next level of popularity. The major paper in my area published a front page story about Walshy and Final Bosses winning the MLG. who knows if it will succeed, much of that lies on the presentation and acceptance of broadcasting companies... but i think the sport as a whole is ready.
Golf: yes
Softball: yes
Bowling: yes
Hockey: no
Jacks: yes
I am not a crackpot.
A lot has to do with how the event is presented to the person's interested.
1. Firstly, you really need people that are interested in the sport. If there are 5 people that still play doom, it may not be the best candidate for a media event.
2. Once you have a loyal throng of fanbois just waiting to absorb all the godliness of the event, you still need to present the event in a way that attracts them to it.
A very classic example of how NOT to present sports coverage was when Fox started to broadcast hockey. If there are any Hockey fans out there, you know what kind of unmitigated disaster that was. The camera work was bad, the glowing puck was really annoying and it just didn't have the same feel that more traditional hockey broadcasters had already learned to do right (at least in Canada, eh?).
Find a format that people seem to like. Be flexible in the beginning allowing for glaring problems that fans may have. Once you get that winning format, tighten it up so that people watching from event to event will feel comfortable with how the program flows. This will go a long way in encouraging existing viewers to tune in again, and it allows those viewers to effectively talk about whats going on without them having to second guess themselves.
3. Choose your medium carefully
Can anyone here see a problem with video game championhips being broadcasted over the internet? Wouldn't one assume that it is: 1. cheaper, 2. reachable by nearly 100% of anyone that would care to watch it anyways.
Just putting it on the idiot box doesn't automatically make the event any more attractive to watch. I tuned into the spike VG awards one time and I couldn't watch 5 minutes of it before being so repulsed I had to kill it. It just seems that the plain text end-of-year awards on web pages holds my attention longer than their monkey show.
Thats about all I have to say about that. In conclusion, yes it -can- be a good idea, but make damn sure that what you're selling is something that your fans would actually watch.
Bye!
I think the biggest show-stopper currently is simply that games are not designed to watch. With first person shooters you end up with watching the game out of the perspective of a single player, so you have zero overview of what is actually happening, having the moderator switching camera perspetive to other players increases confusing even more and the simplistic overview map that you got in games like CounterStrike is totally boring to watch. Now if you watch a demo inside the game engine itself this is not that much a problem, since you are the one doing the switching, but for a TV broadcast where somebody else does the switching, it is simply not very well suited at all.
With RTS games the situation doesn't look much better, while the top-down view clears up some confusing, only having a tiny view on the whole map adds enough back into the mix to ruin the fun. That the minimap of the game and the units itself end up being a unwatchable blurry mess on a TV screen doesn't help either.
So while all this isn't an issue for gamer, since they can just watch the demo recordings in the engine itself, it makes games quite unsuitable for broadcast. That games have quite complicated rules makes things only even more complicated.
For video games to become a spectator sport they simply have to be designed to be more watchable. What might also help is if the demo playback would become easier, i.e. say you could download them on XBoxLive without a need to buy the game itself or keep it manually at the right patch level that is able to actually play the demo, just click&watch.
I've watched more videos from that Speed Demos Archive site than I'd care to admit. Most of them are boring as can be, but some games are a blast to watch even when the person playing isn't within earshot of your taunts and inane suggestions.
General qualities of a good spectator game: the observer is familiar with the game, there're multiple ways to reach the goal (whether or not this is as intended), and there's a substantial difference between the performance of an average player and of a great player. Sometimes it's obvious that a game doesn't require skill so much as it just requires you to play it over and over again until you memorize all the obstacles. Where's the fun in that?
I kind of agree with this article. Gaming is very exciting when playing, it can be a huge bore to watch. In fact when I die in Counter-Strike that's the one thing I dread is when I die I gotta watch these other guys play until the round is over. However, the one major exception to my opinion is Pump It Up. Pump It Up is essentially a Korean version of DDR but instead of 4-panels, they have 5-panels. Anyways once every November the company who makes the game has a world tournament called the World Pump It Up Festival where players from around the world come to compete for large amounts of cash ($50k+) anyways, the two major divisions (Speed and Freestyle) are the most entertaining things in my mind. Some of the freestyles are so creative and speed players are fun to watch because watching someone do something so effortlessly that you struggle so much with is insane (I play too as a Speed player...I'm decent, but no where near the level of these guys). So honestly it's a toss up with me. I guess it depends on the game I'm watching
...This would need to have software support, I mean, actually moving into game programming and creating Spectator modes where, for instance, in an FPS you could get some sort of environment cameras that let you see players positioning themselves and what happens next, you could have overall stats been displayed which wouldn't be available to actual player view. I know I do get a kick from Lineage II videos of castle sieges and such. It's really good to watch and figure out strategy and the whole chaotic action all around. A true Spectator mode for this kind of stuff showing who's winnning, who died, giving a general view of the battlefield would be friggin' awesome to watch. But it is got to be rendered by the game itself, I don't want to see a guy hitting keys on a computer. Apart from this I think most games could be turned into spectator events.
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NHK plays hours of Japanese chess matches on Sunday mornings in Japan, and if that is enough action and entertainment to keep it on the air, then I don't see why a televised FPS or even RTS match couldn't be successful if properly executed. The Wii also adds a whole new dimension to be "spectated[SIC]."
I've done competitive gaming for Counter-Strike and Counter-Strike: Source (currently in the Cyberathlete Amateur League Invite division for CS:S), and I believe that its proven that gaming can be a spectator sport. I've watched big matches via SourceTV, seen them broadcasted with commentators over the Internet through sites like http://www.egln.net/, http://www.source-radio.net/, and http://www.fragtv.net/ and have been seen spectators in the triple digits connected to the same medium to watch that match. However, I know that almost all of these are gamers, and most play that specific game itself. While that's somewhat true of real spectator sports (almost all sport spectators have played one sport or another in a league, and a lot of football fans at one time played football), it not nearly as extreme. Thus, there's a lot larger market for real life sports. Not to mention that watching real life sports can be social, such as going out to a ballpark with friends or even watching the big game around a TV. Watching e-sports over the net on your computer, even sitting in a voice chat with your friends who also are watching, isn't all that social. Also, you usually have to be pretty involved in that game to truly appreciate the depths of a team and the skill of the players. On the other hand, gaming has many of the same fundamentals of what make popular pro sports good spectator sports. Take a game such as Counter-Strike: Source at the top levels. You have a strat caller (quarterback) that calls plays at the start of a round and audibles during a round, you have AWPers (flashy like homerun hitters), assault riflers (get the job done, like grinders in hockey or like playmakers that set things up), and even managers that handle all the out of game operations and sponsorships. Teams also need strong teamwork, chemistry, and a good playbook to be great at the top level, just like pro sports teams won't do well with just a collection of skill (i.e. Detroit Red Wings). The potential is there for gaming to become spectator oriented, but due to the limited scope and diversity (Quake isn't anything like Starcraft and likely won't share many spectators) it won't become huge like real life sports. Even without massive spectators, professional gaming will exist due to the ability of sponsors to concentrate on some pretty specific demographics. If you look at current gaming sponsors, its pretty easy to get a big return on a small investment advertising your hardware, new games, delivery food, energy drinks, LAN center, etc. to gamers and their spectators.
www.speeddemosarchive.com recently posted a run of Deus Ex: Invisible War. It makes the game look semi-entertaining to watch as it short-circuts portions of the map, dodges through large number of enemies, and throws objects at AI players that simply stand around doing nothing.
Tasvideos.org recently posted a batch of videos.
Granted, these are single player games, but that doesn't prevent anybody from not enjoying them.
Yes. If they're smart, they'll watch a few WSOP episodes on ESPN and take notes.
Mic the players. Have commentators that have a clue about strategy (though the ESPN commentator's don't always have the most brilliant poker insight). And of course, "human interest" stories about the players can help too.
I'm sure a lot of you will relate to the following story:
Remember when you were little and you got taken to an arcade? Remember looking at all the machines and having no money to put in to actually play the game? So what did you do?
That's right, you sat there at the machine, pretending to play the game, all the while as the "Insert Coin" icon flashed at you, heck, you'd even pretend to mash buttons when the high-score list came up!
My point is, in retrospect: pretending to mash the buttons was fun and all, but did it match the thrill of actually playing the game yourself?
Honestly, now. If a non-participant has a way to watch the game and enjoys doing so then it's a spectator sport. Some games even have spectator modes built-in, like Guild Wars.
I watched the ad on my tivo, it looks like complete crap. I'm sorry, but they were advertising dead or alive as their biggest game. sorry, but I'm not going to care about second-rate fighters.
and then fatality came on and I decided "yeah, no." fatality is the perfect example of what I don't want video games to turn into.
I have nothing against gaming tournaments, but I want them to stay at gaming conventions (like PAX), I don't want them televised. I don't see any way for it to be televised without it turning into a mainstream marketed-the-hell-out-of crap-fest. and that's the last thing I want for gaming.
If they can make a fucking card game a spectator's sport then surely watching video games can be a spectator's sport.
Depending on the game, there are some people I prefer to watch than play the game myself. A friend of mine is a killing machine in Halo - I'm good, but I've watched him play for hours online and not die. That's good TV.
But I'm not going to watch someone roll their Katamari into the same wall five times in a row without bitch slapping the controller out of their hands.
Likewise I'm not going to watch someone build a city. Nor am I going to watch someone ride their pet tiger across a green landscape.
It has to be fast paced and action packed. First person shooters with good viewing perspectives, real time strategies with massive battles, possibly even head to head puzzle games, but they'll all need constant stats, and really aggressive players.
How about the lumberjack competitions? It's a guy chopping down a tree. WTF. But it's how it's presented and all the information they give with it.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
I forget what it was called, but I definitely remember enjoying some of these when I watched G4/TechTV. The channel is going down the tubes, and this wasn't the best that they had, but one thing that made it bearable, or even interesting, was actual interviews with the "athletes", and breaking it down into more of a play-by-play kind of thing, rather than trying to do it in realtime.
It's worth noting that this is exactly what HLTV was for -- way less bandwidth, and it'd look way better rendered locally on my 1600x1200 LCD than on a standard-def satellite feed. The downside is, of course, less opportunity for, say, ads and rambling commentators, but I bet you could come up with a better way of doing this, even allow a global chatroom for spectators, without lagging the players, and without preventing someone from hooking it up to a TV feed.
Then again, if I'm connected to a server, and in Counter-Strike already, I probably just want to play, not watch someone else. That's why the play-by-play was fun -- you get all the awesomeness (impossible headshots, intense firefights, precision nades) with none of the waiting and watching things like the agonizing hunt through BlackHawk Down for that last Terrorist who keeps sniping the CTs, when you know exactly where he's hiding... I don't imagine that I'd ever want to just watch an entire match, instead of play.
The reason this is different than "real" sports, I guess, is that a real sport makes a huge distinction between plopping your ass on the couch with some chips and some friends to watch the Superbowl and actually being out there on the field in cleats and padding, in the rain and snow and mud, charging into people. Gaming, however, brings it much closer to home -- the difference between watching Halo and playing Halo, from a personal comfort / exercise perspective, is the difference between sitting on the couch with a TV remote and sitting on the couch with an Xbox 360 controller, and the feel of a bunch of guys playing Halo together is a lot like a bunch of guys watching the Superbowl together, and still nothing like a bunch of guys actually going outside to play.
So, it will be MUCH harder for them to make this worth watching, but it is possible. Especially games that are NOT Counter-Strike -- there are plenty of games I can think of where you could have incredible signature tricks and combos that would be just as much fun to watch as they would be to try playing. Even other FPSes -- Halo or UT2004. Picture UT2004, Bombing Run: You charge into the big, open area in Anubis, launch the ball towards their goal, then take out their whole team with InstaGib before picking up the ball and scoring. Picture Halo: Slide into enemy base in a Warthog, crushing one enemy, then jump off, stick it just as they try to take it... Counter-Strike just doesn't have anything close to that visually fun.
Then again, people do actually watch football...
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I've loved watching others game for almost as long as I've enjoyed gaming. I used to watch my cousin play Super Mario Bros 2, and I was enthralled. You can identify styles of play and even predict what they're going to do next. I guess it depends on the person if they're going to like watching the game. To me, there has to be an element of exploration or creativity for the game to be exciting. If its a seriously competitive game, I want to play myself because I can't stand watching amatuers make mistakes.... though if its a game that's more chance based than skill based I'm less inclined to want to take the controls.
God spoke to me.
qualify as a sport either.
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
Are you going to be saying that boxing, tennis, and baseball aren't sports either? I will have to disagrii. Or are you like people's conception of Ernest Hemingway, to whom a quotation is often attributed that mountain climbing, bullfighting, and motor racing are the only sports?
This question of whether spectator gaming is a sport reminds me of my years in high school when cheerleading was considered a sport but marching band wasn't.
Honestly, why does it matter? Are there spectators watching people get their game on? Do gamers' heart rates increase in intense gaming moments? Do they begin to sweat heavily during matches? Don't they train for hours on end?
Personally, it might as well be a sport. But then again, I was also a skilled tuba player in my high school band and thought running around the field with it on my shoulder was a sport, too.
It's all based on perspectives.
You claim that hockey has no ball therefore it's not a sport. You meant ice hockey, right? Street hockey uses a ball or a puck containing ball bearings.
I believe some Magic the Gathering Championship was on one of the ESPN channels last year. I can't imagine that being particularly interesting to many people (then again, I'm not a fan of the game). If Magic can make its way on TV, then certainly some heated matches of Starcraft or Counter-Strike could
-- jchenx
Gamer Revolution. Part 2 of 2 is on CBC tonight at 8pm.
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. hmmm
Seriously though, what sport isn't a spectator sport? There will always be the players and the spectators with each having varying rolls towards the outcome of the game. The question that should have originally been asked is if gaming was popular enough for people to have a want to be spectators at all. That is the true test of a sport's popularity, whether or not people will like it enough to not only play it but also enjoy watching it being played.
"RTS games may make better viewing. They tend to last longer and the overhead view, coupled with the slower pace should make it easier for an audience to follow what is going on."
Then they're going to love Nexus which is more about strategy and tactics, instead of resource management, and base building.
Why are we still debating this? This question is so 1999. It's not a spectator sport because there aren't enough people who are knowledgable enough to make it profitable to televise on a regular basis. Yes, I know about South Korea and Starcraft but we're in a Western context.
This is the NFL, which stands for "Not For Long" if you keep making those bulls*** calls.
I remember a friend of mine in college watching my games of Magic Carpet religiously even though he never played himself.
Can video games be a spectator sport? Absolutely. Will they draw enough audience to justify advertising costs? Who knows?
I don't want to watch *people* play video games. We all know what that looks like. If there's others out there who are like me, I certainly don't want to HEAR what they sound like while playing either.
... when I'm continually one of the top 6 out of 64 players, could I be good enough to be playing on that screen?
:> :> :> :> Can the three guys who are dead in game, hold off the 5 from the other team while their team finishes the final guy and defuses the bomb???
What I want to see is the game and the skill of the players playing the game.
Do you want to know how to turn it into a real spectator sport? When someone comes up with a way to holographically reproduce the level on a field so that you watch the video game taking place from a wide angle in the seats, I think you'll see a bigger interest.
When.. if ever.. that happens.
Right now, I'm happy to watch videos once in a while mostly because these are games I play and I want to know
I imagine the excitement of *being there* is less than being at a real sporting event. People generally don't get hurt when 12 guys sit down to play counter-strike. Of course, they could always give them real glocks. Then it's just a question of who's going to go postal first
Anything can be a spectator sport if there is competition and people willing to watch it.
If you aren't quite sure about the presentation, you can follow these links and check out the archives of matches played from Counter Strike:Source. The matches are broadcasted live through a video stream, with a cameraman operating the viewpoints and a shoutcaster giving the play by plays. It's actually quite interesting.
http://www.source-radio.net/ - http://www.fragtv.net/ - http://www.egln.net/
I think it actually could collect a following of spectators, and easily capture the channel surfer's attention. Counter Strike follows the same kind of formula as most popular sports. For instance, it has easy to comprehend goals and play. Football is easy to get into, for example. In CS it is just five versus five, two bombsites and the terrorists have limited time to plant the bomb and defend it or kill all the counter-terrorists. Easy to get into, and like football, you can begin to appreciate the intricacies of skilled players and team's stragies, or just enjoy a cool headshot.
Check out the links, some neat stuff there.
Is a bunch of guys kicking a ball around really a spectator sport? Is a bunch of guys driving cars really a spectator sport?
Is a bunch of guys skating (whether quickly, gracefully, or into the boards) really a spectator sport?
Is a couple of guys hitting each other with pillows tied to their fists really a spectator sport?
Is a bunch of guys sitting around a table playing cards really a spectator sport?
Is a bunch of guys playing video games really a spectator sport?
If people watch, then it's a "spectator sport" in the colloquial sense (the definition of "sport' notwithstanding).
http://outcampaign.org/
Most sports have an area of focus. If there's a ball, the area immediately surrounding the ball is all you need to look at at any given time. Capture the flag would be easy to get good shots of. Other games would best be watched afterwards, when someone's gone over the game, picking the best angles for everything that happened, prettying it up for the audience. Boring? Football is a few seconds play, a minute watching them walk slowly back and stand around doing nothing, repeat. On the other hand this means you can grab a drink quickly w/o missing anything many times throughout a game. Bomberman could be good for deathmatches, or Powerstone where the field is relatively limited. Contra and Super C were a blast to match, constantly different powerups keeping the game interesting. Any begin to end game would need new levels each week. Games that featured high quirk factors could appeal to surprisingly large audiences. Turn the corner and a friendly Gecko offers you car insurances. The occasional player who stops to gawk gets creamed. Players shooting each other might be reduced to a pie in the face of a mascot, who if not defused loudly trails the player around, staying behind the player until someone else disposes of it. If FPSs were used, they might have to be edited for mass audiences, removing some of the more vulgar moments / taunts. As much as Tiger Woods was griped at over having mouthed a curse word, the average FPS run is NOT ready for prime time.
While it may be conducive to spectators, I can with a fair certainty reply gaming is NOT a sport.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Some games would translate well as spectator sports... Quake 3 or other competitive FPS games can definitely be spectator sports, the camera's (and levels) just need to be re-worked to deal with the angles, shots, and following the players.
Many mod makers for such games have already done it. Some games would be difficult to translate due to the nature of the game (Starcraft, other RTS games). But games like UT2004, Quake, et, and other similar games would translate OK. Racing games might translate alright also if the camera could be re-worked and probably be a hell of a lot less boring the Nascar. Need for speed Most wanted anyone?
It'd be interesting to experiment thats for sure.
I remember being young enough to sit in an elementary school classroom, and watching a Pac-Man stand-up arcade game competition televised on TV. The announcer actually did a great job with it, and it even had slo-mo replays.
I know I wasn't the only kid who was riveted.
Spectator-sport gaming is nearly a successful concept nearly a generation old; it just requires producers to accept the "geek" of it and move on.
Technological competence assures no more intelligence than any other form, just more elitism.
There's a ton of FPS games that have free-floating spectator options. Just get a couple of guys, train 'em up so they know the levels and the type of action they'll be encountering, and bam, you've got your main views. Everything after that is bonus, you just need a director organizing things who knows what he's doing.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!