Microsoft Makes Push To Get Back Into E-Sports

An anonymous reader writes: In October, Microsoft will publish Halo 5: Guardians, the first game in the series to be developed exclusively for the Xbox One. Microsoft is taking the opportunity to make a big play to become part of the e-sports market. They've announced a Halo competition with $1 million in prizes. As e-sports become more mainstream, and as game streaming has turned into a billion-dollar business, more and more development studios are seeing it as part of their marketing strategy. "When Halo fell out of favor among e-sports players, other games began to take off, often ones that were created with high-level competition in mind and that came from developers that invested heavily in events for professionals. Riot Games has turned League of Legends, its multiplayer online battle arena, into the most watched e-sport in the world, with 40,000 attendees at its finals in Korea last year." Microsoft wants back into that segment, and they're willing to spend big to do so.

Comments

Not with a console they won't.

[ArmoredDragon]

I'm trying to think of what games people play competitively on consoles, and none come to mind. Keyboard and mouse flat out destroys controllers when it comes to competitive play. Sure you'll have the occasional console player swear how much better they do with a controller, but the fact is they'll get trashed if they try to compete against a legit keyboard/mouse user.

Re:Not with a console they won't.

[ArmoredDragon]

They're trying to say their e-penis is bigger.

Ok go read TFS for a second, don't worry, I'll wait.

Did you do so? Good. Now, recall that Microsoft wants to make money here. The money making part of tournaments is that you get spectators to pay to watch. Spectators want to watch skilled players, not people using aim assist on a controller.

How much money do you think T-Ball tournaments make compared to Major League Baseball games? No comparison at all. That said, Microsoft isn't going to make shit if they stick to the T-Ball league of video games, which is exactly what they are doing.

$1 million is a lot? Sounds like not worth it

[GoodNewsJimDotCom]

DOTA 2 once had a 10$ million tournament. Are you telling me one of the richest corporations on the planet couldn't even pony up that much?
Professional sports teams pay single players 10$ million salary just to compete. Add up all the players in a league and you're looking in the billions.

Halo has a small skill curve/ceiling compared to something like Starcraft or League of Legends. In Halo, the difference between getting killed or scoring a kill isn't much. So if someone wanted to go pro with Halo, they'd have to take a lot of risk with them instead of being a lock to win. When skill ceilings are low, there's more random luck involved in who wins. I believe even the best Halo player isn't that much better than the top 100 world wide. So for someone to dedicate a thousand+ hours of practice to become the best Halo 5 player means they're willing to take the risk of not winning in your piddly 1 million dollar tournament. It sounds like a whole lot of investment for a big gamble. Now say you made a 5-10 million dollar tournament, and promised to do this for 4 years straight, then it sounds like something almost worth pursuing. But 1 meelion *finger to lip* is a joke. All it does is attract little kids who can't do math think they're going to be the next pro gamer. If they have an on site tournament like MLG, the travel expenses and hotels of everyone participating is more expensive than the prize pool.