EverLAN Editorial: A World of Professional Gaming

• June 7th, 2006

I hear all too often that professional gaming is a shunned and poor focus for anyone in this country, however this truthfully isn’t the case. The supposed “return” from the “minimal” number of tournaments isn’t worth it. Only one guy (or team) can win it all and take home the hundreds of thousands of dollars; and apparently this doesn’t happen enough in order to justify a majority of the world’s gamer population to take up gaming as a professional sport. I have finally seen some major events and tournaments popping up and it may just be the next step, albeit it is small, towards fortifying professional gaming as a realistic “career.”

Most recently (yesterday actually), I saw a major news post that the USA Network would be broadcasting coverage from Major League Gaming events. In addition, DirecTV has started the Massive Gaming League throwing countless loads of cash at it. And oh yes, the list keeps going. Beyond the upcoming World Series of Video Games events; the massive communications company Verizon has just fired up a tournament of its own, the inaptly named Grand Tournament in Half-Life 2 Deathmatch; MTV has done some minor coverage, including the CPL finals, during a special gaming week in addition to owning the GameTrailers.com website; I get e-mails in my inbox almost every week for Best Buy’s tournaments or GameSpot’s “Tournament TV” (small, but still effective).

To me, it looks like this world is growing, but that America itself is struggling to accept it. In China (and Korea, and other European/Asian countries), apparently making a living off of playing Warcraft or Starcraft is as easy as farming gold in World of Warcraft (well, maybe not that easy). The right sponsors will pay you salaries and even provide you with a home to live in. The World Cyber Games are quite big, but that’s not the only one over there. Everything I just mentioned above is most likely to hit the world media, even if in a very small way, but it’ll still make it. Yet many of these incredibly huge tournaments in China take place and yet we never hear a stitch from them. America, I hope, is struggling and working to build its competitive and professional gaming acceptance up to a level where all of these million (and billion) –dollar tournament deals actually play into paying for the career and life of professional gaming. Maybe with some time we will reach that point and many kids can kick back and say to their parents that yes, they do have the skills to game in the top bracket, and it is more than acceptable to hop into a career in professional gaming. And, hell yes, what better way to start the support than by coming out to the EverLAN Summer 2006 event.

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