Pro Video Game Leagues — Another Economic Casualty

Anonymusing writes "Not long ago, professional video gamer Emmanuel Rodriguez earned a base $30K salary plus prize winnings in the Championship Gaming Series. However, with the economy suffering, sponsors like DirecTV and News Corporation are backing out, leaving Rodriguez with a more typical job for a 23-year-old: store clerk. After the demise of the CPL and the Championship Gaming Series last year, the only major pro gamer league left is Major League Gaming, though it expects to turn a profit this year — some of its players earn more than six figures from the $1 million in prizes given throughout the season, while others are putting off college to work on their gaming careers." A recent story in the LA Times discusses how the games industry slow-down is hitting game developers hard as well. Conversely, the used game market is seeing significant growth — it'll be interesting to see what publishers learn from this.

Comments

What will they learn?

[Evil_Medic1]

Probably...
"The used game market is canibalizing our sales, they must be stopped!"

Re:What will they learn?

[Stepnsteph]

What they SHOULD learn is that they need to lower their #&@%ing prices. We're not talking rocket science here: People buy used games because they're - gasp! - not $60 or more. $30 to $40 is a far more realistic price range for games, and thus that's what most people are going to pay. Basic economics is a little too difficult for these people though. They'll just panic and blame used games for "cannibalizing their sales", or go on blaming piracy, or make some other inane excuse.

Re:What will they learn?

[lgw]

The White House *has* actually considered capping CEO pay in *all* publically held companies. I don't know how seriously this was considered, but the GPP isn't just crazy. I was quite surprised at how seriously the "let's make veterans pay for medical care for their war wounds, that will save money!" idea was taken by the current administration (with even Pelosi roundly criticizing it), so nothing would surprise me.

My 3 guesses

[click2005]

Conversely, the used game market is seeing significant growth -- it'll be interesting to see what publishers learn from this.

1. That future games will be a 2Mb executable that downloads all the game content.
2. They need to charge more for games
3. Piracy is to blame.

Pizza always tastes better the next day too

[Anonymous Coward]

Conversely, the used game market is seeing significant growth -- it'll be interesting to see what publishers learn from this.

Clearly they need to go straight to the "used" market. It's like "straight to DVD" in movies.

what will publishers learn

[CannonballHead]

used game market is seeing significant growth -- it'll be interesting to see what publishers learn from this.

Ooo oo oo, I know, pick me! Publishers will learn that they should publish used games! ... hm, wait...

Sports Celebrities

[Aladrin]

He's just a sports celebrity. That's all. You don't hear anyone crying because nobody can get sponsors for curling, do you?

If people wanted to watch other people play video games, the economy would have very little effect on his life.

Though, honestly, I've never been sure why people want to watch other people play any other sport, either.

Re:Sports Celebrities

[ptelligence]

That has absolutely nothing to do with why I watch women's beach volleyball.

what publishers learn from this

[moose_hp]

[...] Conversely, the used game market is seeing significant growth â" it'll be interesting to see what publishers learn from this.

That DRM is good and they should disallow the selling of used games.

What? they were supposed to learn that their bussiness model can be better? that most new games cost way too much? that is not required to have a great studio spending millions of dollars to make a great game (World of Goo comes to mind, their "studio" was pretty much any coffe shop with free wi-fi)?

I may be wrong...

What they'll learn?

[drsquare]

Perhaps that in a recession people cut back on luxuries, and that a computer game is less important than a mortgage repayment.

No surprises there

[godfra]

The problem with competitive gaming is that it's more exciting to play the game than it is to watch someone else, even if they are way better than you.

The way to keep people interested is to involve them. Simply presenting video gaming in the same manner as a football match isn't really enough.

Re:No surprises there

[evilNomad]

You must be an expert, because the users, more than 200.000 unique a month, on my site that is dedicated to broadcasting Counter-Strike matches, sure beg to differ with your conclusion..

A little help

[Useful Wheat]

To be honest, I've never really understood how the pro gaming leagues really made any money. I understand that sponsors will give money to anything (re: Pizza hut advertising on a NASA rocket http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=2202), but this is no excuse. At the very most I'm indifferent about how well other people play the games I play, and I'm pretty sure most of my friends are the same way. The economy is just a useful scapegoat in this situation. Let's take a survey: How many of you enjoy watching other people play video games? How many of you have dismissed players that dominate you as having spent way too much time playing video games? What's your favorite kind of cheese? I'm partial to those Kraft American Singles.

Re:A little help

[NigelT]

I can see how you might find it hard to understand video games as a spectator sport...but usually, The people watching are avid gamers themselves, they know the mechanics of the game involved and at least in my experience, enjoy watching others demonstrate their ability, or sometimes inability to do well in whatever the game of choice may be. Nevermind the whole competition aspect of it...

Obligatory Penny Arcade Comic

[Yvan256]

Ad Infinitum.

Short career

[HalAtWork]

Wow, that's a pretty short career for this kid...

Digital download FTW!

[EWAdams]

If the retailers aren't careful, they'll kill off their own source of supply. Used games are a big win for them and a big win for the consumer, and a big loss for the publishers. If the retailers drive the publishers to digital distribution ONLY, they won't have anything left to sell.

You'll notice that major bookstores don't sell used books, only new ones.

Within 20 years games may become a service like cable TV, not a product you buy and take home.

WSV

[Jethro]

I wonder if I can start a professional World's Smallest Violin league...

Developing story

[lupinstel]

In light of this news EA Sports has decided to cancel their new game "Major League Gaming - The Game 2K9".

Re:The publishers didn't much care.

[2short]

"People would go out of their way to enter tournaments even though they knew even if they won first place, it wouldnt pay for itself. They played because it was fun and they enjoyed it."

If it didn't pay for itself, you weren't a pro. That's not meant as a slam, just a definition.

Times have changed, but not prices

[Jabbrwokk]

Damn. I used up my mod points already. You make a good point which companies are aware of, they're just too greedy to change. We're paying prices which have been the same for ages, from the days when gaming was a niche hobby and there were fewer copies of games created (which by the magic of supply and demand means they were probably more expensive to make). I remember eagerly shelling out $80 CAD for the first Dark Forces PC game the day it was released. That was unusual - a new release price was about $60, which continues to this day.

Pricing for console games is a little less obvious but I think it's pretty similar to PC game pricing. I remember Atari 2600 games costing about $10-20 (a lot of money for a kid in the 1980s, especially if you save up only to find out your new game is a real shitburger) Nintendo games costing about $50 (an AWFUL lot of money in the late 1980s) and today a new release on any console is $50-70. Factor in inflation and the cost is probably about the same as it's always been.

But even though the cost of making games has increased, the cost of distributing them has dropped drastically. Stamping out DVDs costs pennies and electronic distribution costs even less. I still like getting a physical copy of a game - especially when the publishers put goodies like a special manual or cloth map or figurine in the box - but I would certainly sacrifice that if it meant distribution models like Steam or WiiWare would drive down prices to a more affordable range. I like Steam and WiiWare, but I only buy Steam games on weekend deals (STALKER for $5, w00t) and only use WiiWare for something I really think is worth full price. Electronic distribution needs to be $5-10 cheaper than box copies, IMO.

Re:Times have changed, but not prices

[DerekLyons]

We're paying prices which have been the same for ages

Which is actually a pretty good deal considering how other prices have risen in the same time frame, including the cost to develop a game.
 
 

You make a good point which companies are aware of, they're just too greedy to change

Why *should* they change? Demand for games is largely (though not completely) inelastic - dropping the price doesn't result in an equivalent increase in sales.

I beg to differ

[chrisG23]

I like watching competetive starcraft matches much more than playing it. In South Korea, there are 12 professional starcraft teams of 7-14 members each, that play one another in the team pro-league. On top of that there are 3 single player tournament leagues (OSL - Ongamenet Starleague, MSL - MBC Starleague, and GomTV Invitational) that run pretty much concurrently. The games are televised, the best players make a decent living when you take their team base salary + tournament winnings + sponsorships into account (6 figure salaries for the better ones) and the level of play is unbelievable, because they have to practice 8-12 hours a day to keep their skills at a competitive level.

You can check out english broadcasts of games at gomtv.net as they hired an American to do live English commentary of their tournaments. There is a nice archive of games. However the Gomtv tournament is newer and not the best quality wise(as in the best players focus their practice on the other tournaments and their team proleague events). There are fans on youtube that take the korean broadcasts of games and tournaments and dub themselves over the korean commentary. Check out the youtube user account "violetak" or "klazartsc" if interested, there are more than a dozen more other people doing regular commentary and uploading to youtube, mostly of the Korean scene as it is superior, but also of the "foreign" scene (which in this case means any player not residing in Korea).