10. Pro Gamers Aren't Geeks - They're JocksIt may come as a shock to some people, but it's true. If you're looking for Lewis Skolnick types with pocket protectors and thick-rimmed glasses, you've come to the wrong place. Gamers here at the CPL resemble jocks - albeit seriously smart and tech-savvy jocks - more than mild-mannered nerds. They talk like jocks, barking profanity-laced trash talk at one another. They act like jocks, thumping their chests with victory and high-fiving and fist-pounding one another after big wins. Okay, so most of the pro gamers here don't have ripped abs and athletic physiques, and quite a few are of a more diminutive stature. But they're not fat blobs either. Oh, and some of them have uniforms, too.
9. There Are Female Pro GamersYes, there are girls in the professional gaming circles. And some of them are quite good, too. There aren't a whole lot of females around on the first day of the CPL Championship Finals event here in Dallas, but there are a few. For example, there was the SK Gaming Ladies team in the Counter-Strike competition. In another game room, I counted half a dozen females playing various PC and consoles games. And they blended in well with the rest of crowd, cheering loudly and yelling commands during matches.
8. Trash-Talking Is The Air, And So Is SportsmanshipPlaying online can lead to spirited trash-talking and unseemly insults - just like basketball, football, and baseball. However, I was surprised that, after a Counter-Strike match ended, I saw the winning players get up from their seats, walk around the table and shake hands with their opponents. Sure, there's trash-talking and cussing and gangster rap-flavored insults that are lobbied across the PCs during heated competitions. And there are plenty of rivalries between pro gamers and top teams. But there's also standard of sportsmanship, at least at this CPL event. When professional gamers come face to face with one another and when alls said and done, there exists a mutual respect for one another. And in this day and age when NFL players stomp on each others heads and spit in their opponents faces and brawls break out on NBA basketball courts, such sportsmanship - and professionalism - from young gamers is a breath of fresh air.
7. Pro Gamers Retire Earlier Than Tennis PlayersYou'd think that playing video and PC games professionally would be a dream come true for many, especially the top pro gamers. Yet a number of them seem to retire at a young age during their so-called "prime." For example, Kristoffer "Tentpole" Nordlund has said he will retire after the CPL World Tour Championship wraps up this year - at the ripe old age of 21. Nordlund is a member of Sweden's top professional team, dubbed Fnatic, and he's pretty damn good at Counter Strike. There's been no word about what Nordlund will do after retirement, but there is life after pro gaming. For example, Sander "Vo0" Kaasjager, 21, who is one of the top Painkiller players in the world and earned more than $230,000 on the 2005 CPL World Tour alone, retired earlier this year to concentrate on his college studies. And Dennis "Thresh" Fong, who was once one of the dominant Quake players in professional gaming during the late 1990s, went on to become a successful entrepreneur, founding the gaming site Gamers.com and Xfire, the communication software maker and social networking provider for online gamers. Xfire was acquired by MTV Networks last spring for more than $100 million, so Fong is doing quite well.
6. Pro Gaming Has Its Own Sports MediaIn addition to being broadcast on MTV, USA Network, and DirecTV, professional gaming has its own dedicated sports media that broadcasts the matches via the Web and reports box scores, stats, and news recaps. For example, GotFrag.com is a site dedicated to covering live competitions with online streaming video as well as news reports, stats and record keeping. There's also Amped eSports , which covers a variety of professional gaming tournaments and organizations. In addition, Cohesion Productions is currently filming documentaries on the history of professional gaming. And just recently, Gotfrag partnered with Beckett Media to launch the first e-sports magazine, dubbed eSports. A number of other gaming and tech sites are following the trend and increasing their coverage of professional gaming.
5. Stats Are More Than Just Wins And Losses - And They're ConfusingI'm still trying to figure out how stats work in pro gaming. There's the wins and losses column, and then there's everything else. For example, GameSense, which is the record-keeping database for GotFrag.com, has over 30 different stats for both individual players and teams in Counter-Strike competitions. There's +/- , which measures a player's Frags minus the number of Deaths (a strong Counter-Strike player, therefore, will have a very high plus number). There's the Assist category, which means a player wounds an opposing player with more than 50 percent damage but doesn't actually score a Frag. There's the Error stat, or E, which results in a players engaging in friendly fire or "world spawns," which is when a player accidentally frags him or herself during combat. And there's the ACE, which is the home run of Counter-Strike, according to GameSense; ACE's are scored when a player frags the entire opposing team in one round. There's also the DM or Domination stat, which is derived from a complex formula involving a number of different stats that's way too complicated to go into here.
4. Pro Gamers Are Divided Over The GamesJust like Major League Baseball fans constantly lament over the designated hitter rule, some gamers debate the merits of Counter Strike 1.6 over Counter Strike: Source. There are also Quake purists who prefer playing Quake 3 instead of the more recent Quake 4. And if there's one thing that keeps professional gaming fragmented, it's the ever-growing number of online multiplayer games that are used at pro tournaments, such as Halo 2, Call of Duty 2, Warcraft III, and Battlefield 2. In fact, the CPL is introducing a Guitar Hero tournament at its Winter Championship event this week, though it will be for fun rather than for huge prize money. Will new games like Gears of War replace older titles like Quake 3? And what will that mean for the "old guard" of professional gaming?
3. Pro Gaming Has StarsYou didn't have to see the "60 Minutes" episode featuring Jonathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel to know he's one of the top professional gamers in the world. Wendel's name - or rather, Fatal1ty - can be found on plenty of premium gaming equipment, as he has endorsements with a variety of companies such as Abit, Zalman, Creative Labs and other gaming hardware manufacturers. Some of the bigger stars in pro gaming include Sander "Vo0" Kaasjager, who retired this year, and Anton "Cooller" Singov, a top Quake player from Russia. There are also star Counter-Strike teams like Fnatic and SK Gaming from Sweden, CompLexity and Team 3D from the U.S., MeetYourMakers from the U.K., Evil Geniuses from Canada, and LaVega from Korea.
2. Heated Rivalries Are AblazeJust like any good sport, there are great rivalries in professional gaming. Most of the good ones involve Counter-Strike teams. In addition to battling for dominance in professional tournaments, teams also jockey for bragging rights in their home countries. For example, CompLexity and Team 3D, arguably the most well-known rivalry in e-sports, are the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox of professional Counter-Strike competitions in the U.S., while SK Gaming and Fnatic have their own rivalry in Sweden. And of course, Fatal1t and Vo0 had quite race going in Quake before Vo0 announced his retirement.
1. It Really Isn't About The MoneyYes, there's a lot of money to be won at professional gaming tournaments. Yes, Jonathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel has won more than $1 million in prizes. And yes, there's $150,000 in cash prizes at the CPL Championship Finals this week alone. But if there's one thing that's obvious at this event, it's that e-sports really isn't about the money. Professional athletes say that all the time in other sports regarding their multi-million dollar contracts, but we know better. But for pro gamers, it's about being recognized for your skills and ability. It's about being part of something big and earning prestige. And it's about doing something that you love and having fun while doing it. There may come a day when pro gamers are making as much money as their counterparts in baseball or basketball, and we may yearn for the early days when e-sports wasn't ruled by money, prima donna stars and bloated contracts. But for now, it's about the passion that these athletes have for gaming and competition.
