The game itself would be made of different phases. Say for example… A maze section, a timed section, a puzzle solving section, and a boss section. Each part would keep the same principle from season to season, but the sections themselves could be swapped out or revamped each time. New maze, different path/obstacles for the timed event, new puzzle, different boss with different minions/powers, etc.

The skills required would remain the same from year to year, but game itself could be revamped over time. Even the rendering engine could change without losing the core of what the competition is about.

This would be a pretty specialized thing though. While it might be based off an existing commercial product, it might have only limited tie-in value if any at all. That might limit its acceptance to fans and/or the game makers.

One really good point is that you aren’t going to have the same game for 10+ years. So what’s the solution to that? Or does it matter? Perhaps a gaming league would be formed with the idea that the specific game would change on a yearly basis.

I think you mistook my argument on validation. I’m not saying that the games need to be validated, it’s the gamers themselves seeking validation. They want to see what they are doing as not just normal, but special. Having it widely recognized as a professional sport would fulfill that desire, but it might just be fantasy. I would like to see it happen as well, but I would also like to win the lottery.

Chess might be an unfortunate choice of comparison though. It’s been around for thousands of years, has broad support, and is even well organized at the professional level, but you’re still not going to hear “Coming up next on ESPN… Grandmasters duke it out for the world title!”

> The idea of the “parent” characters controlling the child is… horrifying

I found this statement interesting. Can you expand on that? Why is it horrifying to you?

> I don’t like the idea of childbirth in a game. I’ve seen it attempted and it was… stupid. Very very stupid.

Agreed.

> It’s not the experience of childbirth that’s important to the game (at that point it just feels weird.)

Absolutely. Also, childbirth is such an intensely personal and intimate event, it almost seems profane to have it in a game.

> They hit their teen years and you’re living with this… annoyance that wants all your money and you’re worried they might act out or do something embarrassing

Hahahahaha.

Validation: I hear this argument about pro gaming alot. I also hear it come up in “are games art?” discussions. Games don’t need to be validated. It’s simple fact that a) video games often are a legitimate competition on the level of sports/chess/poker and b) video games are art. I don’t care whether non gamers agree or not.

Televising: I meant to touch on this topic. The viewer’s perspective should switch from the players, to what the players see, to in game cameras of sorts that aren’t actually connected to a specific player. This is one of the areas games will have to advance in. When somebody decides to make a serious push into this area, they should look at recruiting some people that are involved in televising sports. Knowing what the viewers should be seeing at any time, especially at a live event, is an art form and they should really get experienced tv pros handling this sort of thing.

Live Audience: This will be very important as well, and certain styles of competitive games already have this. For example, in the Street Fighter community, the big annual tournaments have a pretty high turn out, and the spectators can get pretty boisterous at times. Hell, the tournament organisers actually make money off of selling DVDs of tournament recordings to people who can’t attend.

There’s alot of reasons why pro-gaming isn’t making it big right now. I don’t think any of those reasons is so fundamental that they can’t be overcome. I just don’t think that the guys trying to make money off of pro-gaming right now are doing it right. Eventually, somebody will combine the right game with the right televising strategy with a big enough wallet, and this will happen.

The first big one is the fact that it is a gamer fantasy. The people who build and play games would love to see the pipe dream of mainstream acknowledgment of their job/passtime come true, but this is just wishing for self-validation. At some level, people watch sports because they are projecting themselves onto the athletes, who are doing something that the average person can’t do. It’s wish fulfillment. It would be extremely hard to try to put that same mystique on button mashing.

Secondly, as already brought up, it would be hard to translate into something that people would want to watch. Commentary aside, how do you present it? Surely you don’t want to show some gamer staring mindlessly at a monitor while he pounds on a keyboard. Show it from an in game perspective? Makes for better television, but divorces itself from the person actually doing the gaming. Cut back and forth? Annoying, at best. And don’t forget that sporting events are just that, events. They attract large live audiences. It doesn’t just need to translate to a television show to succeed, it has to work as a live event as well. I don’t know how that would even begin to work.

The last critical point that I see is that games simply aren’t designed for it. Every game on the market is still essentially designed for solo play. While many more incorporate co-op and/or group mechanics, I don’t know of anything outside of FPS style games that has any sort of actual team play. I think that we would have to see a radical redesign of game construction to make this even a remotely viable idea. And don’t forget that most video games are here today, forgotten tomorrow. It would be hard to build brand loyalty to a ’sport’ over time if you had to change the played game every other season. Even if there were such a game, and it remained consistently popular, it will eventually fall behind current technology and have to be revamped or replaced to avoid looking dated, running into the same problem.

So I would expect that we should continue to see a few tournaments on off-mainstream cable, but I don’t see consistent regular team/league style professional sport.

I like the idea of a new character being introduced to society as a full grown adult (i.e. at least 15-17 years old for a human.) The idea of the “parent” characters controlling the child is… horrifying and I believe would significantly detract from gameplay. Certainly there’d have to be some collaboration between the parent and son/daughter character as to family history and experiences. Maybe a virtual adoption agency? Like… you write the history for your desired daughter/son. People that want a family read the info and decide if they’d like to play a character as your kid.

It’s conceivable that the child would go unknown or be of little interest to the general population until they reach their late teen years and show promise. I don’t like the idea of childbirth in a game. I’ve seen it attempted and it was… stupid. Very very stupid. It’s not the experience of childbirth that’s important to the game (at that point it just feels weird.) The important aspect to the game is the social understandings which develop because of blood relations.

I think another thing should be addressed. Sex. Mainly, what happens when you throw two species in the genetic blender? I would advocate for only marriages between two people of the same species to produce children. OR the child choose either the mother or father’s species. Certainly, the mixing of species physical attributes would be really annoying.

Oh, one other idea. What about giving out children randomly? Like… you can’t ask your best friend in the whole world to be your kid in game. Instead, you request a child and get what you get — probably someone you don’t know. It would create more possibility for conflict. Plus, it’s basically what happens in real life. They hit their teen years and you’re living with this… annoyance that wants all your money and you’re worried they might act out or do something embarrassing. If people want that element and all the good things that come with it, let them also experience the less pleasant aspects. It could open a lot of avenues for roleplay such as disowning a child, family disgrace, close knit families, closer relations between two families through marriage, etc.

I think the idea of families in game is a cool idea. I also think it has a lot of potential to ruin gameplay. On the flipside, the exclusion of family roleplay can limit serious RPers. I guess it’s just going to be a trial and error thing.

- Tag-teaming a single-player game with friends. Even the time spent not actively playing can be fun to watch.
- Checking out novelty videos on YouTube (’100% expert mode on X song in rock band’, ‘beat mega man 2 in 20 mins’, ‘tecmo bo quarter-spanning touchdown run’, etc)
- Watching gameplay footage as part of a trailer/preview/review to get a feel for a game I might want to buy.

I love gaming, but I can’t see getting into professional gaming as a sport. It might be impressive to see people rack up frags in some shooter-of-the-month, but it’d get old fast. While it doesn’t rub me the wrong way to see people doing it professionally, I won’t be a part of it. I’d rather take that time and money and invest it in playing games myself