Weekend Reading

ESPN covered the national spelling bee. They'll cover pro video gaming.

It looks like Clan Ph34r is giving Team T3rr0r a run for their money! Can b00mst1ck sweep the power weapons fast enough to keep them out of the hands of r41lm4ast3r? He could have his hands full, Jim.

Defnitely, Bob. When you look at r41lm4ast3r's accuracy marks, especially in the last three tournaments, you can see why players are hesitant to even rocket-jump when he's around. Let's go over to James McDoobie for some statistical analysis.

Thanks, Jim. As you can see, r41lm4ast3r has dominated most of the East Coast servers with his 55% accuracy marks. That's high in any league, but it has even more meaning when you consider some of the other players in his bracket: d00mc4nn0n, roxurnuts and sl4ph4ppi. He does have one weakness, however: he doesn't rail as well when facing opponents who use hitscan weapons. It's up to Clan Ph34r to exploit that weakness to the fullest. Back to you, Jim.

actually IE5, occasionally tthe page just hangs in the middle of loading and if Im not scrolling down or look at the progress bar, i dont notice

The only kind of "mainstream" coverage this "sport" could get would be a little half-hour blurb with shit-actular production values on ESPN2 at 3:30 in the morning right after a similar half-hour blurb on some beer-league professional bowling show (and right before the bass fishing show.) Dare I say, CBS Sports shall not be covering this anytime soon.


Sincerely,

Marcus Allen
CBS Sports

I think sport is the wrong word to use, which is why there is a lot of criticism in here right now. To my mind sport by its very nature, involves physical excersion, and as computer games involve little in the way of excercise they really cant be classed as sports.

That's not to say that Professional Gaming cant be as big as a sport though. If someone could find a way to make professional gaming more spectator friendly, and more viable commercially then there is no reason why it can't be adapted for television and large audiences and thus more appealing to the masses.

As for Professional Gamers being slackers, this just smacks of jealousy. Thresh won Carmacks' Ferrari, Fatal1ty, Sujoy and Hakeem (etc) earn large sums of money a year through sponsorship, and this tends to make others jealous because unlike a sport, everyone is on an even keel in gaming. In sports generally the athletes require a much fitter and stronger body than others, and this isn't the case with gaming - there is no excuse for being worse at a game than someone else.

I don't really see why the idea of Professional Gaming is so bad, if it were to take off in a big way then surely any one of us with the right determination and dedication could succeed at it, and make themselves a little money and fame in the process.

BH

I agree. "Professional Gaming" and all that crap associated with it is fucking stupid. It's almost like having a "Professional Lawn Darts" league or something. Or "Professional Zit-poppers". Hobby clubs are fine, but they shouldn't be hyped up as a "sport" by any means.

CNN.com wants to hear from young readers, and their parents and teachers, about their reaction to the tone, humor and value of Dav Pilkey's controversial book series for a feature story. Give us the poop on 'Captain Underpants' by email here.

"professional gamers" are just elitist dorks who can't amount to anything in real life so they band together and call their introverted lifestyles a "sport" as some sort of lame excuse for their pathetic existence. bah, new-school quakers are all fags.

Stupid fucking jocks think they are cool and anyone else with any talent in any other area is a "pussy". Go lift weights and stare at yourself in the mirror idiot. Team sports are for faggots anyways, everyone knows that. Go take a shower with a bunch of other guys faggot. And I'm not sticking up for the dork pro gamers either, I just hate football fagots.

Professional gamers = greasy, unshowered fruity-looking amphetamine-using 15 year olds with bad haircuts flashing gang signs and hate Quake3 but play it anyway because that's where the "money" is.

(Your stereotype for the day.)

mmm..nachos. all we have here that i can make really quickly is these hot dogs that you microwave for 25 seconds and they're ready. i feel guilty eating these things...

man, I hate when I'm makin nachos and forget about em and burn the damn cheese.

heh, saw this post on the front page then it disappeared when I refreshed.

no thanks, "pro" gaming, heh