The Championship Gaming Series is the biggest thing to ever hit gaming in the western world. However, for every action there is a reaction, and when the CGS bought exclusive rights to CounterStrike Source, the reaction was that Call of Duty suddenly became the alternative.
For those of you who don’t know what the Championship Gaming Series is, in a nutshell, its the dream of esports being realised. Airing first on DirecTV's 101 (their equivalent to Sky One, or the 'main' entertainment subscription channel) the show has built a top of the pops like stage, filled with flashing neon lights the stage houses the very best gamers for CounterStrike Source, Dead or Alive, FIFA and Project Gotham Racing.
Just last week at the Playboy Mansion, 6 teams were formed and rosters were drafted just like in American sports. Those on the paid roster of those teams can expect salaries to be around $30k a year at the bottom end, and anywhere near $100k at the top! They will compete head to head in an innovative scoring system for their team. Under the direction of emmy award winning producers, broadcast live on one of the largest networks in the states, it really is, jaw dropping.
However, with all the money that the league has, it decided to spend some of it on an exclusivity clause for CounterStrike Source on television. Meaning organisations like WSVG who have their content broadcast on CBS and GameplayHD, WCG (due to hold its finals in Seattle this year) and other major gaming leagues couldn’t use the game the way they'd like.
In addition, Valve also sold global exclusivity rights for pay-per-play CounterStrike Source to Tournament.com meaning that the second most popular FPS game according to gamespy, could only be played profesionaly on the Championship Gaming Series and for pay per play could only be used on Tournament.com.
So if I were Matt Ringle of the WSVG I'd have a list of team games that I want to use, CounterStrike Source is probably at the top because it got such a large player base and the sponsors like it because its aesthetically pleasing, but because of the CGS, I cant use it, so what are my options?
CounterStrike 1.6 is always a seat filler, but it is rumoured that valve no longer wish to license the game as it hasn’t made them money in a long time, or they’d charge a great deal more for licenses (depending which rumour you believe). The general opinion is that CS 1.6 is on a downward trend, sponsors dont like it and neither do its publishers. Plus, 1.6 is about as aesthetically pleasing as Cherie Blair which isn’t going to please any sponsors. So where do you turn? Call of Duty of course!
That is exactly what the WSVG have done, in 2 weeks it debuts at the WSVG in Dallas. Whether Dallas is to be THE pro-tournament for the game is unlikely, as Dallas in the summer is possibly the most expensive destination in the US to travel to. That fact has limited the amount of European teams attending, European teams which in April oversubscribed the Crossfire LAN more than three times over.
Is this a limited example? Yes and no, other big organisations haven’t got on the bandwagon, The CPL is now Sierra based, ESWC has never ventured outset of its core games and WCG has gone outside of the box to say the least. However, WSVG has picked up Call of Duty for 2 of its 6 events and that is not the end of the story.
I was in a meeting last week, where a company was discussing what games it wanted to support. The justification for Call of Duty was simple, "We cant use Source, so we'll use CoD2", what more could you ask for? Call of Duty gave every organisation an excuse to dabble with it when 800 clans signed up to the Clanbase Spring season and rightly so.
Lets look at the Crossfire PrizeFight Challenge series, why do you think the word PrizeFight is there? Companies such as PrizeFight (devotii) have to look outside of Source now because legally, they dont have a choice. Source players lose out, CoD players cash in.
The problem is that CoD4 is due before Christmas, it could divide the clans and players and wreck this lovely chain of events we have at the moment. One look at that CoD4 gameplay video says to me, its CoD2 with even better graphics so maybe its not such an alarming occurance!
Exclusivity rights are a dangerous business, there is an argument to say it can devalue your game, I don’t subscribe to that one, but the knock on effect here could prove to be a diamond in the rough for The CGS' competitors.
When put on the spot, Call of Duty has never failed to deliver, The Clanbase Eurocup XIII season saw the game steal the spotlight away from CS 1.6 at that event, the Intel C2E Online tournament had an unforgettable final and I don’t doubt that the WSVG will get tournaments people will never forget.
So in truth, The CGS didn’t select CS:Source because its a good game, nor because its exciting to watch, but because they KNEW their action would see Call of Duty see more of the limelight. Quite thoughtful really.
For those of you who don’t know what the Championship Gaming Series is, in a nutshell, its the dream of esports being realised. Airing first on DirecTV's 101 (their equivalent to Sky One, or the 'main' entertainment subscription channel) the show has built a top of the pops like stage, filled with flashing neon lights the stage houses the very best gamers for CounterStrike Source, Dead or Alive, FIFA and Project Gotham Racing.
Just last week at the Playboy Mansion, 6 teams were formed and rosters were drafted just like in American sports. Those on the paid roster of those teams can expect salaries to be around $30k a year at the bottom end, and anywhere near $100k at the top! They will compete head to head in an innovative scoring system for their team. Under the direction of emmy award winning producers, broadcast live on one of the largest networks in the states, it really is, jaw dropping.
However, with all the money that the league has, it decided to spend some of it on an exclusivity clause for CounterStrike Source on television. Meaning organisations like WSVG who have their content broadcast on CBS and GameplayHD, WCG (due to hold its finals in Seattle this year) and other major gaming leagues couldn’t use the game the way they'd like.
In addition, Valve also sold global exclusivity rights for pay-per-play CounterStrike Source to Tournament.com meaning that the second most popular FPS game according to gamespy, could only be played profesionaly on the Championship Gaming Series and for pay per play could only be used on Tournament.com.
So if I were Matt Ringle of the WSVG I'd have a list of team games that I want to use, CounterStrike Source is probably at the top because it got such a large player base and the sponsors like it because its aesthetically pleasing, but because of the CGS, I cant use it, so what are my options?
CounterStrike 1.6 is always a seat filler, but it is rumoured that valve no longer wish to license the game as it hasn’t made them money in a long time, or they’d charge a great deal more for licenses (depending which rumour you believe). The general opinion is that CS 1.6 is on a downward trend, sponsors dont like it and neither do its publishers. Plus, 1.6 is about as aesthetically pleasing as Cherie Blair which isn’t going to please any sponsors. So where do you turn? Call of Duty of course!
That is exactly what the WSVG have done, in 2 weeks it debuts at the WSVG in Dallas. Whether Dallas is to be THE pro-tournament for the game is unlikely, as Dallas in the summer is possibly the most expensive destination in the US to travel to. That fact has limited the amount of European teams attending, European teams which in April oversubscribed the Crossfire LAN more than three times over.
Is this a limited example? Yes and no, other big organisations haven’t got on the bandwagon, The CPL is now Sierra based, ESWC has never ventured outset of its core games and WCG has gone outside of the box to say the least. However, WSVG has picked up Call of Duty for 2 of its 6 events and that is not the end of the story.
I was in a meeting last week, where a company was discussing what games it wanted to support. The justification for Call of Duty was simple, "We cant use Source, so we'll use CoD2", what more could you ask for? Call of Duty gave every organisation an excuse to dabble with it when 800 clans signed up to the Clanbase Spring season and rightly so.
Lets look at the Crossfire PrizeFight Challenge series, why do you think the word PrizeFight is there? Companies such as PrizeFight (devotii) have to look outside of Source now because legally, they dont have a choice. Source players lose out, CoD players cash in.
The problem is that CoD4 is due before Christmas, it could divide the clans and players and wreck this lovely chain of events we have at the moment. One look at that CoD4 gameplay video says to me, its CoD2 with even better graphics so maybe its not such an alarming occurance!
Exclusivity rights are a dangerous business, there is an argument to say it can devalue your game, I don’t subscribe to that one, but the knock on effect here could prove to be a diamond in the rough for The CGS' competitors.
When put on the spot, Call of Duty has never failed to deliver, The Clanbase Eurocup XIII season saw the game steal the spotlight away from CS 1.6 at that event, the Intel C2E Online tournament had an unforgettable final and I don’t doubt that the WSVG will get tournaments people will never forget.
So in truth, The CGS didn’t select CS:Source because its a good game, nor because its exciting to watch, but because they KNEW their action would see Call of Duty see more of the limelight. Quite thoughtful really.
CS, valve didnt care about all the bugs
BF2, Dice only made it worse every patch
ET, SplashDamage did a lot of work for W:ET, and concerning it was a non profit title they probably got nothing for improvements they made after its release.. Luckily we have the etpro team
CoD2, Infinity Ward promised CoD2TV, it never came, punkbuster was only implented after 6 months? If they would have added punkbuster at release it might have been twice as popular.
Anyway its nice that this is happening to CoD2, imo ET:QW will also become competively attractive in the future.. Hopefully the upcoming beta patch will improve the netcode and integrate the anti lag (at the moment there is only prediction code but no real anti lag)
Talking about CoD4, I dont think it will make it, read the following quote:
Looks like while ET:QW will feature a ranking system without unlocks, CoD4 will do it another way. Having persistant unlocks makes the game noob unfriendly but makes it popular for public play..
I guess in BF you have unlockables, which are new weapons / gadgets, in W:ET and ET:QW you get XP rewards (lately often called unlockables by SD for marketing purposes) which are upgrades to your current weapons and new / improved skills
I somehow think most Source players don't care about winning 300 euros (max), when they can be mediocre and still walk away with a nice 30,000 wage from the CGS. :P
Bad timing has always blighted CoD. I think most competitive CoD2 players would defiantly jump ship (like they did from the original) if the money/LANs were there in CoD4. If I were the head of WSVG I would look at ET:QW or CoD4 as a team game for next season. CoD2 fills in quite nicely as a stop gap game this season.
Noice read though.