Pro Gaming Network Television Coverage Begins Sunday

The New York Times has an article on a first for pro gamers: network television coverage of a match. Sunday at noon EDT CBS Sports will be airing coverage of the World Series of Videogames. Events will include Guitar Hero II, Fight Night and World of Warcraft 3v3 Arena combat. The article explores some of the challenges of making gaming understandable on television: "The dollars are already quite mainstream. Americans bought about $13 billion worth of video game systems and software last year, more than they spent at the film box office (around $10 billion). Advertisers for Sunday's broadcast include KFC, Intel and the Marines. But for gaming to make it as a major-network TV sport, the big hurdle will be translating a medium that is by its nature meant to be experienced firsthand into a compelling hands-off spectator experience. It is a task that in some ways is no less daunting than that of the early baseball television producers who eventually realized that a camera way out in center field would provide the best view of pitches." Update: 07/28 23:19 GMT by Z : Fixed day of the weekend the show is on.

Comments

oooh, bitter! ...seriously, keep an open mind...

[fantomas]

oooh, somebody had a hard time on school sports days....

Well, seriously, bullying is a significant and traumatic issue, so I do sympathise with you pal if you had a hard time at school. But don't write off all sports. Keep an open mind and maybe you'll find something which works for you, makes you friends, keeps you fit. Plenty of folks do. One of my best mates at school was "the fat kid" - he left to go to university completely hating sports, came back 3 months later having had a go at scuba diving and loved it. 6 months later and the guy was in great shape, active member of the club, was a heck of a lot lighter, and had a great girlfriend.

Just because you don't like traditional school sports, don't write them all off.

Good luck!

Re:oooh, bitter! ...seriously, keep an open mind..

[geminidomino]

Well, seriously, bullying is a significant and traumatic issue, so I do sympathise with you pal if you had a hard time at school. But don't write off all sports. Keep an open mind and maybe you'll find something which works for you, makes you friends, keeps you fit. Plenty of folks do. Not the AC, but one should point out that GP wasn't bashing sports. He was bashing WATCHING OTHER PEOPLE play sports...

Re:Uh, yeah.

[UbuntuDupe]

Hey, I love golf just as much as the next guy (working on getting into a country club).. but IMHO golf will never "make it" as a sport. It's just not entertaining enough to watch. Golf is fun to play, not watch on TV.

In non-troll-speak: Sports are covered so heavily because of inertia. A few people like watching it, enough to justify coverage, and people who don't really care about them watch it because hey, it's on. I don't think gaming will be any different.

Horrible game line up.

[ejito]

Guitar Hero II, Fight Night and World of Warcraft

Guitar hero is not really a competitive game, as players are really just playing against a preset sequence, not eachother. It's impressive for a while, but it's more similar to rodeo than head to head competition. Fight Night is hardly competitor quality, especially for a fighting game. I'm assuming it's on the list because of corporate meddling. They could've at least chose a fighting game actively played in leagues, like Super Smash Brothers. World of Warcraft is not balanced enough nor does it have the gameplay for competitive PVP. PVP might be fun, but at a competitive level, class imbalance (which rotates every patch), UI modding, combat skills (especially engineering), terrain imbalance (no projectile clipping), and itemization all play a large factor at an advanced level. Blizzard can make very competitive RTS, but WoW just isn't even close to that caliber.