Mark’s Blog

When asked about online gaming and what people play you will more than likely get told by the person that they play one of the many games made by Valve. For example Team Fortress 2, Counter strike, or even Source are the main games. But then you will get others saying games like Call of duty and Crysis to such an extent. But many of these people haven’t actually left their house to buy this product.

Many people are now using Valve’s Steam platform to buy and download games, whether it be new users who have never played online before or old users who have cheated, got banned and want a new account. This is steadily making steam to be the biggest download manager system on the market in terms of purchasing and downloading the games legally. The only main rival to the Steam platform would be EA Games Download system. On that note though, we saw the new the other day that EA games were going to be releasing the new Crysis on Steam.

Now if EA games were really that good with their download system, then surely they wouldn’t release it through steam. Does that by default make Steam the #1 download system out there? Defiantly and I’ll explain my reasons for this now.

Valve has for a long time being releasing games through their Steam platform and as a result there are now over 440 games in their collection that can be bought and downloaded. That’s more than any other downloading programs, which are legal. They also have all their games available on very fast Steam content servers, which might I add are apparently like gold dust as they are hidden away in secret locations around the world. This means that as soon as you’ve paid for your game, you can download at the maximum your internet can take.

Paying for things couldn’t be easier either, with the options to use paypal or bank cards to pay for games, making games available to everyone. You also have the steam community system, which allows you to speak to your friends while playing games, so you can play together on servers, chat while you play or just find out what your friends are up to. Its not quite a rival of xfire or msn, but it works in the same manner.

Now ofcourse there are bad points about it, as there is always a downside for everything. With the purchasing of games via steam and not directly from the shops, it means you don’t have a disk or CD key, which means if your steam account was to get stolen you would have to rely on the email receipts. What could potentially go wrong there though is if your email is then hacked as well, meaning you have no access to the games you played for. It does seem like it might never happen to you, but it does to a lot of users all the time.

However this is then counter balanced again with more good things, such as the ability to download the game to any PC that you are at and just play the game from your steam account. There is also no need to worry about the game disk getting damaged or going missing as there are no disks involved at all. You even then have another good thing with the payment system, as the system doesn’t remember your details, meaning you won’t be open to fraud through steam atleast.

In overall contrast it does make it look like Steam could well be the best download software out there on the market for purchasing and downloading games. Nowhere else offers anywhere near the number of games available on steam, for the prices they offer, and the service they offer.

With the ever increasing number of gamers around the world and the ever increasing prize funds available for competitions, is gaming really set to make its way onto the sports calendar?

Sport is defined as an active diversion requiring physical exertion and competition.

Now, while playing on your PC you don’t instantly think, physical exertion, but think again. Your moving your mouse, your bashing them keys, does that not count as physical exertion? There is also a lot of competition in Computer gaming, with teams always wanting to win and never giving up hope, going into the next round like they want to win it.

Now, not only do comparisons happen with the definition, they happen with the daily aspects of sports. Athletes spends hours each day training, getting ready, learning new tactics, testing these tactics and getting ready for a competition. Football being a prime example. Footballers go out day after day to train with their team, to get used to their team mates, to increase fitness, to improve their ability at football. They learn new tactics from their managers, they then even go out and play friendly matches in preparation for new seasons.

Day after day they go through the same routine for a sport, which involves kicking a ball. Now we switch over to Computer Gaming. The top gamers tend to play games every day for a couple of hours, train with their team and play practice matches, so they can test the tactics, test positions and improve their game play, by getting used to the maps, sounds and timings. In fact if anything, Computer gaming requires that little bit more from the person competing, as they have to endure not moving off their seat for long periods of time. Ofcourse there is a recommended 15 minute break every hour, but how many people honestly do that?

That’s only the beginning of the similarities now appearing in E-sports gaming. We are now seeing the emergence of teams and transfers between teams. We’re even seeing players on contracts with the big teams. Much like in real life. Ok the wages aren’t as good, but to be paid to do something you enjoy, there won’t be many people saying no to that!

There are now big name sponsors for teams, giving these teams money to advertise on player shirts at computer gaming events known as LAN’s. They pay for these players to attend these events, to win money and increase their reputation, much like they do in true sports.

This then leads onto my next point. The computer gaming events themselves. There are plenty of leagues out there, which teams apply to compete in. They get classed by the skill, and if they win, they go up a league, if they fail miserably, they go down a league, much like the relegation/promotion battle’s that come from real life sports. These are normally scheduled for once a week, with the sometimes two times a week event, which sees it come into line with football, where fixtures are rearranged due to clashes.

The cup events work much in the same system as the FA cup, where by the giants face the underdogs, and slowly but surely everyone is knocked out till you have 1 winner.

The similarities are endless, but the point on this article has so far been missed. According to sources, it was recently passed that GGL (http://www.ggl.com/) are allowed to use the Olympic rings for promoting and branding a big gaming tournament that is supposed to be happening at the same time as the Olympics in China. This is being seen as a trial as to what could happen in the future.

If this year it is a trial, could the next Olympics, that is due to be hosted in the United Kingdom, be the start of e-sports gaming in the Olympics? Could cyber athletes be competing for gold medals along side the great sport athletes of our time? It’s a good start I’m sure to say that!

Then there’s the current Championship Gaming Series (CGS) Competition. There are many weak and strong points about it. People are moaning that it’s killing Counterstrike Source, by taking all the best players, giving them contracts and breaking up teams. While this may be the case, it’s also helping set up E-sports gaming as a future sport. The world finals are currently being held over in America, with the final’s being tonight. These finals are due to be broadcasted Live to a world wide audience, expected to be in the millions. Now love or hate it, there is defiantly something good about that happening.

If people are seeing an interest in this and are hosting these games online, then is obviously a market for it. Where there’s a market, there’s money to be made, and as a result people are willing to invest in it. Company’s are willing to sponsor, team’s are willing to pay, TV stations are willing to endorse it, Governments are willing to back it!

Which leads onto my next point. In Korea it is rumoured that the government pays the best players to play their favourite games, and compete for massive prize’s. If that’s not a good incentive to play and get better I don’t know what is.

All in all, gaming is slowly getting more and more recognised by people around the world, and it is becoming more accepted by the general population. They are willing to help out, dabble in it themselves. Before long, on a Sunday morning when we open the sports pages of the New of the World or other such papers, we may see clans names appearing in tables, along side that of the Premiership. Then again though, with the current economic slump, everything that’s happened so far, may suddenly stop. Let’s hope not and hope it improves.

Well I’m sure that by clicking on here, you either did it accidentally or something has caught your interest and you want to take a look. Even so, I’m sure your thinking “O No, not another Blog!”

While you may be thinking this, is this not what the web is here for? For users to post there feelings, comments and random mumblings? Afterall what would the web be without this fresh approach to contacting the world.

So getting to the point of this news post, yes it is another blog, but you might aswell take a look every now and again to see my mindless jottings, random posts and anything else I just feel like posting!