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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.
Someone has to make this comment, and it might as well be me. I hate the name "E-sports." Can we just call it what it is, competitive video games? I mean, I get it, you want to sound all grown up and mature but ultimately you're playing video games "professionally." They're not sports. They're video games.
No one calls competitive Scrabble "board sports" or tries to pretend it's anything other than what it is, adults competing at a board game. There's nothing wrong with being competitive at silly things. I mean, children play most sports, too, and no one bats an eye at adult men throwing a ball around on a field. (Except when for some reason they have to cheat by deflating the ball in order to win. Still don't understand why they got away with doing that or why the cheater involved is still in the news after his non-penalty.)
So just call them competitive video games. They're not sports, they're just video games, and there's nothing wrong with being competitive over silly things. Plenty of people are.
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.
Please, before you start the endless, pointless discussion about what are esports and whether this is a stupid thing to do with your life, consider:
* Have you watched an world-class videogame competition? Have you actually compete in a video game?
* Do you know how professional teams practice? Do you know it is actually physically and mentally exhausting? Do you realize eSports are NOT about hitting randomly buttons?
* Do you have any idea about the amount of money the industry moves (and that is NOT only the prizes)?
If the answer to those questions is "no", please, refrain from posting about video games are pointless. They are as pointless as your average football match. If you consider all sports pointless, then you may have a point. Otherwise, shut up.
Thank you for listening and now please proceed to talk about something useful.
Buying a competitive scene sure makes it seem like a legitimate outgrowth of competitive play... not. E-sports is the cancer that killed League of Legends, DOTA 2, and World of Warcraft's Arena leagues.
When e-sports were just called multiplayer games. They are not sports.
Was never "favored" among e-sports players. The only FPS that has a real sizeable following is CS. Strategy games are the main event - League, Dota, Starcraft although Starcraft is fading away.
Seriously. eSports, if you sexed it up a bit, might ALMOST be in the same ballpark as watching paint dry or lawn growth...as a blind person.
Who REALLY gives a shit about this? And why are we tolerating such mental defectives in the human gene pool?
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
fps games and shooters are so 1990s and lack "meat". It's a lame genre and is heading out the door.
Gamers want substance.
http://www.coinbrawl.com/?ref=1694
I played long ago, when there was no money in eSports and things were run by volunteers. The community was extremely nice, true. However, when you put money you will get the best of the best performances, much more people focusing on one particular game, and more interesting "social" aspects (like cons, live tournaments, things like that that people love, just like in normal sports).
* have you ever been a competitor in the Olympics? No - they must not qualify as a real sport then by your logic.
* staring at a screen and tapping buttons is nowhere near as exhausting as intense physical activity. Sure you might do it for longer periods of time, still doesn't qualify.
* there is so much money in it because it is *entertainment* which attracts viewers - that doesn't mean it is a sport.
Your arguments are seriously weak.
* have you ever been a competitor in the Olympics? No - they must not qualify as a real sport then by your logic.
Maybe your reading skills are weak: I am not the one making posts in an forum saying "Olympics are not sports". I am just telling those who have no idea of a topic to refrain from discussing it. Nothing else.
* staring at a screen and tapping buttons is nowhere near as exhausting as intense physical activity. Sure you might do it for longer periods of time, still doesn't qualify.
Well, try for yourself. Try to train for 10 hours a day and do several hundred movements with your fingers per minute. Fuck it, try even to play competitive chess in tournament games (3+ hours). You will quickly find out what being mentally exhausted is.
* there is so much money in it because it is *entertainment* which attracts viewers - that doesn't mean it is a sport.
Your point being...? Normal sports attract viewers because of the viewers as well. Do you anyone would pay soccer players millions if they were not getting profit from sales, tickets, making adverts for other products, and the like?
Anyone else miss the day when you could compete in a game and not have to know every trick in the book? Casual gaming strives to be too passive these days, pro gaming pushes the need to practice as much as a real athlete. I miss the days when most videogames were designed to be engaging breaks from reality that provided a bit of a story, a bit of excitement and little escape from either the drudgery or need to improve that real life demands.
... The push began vigorously and quite succesfully with CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, referring to CEOs of Apple and Google, Tim Cook and Larry Page, as "fkn scroobs" and suggesting they should "git on his fkn lvl"...
Is playing guitar a sport? Are all of the people that compete in a battle of the bands competition playing a music, audio or sound sports? Chess isn't a sport, scrabble isn't a sport, the debate team isn't a sport, marching band is not a sport. That doesn't mean they're not good or hard or whatever, but when every competition is a sport then why even have the word sport when we can just call it a competition? You devalue the distinction of sports being an athletic competition when you broaden athletics to mean anything physically or mentally exhausting and competitive.
Essentially the people saying it isn't a sport are not claiming it isn't hard or a talent or anything, they're just saying it's different from what we've traditionally called sports. Then your side of the argument comes in and says "Sports means it's hard and a skill and we should be proud of ourselves too so we want to be sports". You're insecure about video games, I'm sorry you feel that way and I think you're wrong to feel that way. But that's your problem not mine and I'm not going to call it sports to make you feel better and have to call what we've called sports forever something else to get my distinction back.
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.
God spoke to me
Signed, the guy who has absolutely no hand-eye coordination.
You mean throwing Windows PCs to find out who can throw them the furthest?
Did I at any point call them sports?
No. Therefore, improve your reading skills.
They are called eSports, not sports. "e" stands for electronic, or in other words, something that is not a sport per-se, but shares a lot of similarities and are distinguished from normal multiplayer games. It is also a catchy word, a marketing term, that works and everyone understands it.
So you are annoyed by it? Get over it :-)
Once had? Right now the 2015 world championship is being streamed, and it has an 18$ million prize pool.
http://www.twitch.tv/dota2ti
Enjoy.
I used to play competitive Halo 2, Halo 3, and Halo Reach. I grew up playing Halo 1 and Halo 2 as my main game after learning about FPS in Goldeneye and Perfect Dark. Halo's competitive community started at MLG who was forced to drop the game after/during Halo Reach since that game was bad. There is a lot of depth in the arena style skirmishes on maps like Sanctuary, Midship, and Warlock, but the game and franchise is otherwise completely beholden to aging casual gamers. The competitive community is not dead, and is doing quite well in a dormant state where they play/compete in Halo 2: Anniversary which is part of the flop that was Halo: The Master Chief Collection.
I have since moved on to Sc2 and CS:GO since PC is the best these days.
At the end of the day, it would be really cool if Halo came to PC. The controller is inherently limited and casual, but Halo is a really special thing and is not linked to the controller in my opinion. Its about the strafing, the rifles, and the last second kills with the grenades. The casuals will always be the target audience, but Halo is truly a great game format that deserves to be more than a console game that girls buy for their boyfriends on black friday.
To be fair, the vast majority of the money raised (continues to be raised) is given by the DOTA community at large.
Bye!
If you count the Twitch bots to boost stream numbers.
... The push began vigorously and quite succesfully with CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, referring to CEOs of Apple and Google, Tim Cook and Larry Page, as "fkn scroobs" and suggesting they should "git on his fkn lvl"...
lmfao!!
woooooooooooooooo ... git even
Games are Microsoft's only hope to remain relevant. If every game on Microsoft was on Linux and PS4 ... I'd wipe Windows in a heartbeat. Burn it.
Windows is death knell.
distrowatch.com
Chess isn't a sport
According to the International Olympic Committee, yes it is. I'd take their word over an AC any day.
$1 million prize money is NOT spending big, it is dunking their toe in the water. that would not even be close to 1% of halo's marketing budget
Forget about Halo, give us AoE4 and we're back in business!
Videogames are not sport!
The 3D FPS game genre started with Wolfenstein 3D on VGA with 256 colors. Although the color bit depth and resolution of 3D models has changed somewhat, the game play is exactly the same, 25 years later.
I wonder if e-sport connection will guarantee a longer life cycle for the Halo multiplayer and prevent Microsoft from pulling the plug as soon as the support becomes a burden.
Five mentions of Microsoft and five mentions of Windows on the main page, yea we get it, Microsoft is still relevant ...
sports games? When I saw the headline, my first thought was, "When did MS make sports games? I thought they left that to EA."
If Chess qualifies as a sport recognised by the International Olympic Committee, then I don't see why video games can't be a sport.
Unlike the governing body of an e-sport (its publisher), the governing body of Chess (FIDE) has no legal authority to prevent any of these:
Do you have any idea about the amount of money the industry moves (and that is NOT only the prizes)?
Does this include money that moves when the governing body of a sport sues a league for televising the league's own matches?
The 3D FPS game genre started with Wolfenstein 3D on VGA with 256 colors.
256? I thought it started with Battlezone with 2 colors: line or lack of line. And then MIDI-Maze on Atari ST with 16 colors, which was ported to Game Boy as Faceball 2000 with 4 colors.
How about "I wish players were automatically matched by skill, so that the pros and expert amateurs don't destroy people who are still learning the game"? Chess matches, for example, are more interesting between players with close Elo ratings.
Each gridiron football league controls its own television rights. Each of the two most prominent gridiron football leagues in the United States (NFL and NCAA) can make its own TV deals without consulting some hypothetical "owner of gridiron football". Likewise, anybody can manufacture gridiron football equipment or start a new gridiron football league without needing to license some exclusive right. Neither NFL nor NCAA nor any other owner of exclusive rights had power under law to shut down the American Football League (prior to merger with the NFL), the USFL, or the XFL.
The only exclusive right in a sport that I'm aware of is Arena Football League's rebound net patent, and other indoor gridiron football leagues just designed around it in their rules. Were there an owner of gridiron football, these indoor gridiron football leagues would probably not have been allowed to bring their "mod" of gridiron football to the public.