One would be hard pressed nowadays to find a game that doesn’t offer the player some degree of online functionality. With big budget, triple-A releases being developed with online in mind, taking advantage of the large, cult like followings that online games garner, more and more money is being spent on an aspect that was once an afterthought. Online gaming, however; thanks to the competitive nature of human beings; has spawned a thriving community of competitions, championships and tournaments, played on a variety of titles. With these competitions on the upswing, we mulled over why exactly gaming competitions have gotten so big.
It’s not just competitive spirit and cyberspace self-worth that has spawned tournaments, however. The Call of Duty World Championships, held this spring, had a total prize pool of $1,000,000, and in 2011, the Battlefield 3 Worldwide Conquest Tournament had a prize of $1,600,000; quite the prize for what is, to the untrained observer, playing a computer game. With this much on offer, players that thought they were good at the game whilst playing for fun are enticed to take it that step further. Meanwhile, with such big prizes on the line, publicity is generated and game copies are sold; the benefits are shared by consumer, publisher and developer.
Online gaming doesn’t have to be a high-definition, bullet-ridden endeavour, however. Take online casino mobile providers. These companies have been enjoying enormous growth of recent, thanks in part to the lifting of the taboo of gambling across society and the rise in mobile gaming apps. Casino games obviously lend themselves to tournaments, and as such competitions are regularly held, testing the competitors’ mettle across a variety of games; blackjack, roulette, poker, to name but a few; as huge prizes hang in the balance. These competitions are so popular that continent-wide and worldwide competitions are regularly held, satisfying the competitive desires of many whilst simultaneously making many individuals rather wealthy!