Back To Your Basements: Economy Kills Pro Gaming

[DrumsofWar]

The article, very well written by the New York Times, goes into detail about how hard the economy has hit pro gaming, both PC and console-based and basically flattened the entire sector back to well, before there was "pro gaming".  In a way, it's better to be rid of the pretentiousness and quite possibly, the high game specs arms race, but this also pushes back any chance gaming had of legitamacy.

So it's an interesting turning point nonetheless.

[Magic]

Legitamacy? Non-gaming people still see pro-gaming and assume it is silly for people playing games to get money in tournaments. Compare most Western countries to South Korea. We're getting there, with or without pro-gaming, but the industry still has a long way to go. Sadly.

Some little things help - gaming Bafta winners (  ) were mentioned a UK parliament motion recently, though, thanking them for their work and congratulating their teams.

[Whiplash!]

Um.... Starcraft foreigner and Korean pro scene is more popular then ever and have many events going on now and upcoming this year.

[IskatuMesk]

The American pro-gaming industry hasn't really got off the ground enough to really be considered dying. All you really have in terms of significant tournaments is WCG which is widely considered by major professional gamers to be very badly run (especially given their extremely screwed up ethics in invitations). But it's still going strong.

There hasn't been a competitive game released that is high spec yet and anyone whining about game requirements should actually learn a thing or two about hardware and what is actually considered worthy of an esport before saying something like that.

Overall I read this article on TL and it fails.

The only reason competitive gaming is suffering in America is because no one is paying attention to it. The economy has virtually nothing to do with it.

[DrumsofWar]

While I agree that the US needs more tournaments besides the FPS stuff, I'd disagree with you that the economy isn't a factor.  Money is a big deal and when it comes times for budget cuts, gaming is the first thing to go.

That's why Ziff Davis cut loose Filefront and why sponsorships in tournaments are withdrawn by clients before they withdraw Internet ads.  The last bastions of North American pro gaming for some time may very well be Gamestop and G4.  *shudder*

[mAc Chaos]

The only big gaming league type thing I know about is MLG, which is awesome, and Halo is their main game.  My brother is at one of their events right now.  One of the players is on Dr. Pepper's bottles.  You can go into a store and look at it right there.  It's awesome.

I don't think it's dead, yet... MLG, in that article, said they were doing fine, it's just that their competitors bit the dust.

I think it depends on the game.  I hope MLG sticks around, at any rate.

[IskatuMesk]

DoW > WCG is thriving just fine. The companies that are dying off are dying because they were insignificant to begin with.