With TV, the games, they are a changin' - `Championship Gaming Series' hopes to follow the path of poker and extreme sports.
The Los Angeles Complexity couldn't overcome an opening 5-0 loss in the men's "Dead or Alive" competition Monday night in "Championship Gaming Series" play and ended up losing 24-17 to archrival New York 3D.
Huh?
DirecTV's inaugural broadcast of a made-for-television e-gaming league at times seemed to be as much game show as athletic event. Stagehands called for applause after commercial breaks, and "ring girls" came onstage carrying the appropriate sports symbol -- a soccer ball, boxing gloves or a starter's flag -- to signal the upcoming video game to be played.
More than 200 fans -- most of them clutching thundersticks like those found at a baseball game -- sat in bleachers inside a Manhattan Beach soundstage. Most clearly got into it, loudly encouraging their favorite team, which not surprisingly was Complexity. That was particularly true during the "Counter-Strike: Source" segment that L.A. won in overtime.
The premise for "Championship Gaming Series" is simple -- six teams, 60 players, six general managers, team logos, four games a week through July, team standings and point tallies. In other words, a typical sports league, where head-to-head competition rules the day.
Last month, the 60 players were among the hundreds who made their way to Soundstage 22 on the 20th Century Fox lot in Century City to try out. This soundstage, which has been host to movie shoots and television series tapings, had seen nothing like these gamers and was tricked out with smoke machines, pulsing lights and a monster sound system.
Gamers were drawn to Los Angeles by the opportunity to earn a $30,000 base salary and the chance to win even more in bonuses. And DirecTV, whose coverage reaches 16 million households in the U.S., is hoping to cash in on e-gaming's popularity.
There are 10 players on each of six teams -- L.A. Complexity, San Francisco Optx, Chicago Chimera, New York 3D, Carolina Core and Dallas Venom.
In addition to the kick-boxing version of the "Dead or Alive" series and "Counter-Strike: Source," a popular video game in which heavily armed virtual squads seek to destroy each other, players are competing in "FIFA Soccer '07" and "Project Gotham Racing 3," an auto racing challenge.
Who is expected to watch the league's twice-weekly broadcasts that will show gamers furiously working their video game controllers, as well as scenes captured by virtual cameras embedded in the game software?
