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I agree that it is ridiculous to give scholarships for playing video games. But I think the large majority of sports scholarships are ridiculous. I am not a college football or basketball fan, in fact I don't think I have ever been to a college football or basketball game, but at least some of those football and basketball scholarships generate money for the college. What good do track, wrestling, volleyball or swimming scholarships do for the university?
what channel is this? Not that I don't find this plausible, I mean with 400+ channels they have to put some cheap content on.
I'm not sure about the TV stats, but kids don't watch tv much anymore, so it's kinda moot. It's streamed on the Internet - which is the viewing platform of choice for that particular audience.
Quote:
In fact, those powering the industry say it’s well on its way to becoming the next major professional sport alongside the likes of football and baseball. The biggest tournaments are already filling entire arenas, including New York City’s Madison Square Garden.
“The big events are already bigger than the biggest events in sports,” said Kevin Lin, chief operating officer of Twitch, the world’s largest videogame streaming platform.
Quote:
In 2014, Riot Games’ “League of Legends” world championship had roughly 27 million streaming views, more than the average viewership of individual games of the World Series and roughly the same as the number of people who tuned in for this year’s NCAA basketball final.
In March, ESL — the world’s largest eSports production and broadcasting company — counted 104,000 visitors to its four-day world championship event, the Intel Extreme Masters, and set a Twitch record with more than 1 million peak concurrent streaming views for a single event.
I agree that it is ridiculous to give scholarships for playing video games. But I think the large majority of sports scholarships are ridiculous. I am not a college football or basketball fan, in fact I don't think I have ever been to a college football or basketball game, but at least some of those football and basketball scholarships generate money for the college. What good do track, wrestling, volleyball or swimming scholarships do for the university?
what channel is this? Not that I don't find this plausible, I mean with 400+ channels they have to put some cheap content on.
Why is it ridiculous to give scholarships for playing video games? They give scholarships for people who are members of all different kinds of non-academic groups, organizations, clubs, etc. so why is it silly to give a scholarship to someone who can play video games? IMO video gaming is a more useful skill and more likely to provide a well-paying career than most athletic endeavors. Someone who is good enough at playing video games to get a scholarship is probably smarter than most of the population and deserves a scholarship just as much if not more than someone who happens to be good at football.
I'm not going to multi-quote here, so just roll with it.
NewYorker, you're wrong. Partly. There may be a stigma attached to video games, but it is geared more to the people who do marathon gaming and bring absolutely nothing to the table, beyond a hig level in WoW or a high Prestige level in CoD. In other words, people who waste their life playing games are a waste. Seriously, no job, no contribution to society, other than running up a power bill. Yeah, there's a stigma there.
27 million views for a video game tournament. Awesome. 27 million out of how many billion people on the planet? It seems the percentages are quite low. I hardly see it knocking off the Final Four or the BCS in ratings. Well, unless CBS goes global and you can get people off of their computers.
I've spent many nights playing video games online. I have no regrets about it. My employer might disagree, but I had fun. There is a HUGE difference between playing video games and designing/coding/developing games. Being the best player does not make you worth a poop when it comes to being a dev.
I feel like I have a fair amount of credibility here since I played Golden Tee for a living for over 2 years. I know people who have played it for a living for almost a decade. I remember my mother telling me video games won't get me anywhere. I still get a silly sense of pride thinking about sending her a photocopy of a $3,000 check for one day of play. Hell, I got to travel, I got to meet people, I got drunk as all get out, and I got to take deductions for my business. It was great! Until I realized no bank would ever loan me anything for a house or a car. After that realization, I got my butt back into the real world.
I made a video game my life. I lived it. I did it day in and day out. I realized it was fun but not anything I could grow on.
I was one of the best in the world. If i didn't shoot a -25 or better, I was pissed. My best score was -32 in online play for money. I had bar owners asking me to play at their place, drinks for free in some cases. I was one of the best.
Then, the next group of up-and-comers came around, and I wasn't the best. I couldn't hang anymore. The new guys were better on every level. The new kids beat out the old guy(s). I learned they had a different understanding of the game. I saw it the old way and they saw it the new way. I wasn't able to adapt fast enough.
The same will happen to all of these people who think they're the best. There will be someone better to come along and dethrone them. You can't wear the crown forever. and you sure as heck shouldn't try to make a career out of it. There are the rare exceptions, but they are, well, rare. Don't make the mistake of thinking you're the rare one. You probably aren't.
I'm not going to multi-quote here, so just roll with it.
NewYorker, you're wrong. Partly. There may be a stigma attached to video games, but it is geared more to the people who do marathon gaming and bring absolutely nothing to the table, beyond a hig level in WoW or a high Prestige level in CoD. In other words, people who waste their life playing games are a waste. Seriously, no job, no contribution to society, other than running up a power bill. Yeah, there's a stigma there.
27 million views for a video game tournament. Awesome. 27 million out of how many billion people on the planet? It seems the percentages are quite low. I hardly see it knocking off the Final Four or the BCS in ratings. Well, unless CBS goes global and you can get people off of their computers.
I've spent many nights playing video games online. I have no regrets about it. My employer might disagree, but I had fun. There is a HUGE difference between playing video games and designing/coding/developing games. Being the best player does not make you worth a poop when it comes to being a dev.
I feel like I have a fair amount of credibility here since I played Golden Tee for a living for over 2 years. I know people who have played it for a living for almost a decade. I remember my mother telling me video games won't get me anywhere. I still get a silly sense of pride thinking about sending her a photocopy of a $3,000 check for one day of play. Hell, I got to travel, I got to meet people, I got drunk as all get out, and I got to take deductions for my business. It was great! Until I realized no bank would ever loan me anything for a house or a car. After that realization, I got my butt back into the real world.
I made a video game my life. I lived it. I did it day in and day out. I realized it was fun but not anything I could grow on.
I was one of the best in the world. If i didn't shoot a -25 or better, I was pissed. My best score was -32 in online play for money. I had bar owners asking me to play at their place, drinks for free in some cases. I was one of the best.
Then, the next group of up-and-comers came around, and I wasn't the best. I couldn't hang anymore. The new guys were better on every level. The new kids beat out the old guy(s). I learned they had a different understanding of the game. I saw it the old way and they saw it the new way. I wasn't able to adapt fast enough.
The same will happen to all of these people who think they're the best. There will be someone better to come along and dethrone them. You can't wear the crown forever. and you sure as heck shouldn't try to make a career out of it. There are the rare exceptions, but they are, well, rare. Don't make the mistake of thinking you're the rare one. You probably aren't.
Sorry for the rant.
And just because you couldn't adapt, doesn't mean other people won't.
I'm an aspiring entrepreneur, and the old saying is "adapt or die." Plain and simple.
I'm not going to multi-quote here, so just roll with it.
NewYorker, you're wrong. Partly. There may be a stigma attached to video games, but it is geared more to the people who do marathon gaming and bring absolutely nothing to the table, beyond a hig level in WoW or a high Prestige level in CoD. In other words, people who waste their life playing games are a waste. Seriously, no job, no contribution to society, other than running up a power bill. Yeah, there's a stigma there.
27 million views for a video game tournament. Awesome. 27 million out of how many billion people on the planet? It seems the percentages are quite low. I hardly see it knocking off the Final Four or the BCS in ratings. Well, unless CBS goes global and you can get people off of their computers.
I've spent many nights playing video games online. I have no regrets about it. My employer might disagree, but I had fun. There is a HUGE difference between playing video games and designing/coding/developing games. Being the best player does not make you worth a poop when it comes to being a dev.
I feel like I have a fair amount of credibility here since I played Golden Tee for a living for over 2 years. I know people who have played it for a living for almost a decade. I remember my mother telling me video games won't get me anywhere. I still get a silly sense of pride thinking about sending her a photocopy of a $3,000 check for one day of play. Hell, I got to travel, I got to meet people, I got drunk as all get out, and I got to take deductions for my business. It was great! Until I realized no bank would ever loan me anything for a house or a car. After that realization, I got my butt back into the real world.
I made a video game my life. I lived it. I did it day in and day out. I realized it was fun but not anything I could grow on.
I was one of the best in the world. If i didn't shoot a -25 or better, I was pissed. My best score was -32 in online play for money. I had bar owners asking me to play at their place, drinks for free in some cases. I was one of the best.
Then, the next group of up-and-comers came around, and I wasn't the best. I couldn't hang anymore. The new guys were better on every level. The new kids beat out the old guy(s). I learned they had a different understanding of the game. I saw it the old way and they saw it the new way. I wasn't able to adapt fast enough.
The same will happen to all of these people who think they're the best. There will be someone better to come along and dethrone them. You can't wear the crown forever. and you sure as heck shouldn't try to make a career out of it. There are the rare exceptions, but they are, well, rare. Don't make the mistake of thinking you're the rare one. You probably aren't.
Sorry for the rant.
Sounds like every sport.
I agree with you that playing video games is nothing like developing them. Just like listening to music is not the same thing as making it, watching movies is not the same thing as being a filmmaker, etc etc.
But that doesn't mean that these huge tournaments aren't worth something to colleges, and just like sports, there are careers in the many different skills required to keep the players on the field. If you truly love it, you can be the one developing the game.
To your point about 27 million viewers not knocking off the final four.... it seems like it's more than equal on average.
Quote:
The National Championship game, which saw Duke defeat Wisconsin, averaged 28.3 million total viewers, up 33 percent from last year (21.3 million) and is the most-viewed NCAA title game in 18 years (28.4 million; Arizona/Kentucky in 1997). The Duke/Wisconsin game earned an average fast national household rating/share of 16.0/26, up 28 percent from last year’s 12.5/20 (Connecticut/Kentucky).
Video game programming is actually the high end of software development. The mathematics and graphics of three dimensional environments that include lighting and shadow, effects like rain, snow, wind, projectile movement, gravity and more are a science. Now turn all that in real time animated movement that is shared by multiple players separated by thousands of miles over the internet. Not to mention the art, story line, music, voice overs and other liberal arts aspects. The end product is much like a movie production.
It doesn't get any more complicated and company's that manage to pull all these aspects together into a cohesive, fun package do well.
Learning how to design video games has become a staple in many computer science programs and, like many other products, there needs to be quality control. The default aspect of quality control is to test the product. The best video game players actually understand the mechanics of game design. They are not only experts at playing the game "as intended" but also at finding exploits, or bugs so they make up part of the quality control of game design.
Of course there are a few "gamers" out there that are active in competitions and actually make a pretty good living playing video games.
And just because you couldn't adapt, doesn't mean other people won't.
I'm an aspiring entrepreneur, and the old saying is "adapt or die." Plain and simple.
At what point did I say that? I'm saying it is not a reliable career path to follow. Of all of the people who play these games, I'd guess maybe 0.001% could make a living at it or play at the highest level.
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