Major League Gaming to be Televised

Regarding players being nerded up: Most of you have no idea what you are talking about, nor do you have any comprehension of the players who play these games. Speaking from a Smash standpoint, the majority of the competitive players are between the ages of 18 and 24. There is a huge amount of diversity, the top 6 players in the America are collectively (Neo, Chu Dat, PC Chris, Ken, Isai, Azen): 1 white, 1 black, 2 asain, and 2 hispanic, non of whom are over remotely over weight.

Will this appeal to all people? Of course not, but it will appeal to alot of people. The differance between playing these games yourself, and watching these people play, is that these people will do things you wouldn't have dreamed possible. It just toys with your imagination, as does anything that presents you with a challenge. While watching, not only will you be wondering to yourself "hey, what would I have done?", but you'll be rooting for someone, and you'll be learning something.

Regarding commentary, at least for Smash: at MLG NYC this past weekend, we did our first expieriment with Smash commentary, and all the Halo players watching the tournament over VoD LOVED it. They would be the type of people we would expect to watch on national television, and if we can please people whose Halo obsessions are being interupted by Smash, then we can please anyone. Yes, you can talk about Smash for a very very long time, about the playes, the history, the matchup, the strategies, everything. The game is insanely deep. I think the same could be said for Halo, because I sat in this weekend as Dylexia was explaining some of the strategies and things to look for to the professional camera crew that was there to film the event (the same guys who filmed the world series of poker by the way). What he said interested me and opened up my mind to all the things I had previously ignored.

As someone who's run pro-level tournaments in both games, I can say I'm on board - but only for Halo. What most people in the gaming sphere don't get is that you need a critical-mass game for televised pro gaming to work. That's why the PGL and CPL never got their stuff aired, but pro Starcraft has been on the air for years in Korea. Halo 2 is critical mass enough to get a TV audience, but SSBM - while it's sold millions of copies - isn't, because its mass audience is children who watch Blue's Clues, while the pro audience is college students.

Wow..Halo 2 and Super Smash Bros...further proof that network execs just never 'get it'. Won't be watching this show at all...

I watched my first piece of pro gaming on TV the other day in Hong Kong. It was a Quake 3 ladder with some clans I'd never heard of before, and commentary was provided by 3 people; one of which was aliased 'Loki' and seemed to be an actual competitive player. The other guy commentator, however, was an irritating bastard who kept coming out with stuff like:

Irritating Bastard: Wow, the red team keep coming out like a tide of death! What kind of tide is that, Loki?
Loki: Err...
Irritating Bastard: Definitely not the kind of tide you wade in!

Is this the patch that makes the revolution telivised? lol get it?

I've commented on efforts to televise gaming before, and it's all going to come down to how it's presented. If it's done like Spike's VGAs then yea it's not going to work and be laughed at by the majority of people out there. If they treat it somewhat seriously like any other "pro sport" I think this has an honest chance of succeeding. Say what you will about the games they chose but consoles are more popular and it'll make it easier to televise as the games will be more focused in one area rather than spread out in a game like BF.

It's also important that the announcers they employ have a good grasp of gaming and the tactics used in the games, much like how ex-players go into careers in broadcasting in sports. If they can find a gamer who has a good presence in front of a mic that would be really good.

And this could be a really good marketing tool for game publishers. If your game gets exposure on a broadcast like this how better for potential customers to see it then in action with highly skilled players showing it off? If they handle this well I could see this really taking off with more games, wider exposure and more mainstream acceptance of gaming. It could also help demystify gaming for a lot of the anti-game politicians and other people out there. If they treat it like typical pop-culture fluff (hello MTV and Spike VGA) then it'll bomb and hurt the idea of televising games.

A previous post of mine on the subject: http://www.shacknews.com/ja.zz?id=11095757

imo some group could make a free super smashbros style game for pc.. multiplayer etc =) it would be cool.. fast-paced fight but not so colorful as ssb... it would be REALLY cool =)

3d models but 2d gameplay (plataform)
fast combos and jumps abilitys
smooth animations
good maps with plataforms and so

it would be the perfect game for eSport uhhauu im not kidding... FPS is just not the atractive to watch :\

If this is going to work, they're going to have to show as much love and passion for the sport as the major televised sports do. Just think about how long sports comentators talk about statistics and actual tactics being used in each game. Granted, a lot of that is filler because in most televised sports, NOTHING HAPPENS for long stretches of time, but reguardless, these ppl who do this know and love their sport, and it shows.

If you try to dumb this down and not talk about tactics like running the map and things like that, people won't stay interested. And for christ sake, SHOW THE WHOLE MATCH. no highlights. I want to see the give and take, the whole flow of how a match worked out. It's the only way for non-gamers to see how intense this can be.

I doubt we're going to get any of that tho. We're going to get clueless commentators stating the obvious, chopped up highlights of a match that don't preserve the intensity or tension, and NO in-depth discussion of the complexities that make these games so popular in the first place.

I refuse to support any scheme which allows lazy teenagers to think they can sit at home with and earn a living by playing computer games. Think about it - this isn't some passive way of highlighting the current cream of the crop gamers... It's actively promoting the lifestyle.

Sweet! One step closer to Running Man!!

Guild Wars has observer mode which lets you watch 15 min time delayed games (Factions chamionship season 1 taking place now). ITs fun to watch and many guilds use it as learning device on how they can improve for their guild vs guild battles.

The last Guild Wars World Chamionships had $100,000 cash giveaways http://www.guildwars.com/events/championship/ and flew 5 teams (all expenses paid i believe) to Tapei with the Korean team winning and taking $50,000 home. Upcoming tournament will fly 5 teams to Germany!

Not too shabby for a no monthly fee online rpg

If instead of the NBA they showed the local high school girls team play, would you want to watch or would you rather go play yourself? That's what's going to happen when they show a bunch of wankers playing Halo2, a game with a low cap on skill potential that no FPS pros play. It won't look impressive, not even to the gaming crowd.

If anyone followed the Painkiller CPL world tour last years, some of the games were very, very exciting to watch. Fast action (lightning fast compared to halo), tons of skill, very intense. Top 2 finishers (fatality and voo) came away with like $250k each for the year (a selling factor for the audience, what have these halo2 noobs made?). I imagine Starcraft is the same way for people who understand what's going on, but that would be a problem on USA.

this would be entertaining only if the players were allowed to actually fist fight each other like in hockey. NERD FIGHT!

i'd watch that.

Why do I get the feeling little gameplay will be shown at all and they will turn it into yet another reality TV variant with confessional interviews of what gamers feel like when they lose and mild background investigations into what the gamers had to do/overcome to get here.


Sad.

Anyways, even if it was 100% gameplay, who wants to watch it rather than do it?

I can handle edited gameplay vids showing some exciting moments of games I am familiar with, ala the best kills of Quakecon all rolled up into a 3 -5 minute segment, but I am not going to want to see some kids who think highly of themselves camp the red armor.

if there is a channel that has 24/7 starcraft on it in korea, I suppose there would be at least some market for this even if it is still a niche

This is a stupid idea.

Great, now the 14-year old pasty-faced nerd that said he pwn0rz me can now say the same thing on national TV. Also, I'm having a hard time grasping competitive gaming with console games.

I guess this was such a bad idea that not even the idiots at G4 would buy in.

Its a bad idea, but whats wrong with smash bros?

this is gonna be fucking retarded.. nothing bores me faster than a console FPS.. smash bros. could be good, but halo 2.. sorry but as I said..fucking retarded.

Pro gaming on a console... right.

Smash Bros isn't a bad idea (and other fighters like street fighter would be nice, too), but the idea of pro fps gaming on a console is pretty laughable.

Quake and Starcraft matches on tv might have actually been enough to make me hook it up.

Now what about the revolution?

I wonder how many Xs they're going to try to fit into the title.

I have been enjoying reading the hardocp headlines on shacknews.com, then seeing the same story show up here an hour and a half later.

oh christ. this is going to be fucking bad. really fucking bad.

I don't trust anyone who refers to gaming as a "new extreme sport" to make professional gaming worth watching.

what would be interesting is human coop play against AI (good AI that is)

you could market it as humans vs machines, which is pretty popular on its own, the video games just make it much more feasible

as someone else mentionned you could have competitions where different human teams hack at an AI opponent, whatever the game

In theory, this is good, because everything has to start somewhere.

In practice, I get the feeling this is going to be half a step below my imagined MxC Meets Korean Starcraft Tourney dreams.

I would like to see a group of experts playing a complex coop mission in Operation Flashpoint. Or something competitive and team orientated like Tribes where i can enjoy the on-the-fly tactics created by the players. I watched recordeds matches of Rome TW and it rocked.

But Halo 2??? Super Smash Bros.??

I a not in their demographic, i suppose.

Boost Mobile? Oh no... Now all the contestants will be required to yell "Where you at?" in order to sound out their teammates.

If they can manage to not have bikini clad women dripping off the pit-stained gamers, this could be watchable. Certainly no worse than watching a bunch of people wear sunglasses at a table.

The commentaries will probably be ultra embarassing to watch.

I've voiced my opinion on these pages on the sad way in which the gaming industry manages itself to the public. Here, the MLG as an organization has a vested interest in focusing on the games, the players and gaming insiders rather than rappers and actors. Dramatize the competition and make it easy for people to understand what's happening in a game and it really could work for them.

Oh this sounds just awful.

Halo 2 lolz

Heres of many things one thing that always bothers me. When they show the gamers themselves playing said game, they are going to be nerded up hunchbacks staring at the game. They lack personality. The great thing about that ESPN show that had the guys who played Madden was that they let you know the guy a little bit. They also loved trash talking which made it hilarious to watch.

I dunno, having little time as it is for TV... I'd rather play the games myself.

I'd probably tune in. But after 15 minutes I can imagine thinking "Hey I could go play Halo 2 right now as well!" and just bugger off and play instead of watching