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[Gemmwah]

Okay, I'm surprised there hasn't been a thread made about it yet, but CGS has been going on since the 6th and is carrying on until the 14th of december.

Here.

The World of Warcraft Dell Invitational has already been and gone with "wts skill" winning the $30,000 prize for the 2v2 arena championships, and "Pandemic" winning the $10,000 prize and a bunch of the new WoW XPS edition Dell laptops (which look pretty awesome actually as I was checking out the basic specs last night).

The individual championships started today, CSS is on now (00.10 gmt) and there's still DOA 4, Project Gotham 3 and FIFA 07 to go.

The live feed is up on the website. I sat up for hours watching the arenas last night, because I had nothing else to do and it was pretty cool.

So, Championship Gaming Series.

Your thoughts?

[KvP]

I never understood competitive gaming as a spectator sport. Honestly, who actually had more fun watching their friends play games than they did playing the games themselves? Even if your friend is really really good as no doubt the competitors in a tournament might be?

Plus, I have a strong aversion to the "cyberjock" stereotype of the hyperactive 12-year old slamming mountain dew and honing his skills hour after hour while using leetspeak and as much un-PC language as possible. It's one of the many reasons I hate Halo. That sort of thing probably wouldn't exist without it.

[Storm Rider]

I also consider professional gaming to be a monumental waste of time. Not only is it silly to watch people gaming when you could be playing a game yourself, but also Counterstrike can go ahead and fuck off. I don't want to watch people playing an ugly, 10-year-old game.

[Dimmukane]

I think it's awesome to look at people like Fatal1ty play. Just seeing how absolutely fucking amazing they are at gaming sets me in awe. I really couldn't watch for more than 15 minutes without my mind wandering though...

I think I might have mentioned this, but I've played against Fatal1ty before. scores were 14-0 or so after two minutes. The guy's insane!

Didn't he only die like once the entire time he played Doom 3?  He won everything, but I think there was some big ruckus because this guy managed to kill him.

[thepugs]

If I remember correctly he has his games, and is good, but not the best or anything.  For example, there is at least one person who can totally destroy him at Painkiller.

His Wikipedia page has some pretty old stats, so really I have no idea how he's doing these days.

[KvP]

I also consider professional gaming to be a monumental waste of time. Not only is it silly to watch people gaming when you could be playing a game yourself, but also Counterstrike can go ahead and fuck off. I don't want to watch people playing an ugly, 10-year-old game.

What, and playing them isn't? Gaming as a whole is a useless thing, but it's fun, which is the entire point.

I think what SR (and I) find dubious about the gaming tournament system is that it's obviously attempting to set up gaming as a sport, with pro players and corporate endorsements and telecast matches with roaring crowds and the like. I can draw a line and say that actual sports require some athleticism. Whether or not that's reasonable, well, you decide.

I don't know. I have no qualms about tournaments per se, they've been around with card games and such for ages, it's just that this whole "WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS WOOO" stuff seems like the product of some guy in a suit's misguided ideas of what young people like. Remember xXx, the Vin Diesel action film? You could practically see the studio executive thinking "kids these days like spy movies, and kids these days like Xtreme Sports... An Xtreme Sporting secret agent movie! Yes! Money!" Pro gaming is sort of like that. It's a corporate (I hate to use that adjective, but it's appropriate) attempt to cash in on the fact that kids like video games, and like playing against one another.

[Gemmwah]

To be honest, i see no harm in having the world championships because they're recognising the people that are the best at their games. It just so happens that these games are on a computer rather than outside, but still, it must be nice to go and say "yeah, i'm one of the best in the world at this". I know I'd like to be appreciated if I ever got that good.

Watching the WoW videos was pretty awesome, the CSS got dull rather quickly because I cut in towards the end of a game and then the stupid hundredmillion minute ad break came on, so i was just like "fuck this" and went to bed.

Still, some of you guys might think that it is completely stupid to have the CGS but to be honest there's gonna be plenty of other people who want to watch and go see it, and i figure if you think it's stupid then don't watch it. it's not as if it's being streamed on every site on the internet, it's fairly easy to avoid it. I think it's a good idea and i like watching events where it's pitting the best against the best, whether it be actual sporting events, or the CGS.

[Johnny C]

Not only is it silly to watch people gaming when you could be playing a game yourself

To be specific, I kinda like watching games sometimes. There are some really cinematic video games out there.

Didn't someone do a list of the top ten games as fun to watch as they are to play?

[Scandanavian War Machine]

yes, there are in fact games that are fun to watch without ever having to play. Bioshock is surprisingly fun to watch, though not a multiplayer game. Same thing with Assassin's Creed (to a lesser extent).

The only multiplayer example i can think of off the top of my head would be Call of Duty. That is an intense game even if you are just watching.

[Gemmwah]

STV is the worst place in the entire of WoW, regardless of it being pretty. Hate hate hate.

[muteKi]

Thing is though, the cinematic games that are fun to watch rarely make it into gaming leagues - there are a few that does both graphics and gameplay well (Bioshock, CoD4), but as a general rule, visual games have terrible gameplay and rarely multiplayer.

That said, I was in awe the first time I took a zeppelin to Grom'Gol in STV, and the first time I played CS:S (it was gorgeous at the time, and it was the first source game released).

Some of the more modern Sonic games strike me as having been made to be fun to watch at the expense of gameplay, what with a few autopilot segments as well as crazy camera cuts.

[KvP]

I've found the Burnout games to be good for watching, as well as Bioshock and Dead Rising. GTA too. All but one of those are single-player. I couldn't care less about Halo or tournament FPSes.

[ackblom12]

I found the same for Bioshock. My cook* actually made me not play it unless she was there to watch her movie.


*partner of the obviously lesser sex

[ackblom12]

Charges will be paying for her my piercings and her Fuschia Hair dye.