I’m stoked. Gamer Zone is going to be hosting the World Cyber Games local prelims for Wichita, Kansas (and anyone within driving distance 🙂 We’ve done a good number of local tournaments before, but, this is participating on a world wide scale. 1.2 million players are expected to compete this year. For anyone interested, here’s the quick schedule of events:
June 11th – Counter Strike
June 16th – Counter Strike League Prelims Begin
June 25th – Halo 2
June 30th – Counter Strike League Begins (Last possible day to register!)
July 2nd – Warcraft III: Frozen Throne*
July 9th – Starcraft: Brood War*
(The * is because we don’t normally have Warcraft or Starcraft – our license from Blizzard is a one-shot tournament authorization for the event, then we unload the games. I really want Blizzard to offer us licensing for a MUCH more reasonable cost than they do right now, something like how Valve does it. But I’m not holding my breath.)
You’ll notice there’s a League in there too – iGames called me last night and asked if we were interesting in hosting a World Cyber Games Counter Strike league. Gamer Zone’s plan was to start a league immediately after the 11th – like on a Thursday night, and run it for like 8 – 10 weeks. Oddly enough, the called, and thier plan was EXACTLY what I had planned here locally already without discussing it with iGames or the WCG. Obviously this was just meant to be 🙂
My next job tomarrow during the day will be to send out press releases to anyone who’ll listen here in town 😉 Which makes me currious – what’s the breakover point for “newsworthy” in the eyes of the various media outlets on a local level? I’ve sent out a press release or two before, but, we never had something that was really “Kick-Ass” to talk about. Games are now sporadically newsworthy these days – I guess this will be an interesting experment 🙂
This also comes back to that interesting debate about when / if games will become more like a sport with amature, semi-pro, and pro athletes, sponsors, etc. Right now it’s still a little hard to get sponsors for an event (we don’t have any, but I haven’t pushed real hard for it), but there are tourneys and tournament organizations that find corporate sponsors. I don’t think things are quite “there” yet, but in another 5 years? I think it will finally happen. To me there’s a fundamental problem with games going big-time sport – spectators. Right now it’s not that exciting to watch most games. I’ve pondered a bit what could be done to enhance the experience for audiences, and really haven’t come to any conclusions. Is there a way to do it?
I would have posted Game Design by Observation #2 – but it got lost. Twice. I’ve written it a third time on Saturday, but, didn’t feel like posting it today for some reason. I’ll post it this weekend sometime.
Content showed up for one of the games I worked on ages ago – Attack of the Goobers finally has it’s boss models and textures. When I get it integrated (sometime this weekend also) I’ll post a screenshot, and AotG will start it’s Beta run. Yep – that means at IGC this year I’ll have something to show. Actually, I should have two games to show 🙂
Ok, I’ve shared my most exciting stuff for the week… now it’s back to real work 🙂
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr  (Jun 02, 2005 at 04:17) Â
OK, I have to add something… hit Google, and enter Where In The World is Carmen Sandiego
Google pretty much puts an end to that game 😉
Ron Yacketta  (Jun 02, 2005 at 06:18)
Davis,
You feeling OK ? not even 1 full page of a .plan this time 🙁 your avg is 1.5 pages per .plan 😉
GREAT NEWS btw! sounds like things are really jumping on your end
-Ron
Joshua Dallman  (Jun 02, 2005 at 09:40)
that’s a cool tourney, but I don’t like any of the games they’re using. I’m surprised it’s such a narrow range of popular games. I’d expect at least one classic or oddball game in the mix just to stir things up. something less competitive for a high score challenge. but it’s still pretty cool!
Edited on Jun 02, 2005 09:41
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr  (Jun 02, 2005 at 17:43) Â
There’s a couple of more that are in the regionals only – Need For Speed Underground and Dead or Alive Ultimate. However, that doesn’t much count as “classic” 🙂
Rex  (Jun 02, 2005 at 21:31)
You are on track with a vision of the future, Davis; in regards to ‘sport’ and positioning Gamer Zone. Keep chuggin’.
Rex