When the £10,000 CGS CoD4 tournament was announced it was another step in the right direction both for the game and for the CGS. The game needs organisations such as The CGS to back it to continue its rise up the ranks of the eSports elite and The CGS needed CoD4 to grow its own community and brand value, so the relationship should have been great but neither really seemed to hit it off with one another.
15 teams signed up to the CGS CoD4 tournament, in comparison to over 70 at CDC and even larger demand for AEF & The Experience. 15 teams for a prize purse that dwarves CDC’s and is a shorter, bigger and in theory far more prestigious tournament, something is seriously wrong here.
So what is it? Is it the venue? Omega Sektor sits in the heart of Birmingham, the second city of the UK with its own international airport that houses all of the budget airline. The center is a multi million pound investment that has more PC’s and more flashing lights than you’ll see at E3. Its PC’s are top spec and the venue has a sublime reputation, so that’s not the problem. Was it the prizemoney? £10,000? $20,000? Nope just fine there, it probably wouldn’t have made a blind bit of difference if it was twice that amount.
The problem lies at the very basics of it, the date, the time of the announcement and who they let play. The event lies slap bang in the middle of exam time for the UK and Europe, indeed I myself am writing this because I’ve grown bored of my final university assignment! So that’s why nobody showed up, that plus the tournament was announced under a month in advance of the event, in comparison to AEF being announced in excess of four months in advance. That and the dates chosen for CGS are horrible dates for a gaming tournament (baring in mind gaming teams are dominated by 16-24 year olds all of whom have exams). Lets add in the ‘small’ detail that stopped a couple of teams attending, they didn’t allow anyone under the age of 18 to play (that’s why MYM weren’t there).
Look at the maths, someone spent £10,000 on 75 people, that’s £133 a person! Why only 75 people? Because I assure you that come the summer nobody outside of those that were there will remember the event. Why? Because the coverage was lacklustre, Where was gotfrag’s crow? Where was tek-9’s jetset? Where was Crossfire’s pedro!!! Well with 3 weeks and the foreseeable likelihood that only 15 teams would show up they stayed at home.
However it could have been saved even with 15 teams, in principle you can make a fantastic tournament with less teams. There are many examples (such as WEG and the ELC) where just a small amount of teams in a round robin league format with later knockout stages can create a compelling tournament, but that requires coverage. However who cares if nobody can see it? There should have been live streaming, what’s the point in running an event without it? It’s like not televising the World Cup.
In defence of the CGS organisation, a source close to the company has revealed that the delays were infact on Activisions side of the fence. However you're not going to see me saying a bad word about a developer who are actually putting up money for LANs. Such sponsor delays are not uncommon, they have been successfully navigated around before and should have been done so here, and that doesnt detract from the real problems of the event.
Good coverage and a good live stream could have turned the CGS CoD4 into a fantastic tournament that would have lived on forever, because the matches were fantastic and the story of Fnatic's comeback is compelling. Suddenly you’re talking about £10,000 on anywhere between 20,000 and 100,000 people because I can tell you for a fact that between those two figures are the exposure levels of CoD4 at CDC and i33. Suddenly that £10k investment is looking a bit more prudent?
It could be argued that this weekend’s CGS CoD4 tournament has done more harm than good (obviously not for the winners though!). Its’ like anything someone big attempts, if they can’t do it then why should you bother? Vince McMahon tried to change American Football with the XFL, if he cant make that a success then who else is going to bother trying? So if the CGS can’t make a success out of CoD4 then why should anyone else bother trying? That perhaps leading on a far larger question should the CGS as a whole not succeed, if Rupert Murdoch can’t make gaming succeed then why should anyone else bother trying, but fortunately those vultures aren’t swarming just yet!
Two of gaming’s biggest organisations can say ‘we’ve done CoD4’, that’s ESWC and The CGS however the CGS failed to really see any success from it and come the first week of July neither will ESWC because their CoD4 tournament is comical, the biggest injustice is that neither failing were the communities fault.
Miss!
15 teams signed up to the CGS CoD4 tournament, in comparison to over 70 at CDC and even larger demand for AEF & The Experience. 15 teams for a prize purse that dwarves CDC’s and is a shorter, bigger and in theory far more prestigious tournament, something is seriously wrong here.
So what is it? Is it the venue? Omega Sektor sits in the heart of Birmingham, the second city of the UK with its own international airport that houses all of the budget airline. The center is a multi million pound investment that has more PC’s and more flashing lights than you’ll see at E3. Its PC’s are top spec and the venue has a sublime reputation, so that’s not the problem. Was it the prizemoney? £10,000? $20,000? Nope just fine there, it probably wouldn’t have made a blind bit of difference if it was twice that amount.
The problem lies at the very basics of it, the date, the time of the announcement and who they let play. The event lies slap bang in the middle of exam time for the UK and Europe, indeed I myself am writing this because I’ve grown bored of my final university assignment! So that’s why nobody showed up, that plus the tournament was announced under a month in advance of the event, in comparison to AEF being announced in excess of four months in advance. That and the dates chosen for CGS are horrible dates for a gaming tournament (baring in mind gaming teams are dominated by 16-24 year olds all of whom have exams). Lets add in the ‘small’ detail that stopped a couple of teams attending, they didn’t allow anyone under the age of 18 to play (that’s why MYM weren’t there).
Look at the maths, someone spent £10,000 on 75 people, that’s £133 a person! Why only 75 people? Because I assure you that come the summer nobody outside of those that were there will remember the event. Why? Because the coverage was lacklustre, Where was gotfrag’s crow? Where was tek-9’s jetset? Where was Crossfire’s pedro!!! Well with 3 weeks and the foreseeable likelihood that only 15 teams would show up they stayed at home.
However it could have been saved even with 15 teams, in principle you can make a fantastic tournament with less teams. There are many examples (such as WEG and the ELC) where just a small amount of teams in a round robin league format with later knockout stages can create a compelling tournament, but that requires coverage. However who cares if nobody can see it? There should have been live streaming, what’s the point in running an event without it? It’s like not televising the World Cup.
In defence of the CGS organisation, a source close to the company has revealed that the delays were infact on Activisions side of the fence. However you're not going to see me saying a bad word about a developer who are actually putting up money for LANs. Such sponsor delays are not uncommon, they have been successfully navigated around before and should have been done so here, and that doesnt detract from the real problems of the event.
Good coverage and a good live stream could have turned the CGS CoD4 into a fantastic tournament that would have lived on forever, because the matches were fantastic and the story of Fnatic's comeback is compelling. Suddenly you’re talking about £10,000 on anywhere between 20,000 and 100,000 people because I can tell you for a fact that between those two figures are the exposure levels of CoD4 at CDC and i33. Suddenly that £10k investment is looking a bit more prudent?
It could be argued that this weekend’s CGS CoD4 tournament has done more harm than good (obviously not for the winners though!). Its’ like anything someone big attempts, if they can’t do it then why should you bother? Vince McMahon tried to change American Football with the XFL, if he cant make that a success then who else is going to bother trying? So if the CGS can’t make a success out of CoD4 then why should anyone else bother trying? That perhaps leading on a far larger question should the CGS as a whole not succeed, if Rupert Murdoch can’t make gaming succeed then why should anyone else bother trying, but fortunately those vultures aren’t swarming just yet!
Two of gaming’s biggest organisations can say ‘we’ve done CoD4’, that’s ESWC and The CGS however the CGS failed to really see any success from it and come the first week of July neither will ESWC because their CoD4 tournament is comical, the biggest injustice is that neither failing were the communities fault.
Miss!
- That pretty much nails the point.
Miss, indeed.
I hope both organisations will see what went wrong themselves (or rather, what they did wrong themselves :X) and go figure as it would be a shame to see these being the first and last offline tournaments both run for cod4 :(
Please explain why you make a difference there! :D
he's also a lawyer if I remember correct
Big Miss.
:DDDDDD
Could you do this more often?
GfuckingG
For example I can click Dignitas and see their last ten matches they've played, their upcoming matches, current roster and old players. Clicking a match ( this for example), I can find out which tournament the match is for (this) and see brackets and group stages for the tournament.
The one thing which SK doesn't do well, is stupid UK tournaments full of no name UK players and mix teams who are only ever going to be used once. This is why there might have been 'mistakes in the coverage'. There are some bugs still, one for example is where when you click the roster for a clan and it shows some current players in the old players list.
Your team is a perfect example of the bug, but when you actually click the matches, there isn't an issue.
also you say "the no name mixes at the event", dunno if your trying to say something about me or what, but there was 4 mixes i believe, and the rest were teams who intend on attending uk lans, (sgl/i-series/sychosis). clearly ninjas is a name thats been used since the start of cod2 and had many KNOWN players, so you can't even count them in your argument.
And yes SK's scores weren't up to date until the second day, but you won't find me arguing otherwise. Fnatic's were and they covered the entire event, as well as providing a live blog and other features.
"Your facts are incorrect really, ask anyone at the event who did the best coverage and they all give same answer."
I merely said TEK-9 didn't do anything bar have scores, that's not incorrect. Both fnatic and SK had a lot more, if it wasn't relevant to the CoD players then that doesn't mean the coverage was bad.
If you honestly think this:
mp_crash 05:13; mp_district 03:13
looks better than this, then...
@ i33 and cdc tek9's coverage was some of the best theres been, it rivalled some of gotfrags when they used to make about 350 interviews per lan (look at wonderbase and NGZ2006A for examples). they didn't have their team at the event and no news posters.
your coverage was basically writing two or three pieces about the event (your overall opinion) and that was it. jetset was all day typing results, reading messages and comments, he was not on site but had the resources to get the results as soon as matches were finished, either by users comments or private messages, people freely and by own will, passed him the results.
i believe SK's interest in cod4 is a plus for the game growth and will definitely hit some new grounds, good luck with your new schedule, i hope it works out in the end.. about gotfrag, come on, they don't care about cod4 for a long time, the cgs s1 was a massive spam of news, have you seen half of it about s2 ?
on a side note, cgs always ignored the coverage issue, their combines are like private reunions with +i people so i'm not surprised with this lack of coverage and mainly, preparation (cod4 event).
There's a huge amount of effort which goes in which you don't see. Just because you don't see it, doesn't mean I won't stand up when you criticise our coverage. Whether that's right or wrong, is besides the point.
I wasn't criticising you, 'vanner' was actually in the database from Policy (i33 I guess). But I had to (just to give you an idea of the work load)
a) find your real name
b) create ephix (requires creating an organisation, then a team)
c) add you to ephix
d) repeat the same process for your four team members, but add them to the player database first
This is before any matches are even played. I arrived Saturday morning, and had no internet for the majority of the day, comparing TEK9's coverage, which is very basic and community driven to SK or fnatic's isn't quite fair.
fnatic and L3 were the only teams which didn't need any work/updates at all. As for someone like clearly ninjas, three of them were in the player database, bond and myzz weren't.
On a separate note, starting Friday we're starting our new schedule for CoD content, check the website and tell me what you think.
Fair enough, but end users don't care about how you do something, they just care about the results (no pun intended).
They hatin'
They saw through me posting dirty.
Gotfrag and Tek9 are sites dedicated to COD4, Fnatic and SK are not. Fnatics coverage even stopped completely between 15.18 to 22.28, thats the peak time of the event.
How you can base the success of a coverage on monthly webtraffic is beyond me anyway, especially as Fnatics hits come because of their teams not their editorial anyway.
Tosspot already got in on the air conditioning comment so I can't use that one, unfortunately :(
Not meant to sound too scathing just some of your comments were a bit out. I enjoyed Malystryx's blogs though I wouldn't consider them coverage as such, it was nice to read about Fatal1ty and it was nice to learn that "Odeey" was Head of 4 Kings!
People weren't allowed to go on mIRC or msn or a public ventrilo at the CGS event. This blocks a lot of communication between coverage and the organisation. Also the 18+ age limit was a big cause of the low turn up of teams, most teams just went for the easy cash as top8 got 750£.
It was 'just' a side tournament, not meant to be a big thing. It was known from day 1 that it wouldnt be broughtcasted on television.
Maybe CGS just wanted to see how a COD4 cup would go. If they really wanted it then they would of announced it as a CGS game already, so its not meant to be a "hit" but more like a "could it BE a hit?".
But then again, what do I know?
x
People weren't allowed to go on mIRC or msn or a public ventrilo at the CGS event."
We were, just had to ask to use them first.
I hope they will take some opportunity to repair the damage, in a better way. because no doubt. these guys can put on a show!
He didn't try and change American Football, he merely offered a Summer alternative which was undermined by his partners, the networks.
But I'm sure if it was titled "George Foreman's Lean Mean Fat-Reducing Xtreme American Football" it would have been a massive hit.