Okay so I know that its been a while, but like I said I've been a little busy with school and finals. But since thats all done with I'm going to try and make more than up for it over winter break, so what do you say here we go.
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| MLG's logo even looks like a pro logo. |
Now, most of us know what MLG is and that it's on the forefront of commercializing gaming, and for the most part their goals and means are fairly on track with the majority of the industry. However there are a few aspects of MLG that I think are a little misaligned. Its nothing that can't be changed just by a little logistics or better planning, but, change is needed nonetheless.
So first of all lets take a look at what MLG is currently doing, just to make sure we're all on the same page about this. So according to their website, the MLG is " the dominant media property exclusively targeting tens of millions of consumers worldwide who have a passion for playing video games as a competitive social activity". They also host over 750,000 matches on the Pro Circut and by online matches every month. Okay, sounds pretty good. Sounds like they have some pretty noble goals in mind. The question however comes into their implementation.
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| MLG should call in the expert for their implementation and logistics needs. |
Gaming as a sport can not hope to hold up to football, basketball, or baseball simply because there are so many loyal die hard fans for each of those sports. They have been around for long time and have been integrated into a lot of family traditions like watching football on Thanksgiving after a nice big family meal. How can competitive gaming hope to compete with that? Now its not to say that its impossible but they need to do a couple of things in order to be able to hold their own.
The big thing that MLG needs to do is to host and sponsor open, and advertised tournaments on all consoles and PC's that anyone can enter from home. This would ultimately increase not only the awareness of their goal and their mission but also allow the "Average Joe" to be able to compete, very similar to the movie BaseketBall. This would increase their player base, and generate more traffic. By doing this they could not only host the small tournaments but they could also give out prized for these from the money generated from their advertising money, like 1000 Riot Points for winning a League of Legends tournament, or $20 to Playstation Store, or XBox LIVE Marketplace. I know that would motivate me to get off my butt and start trying out some competitive play, mainly because its usable. Is cash nice? Yes, but I already have a job and turning video games into a job takes away their fun.
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| For winning? Yes please! |
The second thing that MLG needs to do is to encourage, and build their hosted tournaments into a way that truly captures the difficulty of being a good player in an ever changing environment. The best way to do this is the same way Arena, that old G4 show, did it: don't tell your players what their going to play until they pick up the controller. Now this isn't to say completely get rid of their old circuits for this exclusively, but instead open it up for a fun and unique experience that no other sport can deliver. Yes, scoring would be an issue, or would it? You can get points for being the fastest person to beat World 3 in Super Mario Brothers, or earn points for getting the most kills in Gauntlet Legends, or simply by landing your monkey ball in the center of the circle. Its really not as hard as you would be made to believe.
A third thing that can be done is MLG needs to have charity tournaments, where the players get close to nothing for winning but charities do, and not just Childs Play, not that they don't have a good mission its just that we as a community need to expand our influence, you know social acceptance and all that jazz. This also needs to happen not just during the holidays but around the year. By adding a single charity to donate, say 10% of their revenue and gift purse per tournament they could raise a ton of money for a lot of truly good causes and increase not only their awareness, but their players awareness and the awareness of the community as a whole. It would be a phenomenal thing to see, almost every other professional sport does charity work in some way, shape or form. So this is an almost crucial step into making MLG and professional gaming into an actual sport.
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| A very good goal, but lets diversify. |
The trick is though to not just talk about it, but to actually do it. And the only way that something cant get done is if the players raise their voices and take it upon themselves to let it be heard. Once again, sorry for the absence, and till next time guys.
