Best of the Best Video Game Tournaments

When video games were first born and introduced to the public, they got an interesting reputation. These electronic wonders were embraced mostly by younger men and became associated with reclusive hermits who stayed in front of screens (whether television or later computer) in dimly lit rooms all by themselves for hours at a time. Yet, the popularity of games has grown to a point where there is a complete subculture unto itself. This subculture has grown and reached out to include a huge variety of people from all ages, social classes, gender, and cultures. Now that this gaming group has gotten so big and certain technological developments have allowed gamers to interact across large spans of areas with specific gaming systems, meaning that no one is stuck playing alone or just against a computer. With the boom in the ready availability of these technological wonders in addition to their popularity, things have certainly taken a turn around. Gamers gather from around their individual areas, countries, and the world to compete against each other in a fun filled tournament for their favorite video games in today’s fast paced gaming culture!

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The game called Starcraft: Brood War is a real time strategy game in the genre of military science fiction played on a computer platform as a one versus one competition. South Korea has thoroughly embraced Starcraft in a way not seen in other parts of the world despite the game’s overall popularity. Many gamers in South Korea play Starcraft professionally, and it has become a favorite spectator sport in the country with huge audiences and crowds watching master Starcraft gamers play the video game in professional tournaments for actual money. Finals for Starcraft leagues in South Korea (such as MBC Starleague, Ongamenet Starleague, and Proleague) are even broadcasted on cable television for the thousands or even millions of fans who could not attend the tournaments and fanfare they involve in person. The best professional gamers of this game are even considered to be celebrities in their own right in South Korea. The immense popularity of Starcraft in this small country has created a “large thing in a small package” situation which makes it the most popular professionally played video game in the world!

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Counter-Strike is a tactical team video game played on a computer platform when played as a competition, usually with teams of five people against another team of five. The game is played all over the world, but it has certain video game hot spots throughout North America and Europe. A few dozen professional tournaments exist around the world with just as many professional teams who travel to these competitions. Yet, there is no ruling competitive gaming body (and no uniting body for this particular contending game either) which makes several of these tournaments claim that they are the “World Championship of Counter-Strike” even though they all exist simultaneously without any leveling links between area, regional, or national competitions. Six of these several tournaments seem to stand out with the gaming community even though most gamers will admit that none of them stand out enough to earn the “World Championship” claim. The six primary tournaments are led by the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) and World Cyber Games (WCG) as sanctioned competitions for those two gaming organizations. Professionally playing teams can have membership in a variety of subleagues though such as ESEA League, CEVO, ESL, and others. The now dead professional gamer league known as the Championship Gaming Series used to even contract players to compose competitive teams to play Counter-Strike: Source in the money based tournaments.

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The computer video game Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne is a real time strategy game that is played on a competitive level as a one versus one individual tournament. Like other professional gaming tournaments, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne has no uniting governing body and no strictly defined world championship. However, that does not stop the formation of several professional gaming teams and playing tournaments. These gamers play Warcraft II all over the world, but the video game’s “hot spots” are in China, South Korea, Germany, and France where the game has gained the strongest footholds. Some of the major competitive events for this game are organized by the software’s creator Blizzard Entertainment, but others include the televised Korean leagues (even though Warcraft III is far less popular than the Starcraft phenomenon) as well as several Chinese tournaments. Warcraft III is generally considered to be the second most popular competitive video game with an enormous player base. The face that the number of players on Battle.net at any given moment of the day can range from 70,000 to 100,000 give high credence to the idea of the huge popularity of the game. The Chinese gamers (of over three million players) tend to use their own clients for online video game competition though since they have a poor connection to the outside Warcraft III world.

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The computer video game known as FIFA Football has been part of the World Cyber Games (an international e-sports or “Cyber Games Festival” operated by the Korean company called World Cyber Games Inc. and backed by both Samsung and Microsoft) since the festival’s inception in 2000 as well as at every regional World Cyber Game tournament such as the Pan-American WCG or the SEC. This video game is also special in that in 2003 it became the only sports game to be part of a Cyberathlete Professional League competition at a tournament held at the CPL Europe tournament. Germany is the true heart of FIFA Football though with the biggest community of players and two professional leagues—the World League eSport Bundesliga (that is aired on the national television broadcast called Deutsches Sportfernsehen) and the Electronic Sports League EPS. South Korea also has a strong link to FIFA Football with players of the country earning three World Cyber Games titles for it. Money and prizes are a big part of this game. In 2006 alone, prizes that equaled a value of just over a quarter million US dollars were given to winners of professional FIFA Football tournaments.

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Quake 4: Death Match is another competitive computer based video game that is played on an individual one versus one basis. Western society has tightly taken a hold of the reigns on the competitions for Quake 4. There are a few professional teams with players officially signed to them while a number of other players market themselves differently in order to play in the professional realm. Currently, there are four self proclaimed “World Championships” for Quake 4 with those of the World Series of Video Games and the Electronic Sports World Cup being the most prominent, but the World Cyber Games has also been rumored to be playing with the idea of placing Quake 4 as a top tier competitive game in its tournament system. However, very recently (in 2008), players have been taking a retro aspect to the Quake games with Quake III Arena regaining massive popularity and becoming a favorite for professional competitions instead of the updated Quake 4.

Author: Brooke Windsor — Copyrighted © roadtickle.com