Television is an odd medium. It is traditionally designed to appeal to the widest range of people, the greatest common denominator. It’s no surprise, then, that the televised competitive playing of video games hasn’t taken off worldwide. Gamers, as a whole, fancy themselves wise to the tactics of most marketing ploys and thus carry around a certain amount of cynicism, a cynicism that advertisers don’t find all that alluring.
Competitive Madden gaming, for the better part of a decade, typically involved a weekend of long drives, cheap hotel stays, and lots of standing, sitting and sometimes sleeping on ugly convention centre carpet. It fairly assured that only the diehards and elites would show up for preliminary rounds.
Some people like eSports. Others think the idea of broadcasting competitions of people going at it in Starcraft 2, Black Ops or Halo: Reach won’t ever get mainstream media attention. But it turns out that it may not be necessary, if the new numbers released by the Major League Gaming promotion are any indication.
Jatt, a League of Legends player at the recent World Cyber Games qualifiers, has upset more than a few of his competitors after switching allegiances halfway through the tournament.
I’ve been fascinated with eSports for most of the nearly seven years I’ve been writing for Kotaku.
Valve has posted the schedule and brackets for the upcoming International DOTA 2 Championships. Starting tomorrow, 48 players will go head-to-head, making their way through the tournament towards a best-of-five championship match on Sunday, August 21.
More than two million viewers tuned in for the Evo 2011 World Finals last weekend, tournament organisers declared today.
