GameDaily BIZ tracked down Matt Ringel the (former?) president of the World Series of Videogames, to figure out just what the hell happened last week.As you can see from our own interview with Ringel earlier this year, things seems to be rolling along great for the WSVG-- they were working with Blizzard to make presentation much better for Arena PvP, and they had gotten a deal together with CBS to show their videogame tournaments in a series of specials. But Ringel says the WSVG wasn't alone in the space-- the CPL is another big player, and one who many have cited as a successor to the WSVG-- and advertisers had a big problem determining what the differences were between all the organizations. Ringel doesn't add much more, except to say that the WSVG is really, truly dead: Games Media is going to focus on their online properties, including Gameriot.com.
As we said on the podcast last Saturday, this doesn't mean professional gaming is over-- it just means the WSVG didn't do it right. But considering the WSVG was working hand-in-hand with Blizzard to promote Arena PvP, it might mean the end of non-Blizzard professional Arena matches. My guess is that instead of partnering with another organization to run professional tournaments, Blizzard will be much more inclined to just run their own, at BlizzCon and other Blizzard-related events.
[ via Joystiq ]
Subscribe
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-17-2007 @ 6:42PM
Rich said...
I think someone nailed it on the head in the original thread here.
They were hoping they'd get bought out before their initial cash dried up and it didn't happened.
Reply
9-17-2007 @ 10:16PM
Liel said...
I don't think "professional" video gaming will ever take off. From what I read from blogs and magazine articles it seemed the only people interested in it were people participating in it or people who were running things in it.
Watching somebody else play a video game just seems boring and hard to watch unless it is spectator mode on your pc through the game itself.
Reply
9-18-2007 @ 3:22PM
Zegim said...
How you can say pro videogaming could be over because people didn't support a WoW event?
Evo runs every year with the best players in the world and some nice prices. Yes, it's a fighting game event, and it may not appeal to the WoW crowd, but it's still a pro videogaming event that's alive and doing well consistently.
Reply