There are video games pros in the world, but they are nothing in status when compared to famous athletes. As more and more kids grow up with Video games, could you see one day video game pros making tens of millions competing for top prizes like professional tennis or golf players. I think as long as there are enough people willing to watch them, this can happen in the not too distant future. Would be fun to have a Tiger of the video game world. :grin:
Tell that to the people of the 1800s that athletes will be making a killing playing sports. If there are enough people willing to watch it, it will happen. I have a suspicion that eventually these video game tournaments will be much more popular.
The people making a "killing" playing sports are genetic specimens. You can learn how to play video games. You can't learn to be 6'4" and run a 4.5 40.
Yes to certain degree, I have a friend who makes a decent living from playing Call of Duty, he gets flown out to Anaheim a couple times a year and there is a pretty large fan base for them.
That is like saying you can play basketball or tennis. Have you seen how these pros play Video games? They are also genetic freaks, they have extreme hands eye coordination and are extremely fast at processing information on screen, like fighter pilots I think. Your average player wouldn't stand a chance against these guys, just like your average basketball player have no chance against NBA pros.
In fact my friend even got payed to coach, yes coach at a video game tournament. All he had to do was get on the headset and tell everybody what to do and where to go.
I think it's only a matter of time. This recent League of Legends championship had a LOT of people watching. There just needs to be someone to come along who is super marketable and also really good. I played Counterstrike competitively a while back, and my experience disagrees with this. I think you could learn to be pretty good, but there's just a certain amount of talent that goes into it that prevents just anyone from reaching the highest level of play. Depending on the game you're playing, this could be your reflexes or how fast you think. Not just anyone can become the best.
This is true in just about every field. Some people are great at visualizing space, some are great at playing chess,etc. Only the truly gifted can rise the very top of their profession. You think every one can be Nobel Prize winner?
"Much More" popular? Dont see it. Granted video games are a new invention in the grand scheme of things but there is a reason sports have been around for thousands of years. People like to watch physically gifted people compete in athletic contests. The Olympics started in ancient Greece 2500 years+ ago. Moral of the story is sports and their popularity/public interest have staying power. Make this thread in 1000 years and then we'll talk
I think there are more people with that mental capacity on the earth that there are genetically gifted ones. It's a Supply vs Demand argument to me. Just look at what scientists get paid as opposed to Athletes.
It's already like that in Korea. Starcraft is a huge spectator sport there and the top players make millions and are treated like celebrities.
Its going to be marginally more popular than Chess tournaments. Will never surpass physical competition.
People like to watch things we are interested in doing. If you played basketball, you like to watch basketball, if you played piano, you would probably enjoy going to concerts, if you played alot of CS, you might want to enjoy seeing how the very best CS players play the game, this is only natural. I played a lot of chess, so I enjoy watching the top GMs play a game that most people would not enjoy, if there are millions of people like me in the US, chess would be popular too. However, there are not that many people who are into chess in this country. There are millions of not tens of millions of young people that are into video games, so I can see this become a big part of the entertainment business in the future. All you need is to look at the sales total of video games vs the box office records of the movies to see the future.
Those Quake tournaments they hold are pretty fun to watch on YouTube. There will never be "video game pros like sports pros" though.
Also played some competitve CS back in the day and I have to agree with this sentiment, at a certain point some people just have naturally better reaction time, hand-eye coordination, etc.
Not even when you have full immersion games for both the players and spectators with holograms? Have you seen how far video games have came in the last 25 years? I think you are selling video games way short.
