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'pro gamers', mlg, and gettin' paid to play.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIC3bYMGEdI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFw5GeKMM-k
Fatality (I'm not putting the numbers in his name because fuck that) saw how popular Counter-Strike 1.6 was getting, and so he started his own team (iFate, I believe). His team managed to do all right, but towards the end his team started getting stomped by the upper teams, and iFate eventually disbanded.
(This was a long time ago, so if I'm wrong, please correct me)
I'm actually curious to see how many people here know who Dennis Fong is without looking it up first.
Watching games played by a pro is boring. It's much more amusing to watch somebody who doesn't know what they're doing.
As for the popularity of Starcraft, I guess a better analogy might be the popularity of soccer in the States. Most people in the US know about soccer and people might even be able to name some of the more famous stars that played there like David Beckham. But not many people really follow the MLS or even the International leagues.
Pro Starcraft is in a similar boat. A majority of the younger generation in Korea have played Starcraft just like Soccer is one of the most played youth activity in the US. This doesn't mean that interest carries over to professional level. I work at one of the largest online game developers in Korea and almost none of my co-workers know of LeeJaedong, even though he is currently one of the most dominant pro Starcraft pro-gamers. This isn't to say they are ignorant about Starcraft because most of my coworkers could easily kick my butt in the game while barely breaking a sweat. It just means that the overall interest in upper level Starcraft is still limited in scope.
As for Jaedong having his own shoes, Lecaf is not really a well known brand outside of a few niche circles. Lecaf were originally known as a sportswear manufacturer for martial arts equipment and have the same mainstream exposure as Mitre or Mizuno has in the US. One thing to note is that Adidas does have a special pro-gamer line of sportswear but they also sell a weightlifting line in the same vein.
This picture...
It just pisses me off so much.
Xbox: UnbreakableVows | PSN/Wii U: UnbreakableVow | 3DS: 1521-3241-9354
Having talked with Billy Mitchell a couple of times (friend of mine lives just outside Hollywood, Florida and I've met Billy in town when I visited), I can understand. While he's not quite as much of an asshat as King of Kong makes him out to be, he definitely has some narcissistic tendencies.
"Everyone sucks balls at Pac-Man except me!"
Xbox: UnbreakableVows | PSN/Wii U: UnbreakableVow | 3DS: 1521-3241-9354
Someone also said something about 'just pressing buttons' but that hardly makes sense, that's just the physical side, soccer could be put down to 'just kicking a ball' if you're thinking along those basic lines.
Plus watching sports isn't completely boring as fuck.
Xbox: UnbreakableVows | PSN/Wii U: UnbreakableVow | 3DS: 1521-3241-9354
Well, curling.
GM: Rusty Chains (DH Ongoing)
Xbox: UnbreakableVows | PSN/Wii U: UnbreakableVow | 3DS: 1521-3241-9354
So sports = sports you like? Thats a pretty weird stance
Xbox: UnbreakableVows | PSN/Wii U: UnbreakableVow | 3DS: 1521-3241-9354
It still applies.
Being bored, that is.
I like to watch curling
Would you count reaction times as physical? Twitch gaming, that sort of thing?
I don't really have a leg to stand on when it comes to sports vs video games, as I play competitive tiddlywinks, one of the last amateur sports/games around (in the sense that nobody plays for money). Watching a game of tiddlywinks can be as boring as fuck if you have no idea what's going on, as it's very hard to work out the strategies on the fly. I'd feel the same about watching an RTS being played, as I have no real understanding of why anybody does anything beyond 'kill the other mans'.
At least some sports can be quickly comprehended - get the ball to x, run to y, that sort of thing.
I'm doing Movember for Men's Health! Donate if you can - thanks.
Also, apparentley he didn't shower, or at least shower often. That's what I remember him for mostly.
And no, most 'pro gamers' shouldn't be allowed on TV. It was like a circus of ugly watching a certian Smash Bros Brawl tournament.
95% of peoplewho 'professionally' play games aren't really TV personality material/role models for kids. They promote being unhealthy and learning a pointless skill unlike most professional atheletes. I don't watch football and have no interest in it (soccer to the americans here) but I'd rather have my kid obsessivley play football with freinds rather than obsessivley play quake by himself.
To me, professional sports is just about as pointless as professional gaming.
I love gaming with freinds but most of the time I'm the one who would rather actually go outside and so something rather than putting another 4 hours into the Wii.
Besides, being obsessed in football/any sports doesn't necessarily guarantee fitness. Go to any sport stadium and you see beer bellies everywhere.
It's just that being obsessed and getting really good at quake has no benefits (outside of being good at quake), whereas devotion to soccer will have some benefits.
The world Quake stadium better be in San Andreas
I can fully enjoy watching two great teams face off in CS as long as someone is *directing* and not just relying on the built-in follow cam. Anything becomes interesting if people are playing for enough money that they're willing to cry on camera when they lose.
All in all, however, I highly doubt that games will ever reach the same level of coverage in the USA as real sports.
While that's probably true, it also doesn't matter. Achieving a poker-like level of popularity would still be an *enormous* step up for computer games.
What equal weight are you looking for? Am I really not giving games a fair shake, or are you miffed that my fair shake ended up with video games and sports not being on the same page?
To be honest, I don't even understand the need for trying to define games as sports. Saying something isn't a sport in no way denies it status as a skilled, competitive event, just like chess. I admire people who rock chess tournaments, but that still doesn't make chess a physical event, which is what I most often see a sport defined as.
Dictionary.com says:
In short, video games aren't sports, but that doesn't mean they inherently take less skill, strategy, or are less viable in competition.
Have you seen those guys? Driving an F1 car most certainly takes physical prowess. They train regularly just so they can be in shape enough to effectively fight their own cars.
edit: http://www.f1technical.net/features/3646 talks about the physical strains put on the human body during an F1 race.
Auto racing is usually defined as a motorsport. That's a pretty specific distinction.
The thing is this a lot more fuzzy if you go in deeper. Take curling, or how about all the different branches of shooting (I once an olympic final in pistol between a 16 year old boy and a 50 + old man with a beer belly, the old man won), or racing, etc etc. Alot of those "sports" have some of the elite being frankly obese, is that still an athletic activity?
The problem with including physical activity is that what sports are already considered sports that have little to no physical movement?
Archery? You pull back a bow string and release your fingers. One could think you could work up a bigger sweat playing an FPS.
Ping Pong? My wife and I talk about this every time the olympics come around because she doesn't think there's enough movement to consider it a sport.
Target Shooting? Isn't pulling a trigger similar in activity to clicking a button?
Where's the line drawn in physical activity that determines sport or not sport? Chess you move your whole arm and fingers when you're moving a piece, so there's physical activity in it. We can't just make up a boundary when there's so many activities that aren't clearly on one side or the other.
Backloggery XBox Live 3DS: 1805-2274-4550 (Jonathan)
All of those examples, at their highest levels, still take a great deal of control over your own body. I'm not sure how comfortable I am saying something like target shooting is a sport, but if the Olympic committee says it is, that's fine with them. Sitting on a couch and pulling a trigger with no consideration to how the rest of your body is behaving is in no way similar to standing stock still, monitoring your own heartbeat and breathing cycles, and controlling/timing them perfectly enough to beat a bunch of other people trying to do the same thing.
And saying table tennis doesn't take a great deal of fitness is just wrong. Those guys run all over the damn place to get that little ball. It's kind of a silly sport in my opinion, but it's still a sport.