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World Series of Video Games Cancelled
Goobergunch writes "The official site for the World Series of Videogames is now indicating that the WSVG, including planned events in Los Angeles, London and Sweden, has been cancelled. The WSVG included competitions for Guitar Hero II, Quake 4, World of Warcraft Arena, as well as Counter-Strike and Warcraft III. From the announcement: 'The continuing challenges of securing adequate revenues to sustain the production of the WSVG's large scale events and television programming, in a very crowded field of competitive gaming leagues, has prompted us to re-evaluate our direction as an organization. Unfortunately, the decision is to cancel the remainder of the WSVG season, as we shift our focus solely to growing our online advertising network of websites, which currently reach seven million users each month. '"
As if thousand of gamers who sucked at sports cried out and where then silenced
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
I kinda give this a "Ah, who cares" vote.
Not in the fashion of "Why is this on Slashdot!!??!?oneone!!" but more of a "watching people play video games is boring" way.
The great thing about video games is that, for the most part, I can wake up at 4 AM and still get my game on. I don't need to go someplace or find people to play them with.
Organized team sports are interesting to the public because it involves the swilling of beer and a bunch of guys out on a field doing something as teams. I'd be hard pressed to get enough people together to play a legal game of baseball or football. Luckily with video games I don't need to worry about it.
And even with a large group of skilled professional athletes there really isn't too much of a thrill in watching someone else play anyway.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Been watching WSVG events on GamePlay HD. I especially enjoy watching the Warcraft 3 games. I think WSVG could have grown more on TV, but they can't exactly count on advertising revenue from television to make back the $$$ they invest on the location, hardware, technical staff, and production costs...what a shame.
I caught an episode about a month ago. The guitar hero battles were really entertaining. For me, it hold the same allure as watching tennis. "holy crap, I can't believe they did that". I think it's harder to see teh expertise of the players in some of the other games though, and consequently it's less engaging. Hopefully, they be reborn as a video podcast of the events..
Here's a link to somene ripping on "Jordan". If you've tried that song, watch in awe...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-XNmJ58Y1c
Why not make it more like the World Series of Poker tour where people show up at a venue and pay a fee that goes towards the total pot and the profit or the organization and they sell the TV rights to some cable network and or go halves on the ad revenue.
But I was all ready to kick butt at Super Mario with my Power Glove!
Eek!
This should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone. The WSVG was insultingly dumbed-down and content-free ("Wow! Was that an ice block?!?"). I'm a semi-serious WoW player, and my friends and I all found their arena coverage to be completely devoid of any meaningful content. I realize that their aim was to attract a wider range of viewers, but "normal people" don't give a rat's ass about competitive videogaming (and probably never will in the US), and people who do care would probably prefer coverage and analysis from people who have actually played the games before.
Just look at the judging methodology for the Guitar Hero competition: ten points each for style, technical correctness and difficulty, each determined by a single judge. Two of the three judges were D-list celebrities who had probably never even played Guitar Hero. The extensive statistics provided by the game after each song were completely ignored in the decision process. The whole thing was structured much more like an episode of Nickelodeon GUTS than a serious competition designed to determine the best player.
The 2:1 commercial-to-programming ratio couldn't have helped, either.
In short, the whole thing was a commercially oversaturated, content-starved mess; I'd like back the hour of my life that I spent watching it, and no one will be the least bit sad to see it go.
There are a number of different but related problems:
On a positive note, there's youtube. Watch the MSL final (with excellent commentary by Klazart) here. A really great match over 5 games that had both great rushes and macro-heavy games.
I don't know whether it would impress anyone who doesn't know anything about starcraft but football broadcasts also don't explain what a blitz is every time one occurs. Even if you don't understand the terms at first, you will still get a feeling for the depth and flow of the game and you'll either learn the terminology over time, or the sport will simply bore you but that's a problem that's not really unique to esports.
IMHO watching baseball is like watching grass grow but the networks don't try to "fix" that by aiming their shows at 6yr olds because that would only lose them lots of existing fans. Soccer tried stuff like that in the US btw. No draws, clock stopping every time there's a foul and of course the all-glitz NY Cosmos. It was a disaster. Despite Beckham, it seems they've learned they're lesson, they try to stay true to the game and cater to soccer fans, instead of trying to wow otherwise disinterested people with fluff.
Taking your viewers and your topic seriously is the key to growing your audience.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage