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Does Professional Gaming Have a Future?
mr_sifter writes "Three years ago, celebrity gamers such as Fatal1ty were bagging millions in prizes, and TV channels were queuing up to broadcast games on TV. Professional gaming looked set for the big time. It never happened, and in the current economic crisis, sponsors and media organizations are cutting costs, resulting in the closure of many pro gaming competitions (as we recently discussed) and a down-scaling in prize money. This feature looks at whether pro gaming can bounce back, and whether it will always be a PC sport, or if pro gaming on consoles is the future."
It's just a marketing tool by PR companies. As soon as they find a better way to sell games, they'll drop it like a hot brick.
A little background about myself: I spent the better part of my teens and early 20's playing at a high competitive level in games like Quake and Counter-Strike. I've won semi-major events; I was even on a few teams with notable CPL/WCG winners. You could say that I was right on the cusp of becoming a pro gamer.
There are a few reasons that I didn't go "pro" like a budding career and the fact that only the very cream of the crop players actually made enough money at the time to consider pro gaming a worthwhile endeavor. I knew I wasn't the best player around, and carting myself around to places like the CPL to finish in the bottom half of the top 10 or top 5 didn't make any sense to me. Working a steady job and earning a living from 9-5, 5 days a week, did.
Back then, I watched a lot of demos of other players and teams. You know what? I hated it. It felt like homework to me. When I attended lans, I rarely watched or was interested in spectating matches.
Why? Because gaming, especially at the highest levels, is way more fun when you are actually playing. Gaming, to me, is all about the adrenaline rush that you get when you're storming a base, or grabbing quad damage, or fighting back to win a round when it's 1v3. Spectating, to me, is for losers. Spectating is what I did back in high school when I lost a round of Street Fighter II and had to sit and wait for my turn in a rotation of friends.
I have probably said it here before, but it bears repeating. Pro gaming relies on sponsorship which, in turn, relies on spectators. And gaming is a is a poor spectator 'sport', or at the best, a niche market.