Major League

Over the weekend of June 8th-10th over 20,000 people gathered at the Anaheim Convention Center to watch people play games.  I was able to count myself among those present and got the chance not only to watch people play, but I did a little playing myself.

The event was the Major League Gaming (MLG) Spring Championship, with most of the focus on the Starcraft II tournament.  There were also tournaments for League of Legends, Mortal Kombat, and Soul Calibur V, as well as a North American Starcraft Championship sponsored by Blizzard.  All the games were streamed online for millions of viewers, but as an added bonus for those attending, there were playable demo stations for the new Starcraft II expansion game set to be released later this year (Heart of the Swarm).

Most of my attention was focused on the MLG tournament, watching games and playing HotS against my friends.  We were there for all of Saturday and watched the finals online Sunday afternoon.  It was a great experience something I would definitely do again.

I'm sorry for the lack of quality pictures.
It was fairly dark all over, so lighting was less than ideal.

A high view of the main viewing area.

Leading up to this I have been getting really into the pro-scene of starcraft.  There are certain celebrity  like players and commentators.  It was cool and weird to be so close to them because they are very much just normal people.  Also the best players are Korean and many of the don't speak much english so its not like you could talk to them much or anything, but whatever.

There are tons of games going on at any given moment, this is a row of computers facing each other where two players face off.  

The most important game going on (with highly seeded or more popular players) is put on the main stage.  The players are in those little lit booths at the front, the screens show to the audience what either player's screen looks like on the sides, and then the commentators screen in the middle.  The commentators (who's voiceover is heard, are actually in little booths of their own behind the stage) have access to information about both players units, production, mining, etc. basically everything needed to commentate and say who is probably ahead and say how engagements will end up.  If you're not familiar with Starcraft at all... I'll explain it sometime later.

The next two most important matches at a given moment are played on a semi-stage where there are no commentators, but you can see either player's screen above their head so you can watch the big battles, also you can watch close up their fingers on the keyboard and mouse and really watch them play.  That dyed haired Korean is MarineKingPrime (aka MKP, aka Lee Jung Hoon) the winner of MLG Winter championship.  Here at Spring he came in 3rd.

This is SK-MC (aka Jang Min Chul, aka The Boss-Toss) talking to his coach and getting ready for a game against Quanitic-SaSe (aka Kim Hammar, he's Sweedish).   MC recently won a Red Bull tournament, SaSe went to take 4th place here at MLG (and I said 'hi' to him).

This is EG-ThorZaIN (aka Marcus Eklöf, a Norwegian) who came out of nowhere a year ago and started winning tournaments.

And this is Grubby (aka Manuel Schenkhuizen, Dutch) one of the few pro-gammers not on a team.

The finals were super amazing!  Even though it was just back at our hotel with the 3 starcraft nerds, then a handfull of girls, we got them all to be a little interested.  We watched some of the quarters and then the semi final matches and everyone started rooting for certain players.  Alicia made an astonishing climb through the losers bracket to make it to the finals where he was pretty much crushed by DongRaeGu (aka DRG, aka Park Soo Ho).  We were mostly rooting for Alicia, but DRG was pretty awesome to watch since he really was just soooo good.

A great way to spend a weekend :-D

If you're still interested here's an article from Forbes.com about the event, including an infographic on viewership and attendance.  It's a big deal because at one point over 400,000 people were watching live or on the internet, which is more than many major tv programs that happend at the same time.

Athleticism

Recently I my mind has been stirred up to thinking about the definition of a sport.  If you check the worlds most useful and accessible encyclopedia it says that "Sport is all forms of competitive physical activity which, through casual or organized participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical fitness and provide entertainment to participants."  The dictionary defines it as, "an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature"

That blond kid is so gonna kick that ball...

Both of these definitions (and most thoughts of 'sports') call to mind physical activity, sweaty men, and exercise (oh yeah, and a mass of kids mindlessly following a ball around a field).  Yet there are many sports that do not fit this 'athletic' definition, the General Association of International Sport Federations (GAISF) recognizes five different 'mind-sports' such as chess, go, bridge, and even checkers.  Of course even those 'athletic' sports do not all require the same amount of strength, stamina, dexterity, or even fitness.  A 'futballer' is clearly in better shape than a 'caster' (fisherman), and sumo wrestler could hardly hope to perform like a gymnast (and viceversa).

They're similar... but yet different.

Over the course of history what society considers 'sport' has taken various forms.  From the purely track and field events of the first olympics to this years first ever European Winter X-Games, the events that we crowd around a TV to watch are changing as the technology around them.  Lately I have been glued to my computer screen as I watch live streams of some of my favorite video games being played in tournaments around the world.  E-gaming seems to be the newest wave in development of sports.  If you think back 30 years, people then didn't really consider skateboarding to be a 'professional sport' but it sure is now.


I think many people are reluctant to call gamers 'athletes,' because they're not really athletic, and that's fair, but not being an athlete doesn't mean what you do isn't a sport.  Consider things like shooting,  racing (NASCAR) or, equestrian events, those are sports, but it's hard to call those who do them athletes.  Some of you may argue saying that jockeys are athletes, and certainly some people believe that race car drivers are athletes.  I assure you, it may take great skill, but not athletic conditioning.

Although, it can't take that much skill to hit a target with fancy
targeting scanners attached to your head and gun.

People seem to equate being athletic with things outdoors, even things like jet ski racing seem more athletic due to it's outdoor nature, but really what more athletic conditioning does a jet ski racer need over a NASCAR driver?  If a man were to run several miles every day on his indoor treadmill, we might think him to be less athletic than the man who walks for just one mile outside.  Think about it.

A gamer is just as much an athlete as many of these aforementioned sport playing professionals.  He may sit down during his event, (so do many jockeys), yet the skill, dexterity, concentration, and comprehension, are (I think) much higher than most athletic events.  I believe that e-sports will continue to grow and become more and more socially acceptable.  I believe that I will live to see the day where StarCraft is broadcast on television, and not just through the internet.

This guy is just awesome, and he sure looks athletic, but
does his sport require athleticism to compete?

That's right, he's sitting down.

DK

Last November Nintendo released a retro-remake game for the Wii, Donkey Kong Country Returns, emulating the style and format of the original SNES game DK Country.  Sadly then (and now) I did not have the funds to purchase brand new wii games, but I did have in my possession a N64 and the interesting title of Donkey Kong 64.  Being curious about the DK franchise I decided that before I would allow myself to buy the new DK game, I would play through the old DK game.

Sadly DK 64 is one of the worst platform games ever created.  The controls are glitchy, the levels are expansive and the goals are obscure.  I never would have made it past the first hour of playing if I hadn't found a very thorough game guide online.  Of course I, being a perfectionist, could not settle for merely beating the final boss, I had to go through every level, collecting every banana medal, finding every banana fairy, and of course getting every last golden banana (not to mention the battle crowns, blueprints, and boss keys).  The guide I found was very useful in aiding my quest, but as you can see here, it still took me 46 HOURS!!  (that's right, all 101% - the 201st banana is a 'secret')

And happily for my birthday this week, I was rewarded with the next installment.  I now consider myself a DK enthusiast... for the most part.

Wii

For Christmas Stephanie and I were blessed to get the curse of a Wii from her parents.  I say curse because all of our spare time is now spent not on catching up in classes, but playing Mario!!  (it's not quite that bad, but I am wary of the entrapment that it represents).

For the last couple weeks we've been involving ourselves in playing Super Mario Bros Wii, and I just realized that we did a pretty good job of beating the game in just a few weeks (we started Sunday Jan. 1) considering: we did it together, we never played by ourselves (we each had our own games for when we were home alone).  We went through every world, although we did earn the trip to some world-skipping cannons, we went back and beat every castle the levels.  We even spent some time playing finding missed star coins and earning extra lives in World 1.  

And for the visual enjoyment of all.  This is how you beat Bowser.  You avoid one half of the screen while not falling into the lava.

And how do you do it?  (notice the mario in the above pic?  yeah, you pretty much have to fly.)