DERRIK J. LANG and RAY ZABLOCKI attend The World Series of Video Games and discover that competitive gaming is going mainstream.
Score! (AP Photo/HO/CSTV/Willie Davis)
Looks like a coach, screams like a coach. (AP Photo/HO/CSTV/Willie Davis)
Team Fnatic flips. (AP Photo/HO/CSTV)
The arena. (AP Photo/HO/CSTV/Willie Davis)
Players wear uniforms. Coaches scream. Fans watch. Headset-clad announcers shout play-by-play from behind a desk. Corporate sponsors plaster their name on everything.
And it will all be televised.
The only things missing from The World Series of Video Games are hotdogs and beer.
Held earlier this month at Chelsea Piers Sports and Entertainment Complex, the first-ever WSVG brought prominent players of non-sports video games, such as "Halo 2" and "Counter-Strike," from across the globe to compete for thousands of dollars.
"Teams are organizing. They're having their own brand identity. There's people that are doing this for a living now. It's really insane," says Dan Snyder, public relations manager for WSVG corporate sponsor Intel. "Who would've ever thought five years ago all of this would happened?"
People once asked the same question about poker before the world series of that game was broadcast on ESPN, spawning its own Michael Jordan-like superstars and an industry worth billions. But competitive gaming, or e-sports as some call it, has yet to upgrade from niche to mainstream.
Matthew Ringel, president and CEO of WSVG and Games Media Properties, a division of the William Morris film and literary agency, hopes that by harnessing the conventions of professional sports -- uniforms, coaches, audiences, sponsorships, announcers -- the enterprise will reach the masses.
It's coming close.
For the first time, a broadcast network will devote an hour of programming to competitive gaming. Focusing on five WSVG players during the three-day-long competition, CBS will air "Video Game Super Stars" on Dec. 30.
Although WSVG matches were already streamed live on the Internet, full coverage of the WSVG finals will begin Jan. 21 on College Sports Television, a 24-hour cable network owned by CBS.
Robert Tuchman, president and CEO of sports and entertainment marketing firm TSE, believes competitive gaming will soon become commonplace because of the highly coveted 18-to-34-year-old demographic it attracts, as well as its extreme accessibility.
"It's something that any kid can pick up and possibly be good at and play," he says. "Just like poker, you don't have to be 7 feet tall like you do to play NBA basketball or have that athletic ability. It's really an opportunity where anybody can be successful."
But despite WSVG's broadcasting precedent and corporate sponsorship clout, no clear-cut NFL or MLB has emerged from the competitive gaming circuit. Besides the WSVG, the World Cyber Games, Really Awesome Gaming Expo, Cyberathlete Professional League and Global Gaming League -- just to name a few -- all host similar contests.
Maybe they need cheerleaders?
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Derrik J. Lang is an asap reporter based in New York and blogger for The Slug. Ray Zablocki is an asap video reporter.
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