Slashdot Mirror
How Pro Gaming Will Change World of Warcraft
1up has a piece looking at the impact that commercial support of WoW Arena teams might have on the game. There are already two teams backed with corporate money, both pulled from prominent PvP guilds in the Bloodlust battlegroup. "It's a challenge to pick teams to sponsor in WoW's PvP: 'The same team that may be ranked #2 or #3 in one Battlegroup may be ranked #1 in another," said Stephen Schoder of Check Six. "this makes the proposition of scouting out the right team more difficult than most other competitive eSports. The arena system in World of Warcraft is much more complicated than the simplistic FPS and RTS games in terms of being able to immediately pick up on what is going on.'"
Yes, because "pro gamers" add soooo much to the industry. This is just an instance of advertisers being told to fuck off by the game companies about ads in their games. It's mildly ironic since they'd be crucified by the same people for allowing it, who are accepting money, and other stuff like plane tickets & such to wear an "innocent" shirt to an event, advertise in the game for them, etc. The whole notion of professional gamers is a load of tripe. Theres only one type of professional in the videogame industry, and it's the people slaving away making the games. Everybody else just a consumer, or mercenary for hire looking to offer a pound of flesh.
Burn karma burn...