
Virtual Leagues Fold, Forcing Gamers to Find Actual Jobs  - peter123
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/sports/othersports/02video.html
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lacker
"Actual Jobs"? Ironic that the NYT would gloat.

Next article in the series: Non-Virtual News Sources Fold, Forcing Journalists
to Find Actual Jobs.

~~~
omnivore
I was thinking that too. A bitter copy editor must've enjoyed writing that
headline.

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lacker
This isn't the end of professional video gaming. As the article points out,
Major League Gaming is still going strong.

Also in other countries professional video gaming is even stronger than in the
US. I was surprised when visiting Korea to see in airports big screen TVs
showing video game championships. The big money's over there, someone recently
signed a six-figure contract:

[http://www.sk-
gaming.com/content/22880-FOX_officially_unveil...](http://www.sk-
gaming.com/content/22880-FOX_officially_unveils_record_signing_Moon)

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mberning
This is also happening to leagues for fringe or 'extreme' sports, such as
paintball.

~~~
blang
and olympians <http://www.newsweek.com/id/189296>

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adammarkey
As a former pro-gamer (sponsored by Diamond Multimedia for Counter-Strike...
remember them?) turned pro-hacker to pay the bills, the future for pro-gaming
seems bright.

Quake-live is a great example of a game that could really become the next
"basketball". It can run on almost any computer (10 years old) and the
gameplay has stood the test of time which shows how incredibly balanced the
game is.

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mdolon
I don't feel bad for these guys. Sure you can argue that playing video games
well is a skill and if people are willing to pay for it, fine. It is
essentially another form of entertainment, after all, similar to acting or
sports. Still it feels cheap to me, as it doesn't even require the physical
might that at least athletics demands. With so many people working so hard to
make a living, it seems unfair for someone to do so playing video games.

Maybe this shitty economy will help weed out the lazy and force people to be
useful again.

~~~
pchristensen
Read some of David Sirlin's stuff (like his book "Playing To Win"
<http://www.sirlin.net/ptw/>) and see how lazy you think competitive gamers
are.

~~~
unalone
Sirlin is terrific. I've been reading through his blog, and his insights into
the gaming world are incredible. I'd recommend it to anybody who's designing
anything, especially since to many people using web sites are similar to
playing games. (Some of his tips on gameplay would really influence and change
sites like Reddit and HN, I feel, especially his article about balanced
gameplay.)

