This past weekend has been a bit of a blur. After finishing up in
Ohio, I spent the entirety of Monday traveling to San Francisco. This
will end up being a bit more of a placeholder until I am able to get
some legitimate sleep, since it is now 3 AM for my natural circadian
rhythm.
This event featured multiple games, including fighter games Tekken, Soul
Calibur, King of Fighters, Mortal Kombat, first person shooter Halo and
real time strategy game Starcraft. Players came in force, fighting for
the top slot, honour, and prize money. I was mostly in the Starcraft
area of the venue, which ultimately focuses on the comparison between
the Korean players, who hold the highest place among competitors, and
"Team USA" as the foreign hope for everyone from the rest of the world.
Many
of the players travel to the same tournaments to compete, which has
generated a pretty tight knit community of friends and rivals. Often
friends and teammates will play their all against each other, even to
the point of elimination in bracket. Two of my friends, who are also
teammates, had this situation in Winners Round 5, neither wanting to be
defeated nor to be the one to send the other to the Loser's bracket.
The matches were intense, they know each others' strategies well from
often practising together.
As
the match completed, the men had a moment of being awkward, then both
smiled and shook hands while critiquing the matches the just completed.
Obviously,
the matches are an important aspect of a tournament, but another side
of it is a chance for fans to interact with their favourite players. As
competitive gaming is a sport which can be played and viewed from any
location, large tournaments like Major League Gaming draw in massive
amounts of spectators who wish to cheer on and meet the players they
idolise daily through streams, online tournaments and match replays.
No comments:
Post a Comment