Purchasing an existing platform to build on is the smart move.

The biggest challenge is convincing Valve and Riot that MLG can get enough eyes watching to get the two biggest players in the eSports game on board.

That doesn't seem like a bad thing considering every single big e-sports thing happens on Twitch. The CS:GO tournaments that are streamed on MLG.tv do way worse than the ones on Twitch.

Activation hasn't been doing too good lately with their business decisions. It's times like this that I'm glad the FGC isn't full eSports yet.

Seeking to emulate dying mediums is always a good business decision.

Is there anyone here who can explain why eSports might become a thing? I'm not asking sarcastically, I'm genuinely curious. Every time I've seen a snippet of coverage, it looked and sounded really, really dumb. Basically Dodgeball ESPN "The Ocho"-level announcers who fail to explain any terminology paired with participants with lame gamertag/pro-wrestling names. There was a lot of "Grandmaster Shift McClutch with a wicked carry!". It was probably one of the most off-putting unwatchable things I've seen recently.

It kinda reminded me of early X-Games style stuff - trying way too hard to be hip and cool.

The US Gov't taxes corporations on gross income not profits, so they're on the hook for what they make either way. It prevent them from being under pressure to declare a dividend, though.

If you really want a conspiracy theory, it would be that Activision is picking this stuff up intending that it produce a loss that it can use to offset other income in the future. In other words, wait until they've got some big game like Warcraft 4 coming out that they know will make a ton of money, and then sell the ESports thing the same year at a huge loss to offset the income.

If they replace all the zombies in the next CoD with Bobby, it might actually excite people.

@the_ruckus: They were probably less focused on the brand and more focused on the tech and people that ran it. 46M is chump change for Activision in comparison to the purchases they've made in recent years.

Gross.

1+

@lawgamer: To be fair, it's not on the process of "becoming" since it already exists and despite it not having a huge mainstream presence, it has become really big in recent years with viewers and prizes also reflecting said growth. It's also dependent if you actually like the competitive aspect of certain video games in general since if you weren't interested in that in the slightest then it would obviously come off as incredibly amateurish. There is still room for improvement though if the goal is to appeal to more people like using real names instead of their tags, etc.

Also I wanted to ask other people here to confirm but I find that there are more popular fighting game players that actually use their real name or some shortened derivative of it compared to players in other genres.

Not that I care about MLG, but I don't like how big Activision has become. They can buy out basically anyone at this point.

ESPN doesn't really organise sporting events, generally they just license them. So how this purchase helps build an ESPN of eSports is beyond me. It really seems like Activision are floundering to be seen to be doing something with eSports, but they don't really have clue what they should do.

"Please Stop" eSports ?

You're not the only one who thinks that we should stop using that term. I'm more inclined to "competitive gaming" myself.

So e-sports need to be more FGC instead of the other way around?

I think an ESPN of e-sports could easily work and will happen. In fact I think it's something Giant Bomb's own parent company should do (although didn't ongamers flame out recently?)

I don't see it ever working if one of the game companies like Activision Blizzard runs it though, unless they plan to cut people like Valve, and Riot in. And there is about zero chance those guys will work together after all the lawsuits over Dota.

That guy from Breitbart who choked Loda.

http://www.pcgamer.com/richard-lewis-dreamhack-esports-update/

With this news I can't help but be reminded of WoW's floundering subscription base as a result of it's abysmal update rate and rehashed content

so this is them stealth pushing Overwatch as eSports

I don't know how much their stream tech is worth, but their name is worth next to nothing in the e-sports community. Seems like an iffy move. Blizzards iffy moves do tend to make money though.

eSPN?

I'll be honest, e-sports still does nothing for me so this news isn't that interesting and I've tried to watch a large amount of it over the years. I think only the big Dota 2 tourney got me interested because of Brad and his daily dota. That said I can't help but find this a strange purchase by Activision, makes some sense I guess but feels a little unnecessary to.

$46 million... they could have made a new Metal Arms with that money

Yeah, I've never met anyone who cared about MLG. Only time I ever watched any of their stuff was the first online rocket league tournament and I'm pretty sure I saw that on an unaffiliated channel on twitch. But maybe they have behind the scenes talent and tech that makes the purchase worth it. Possible, I guess.

Riot are the example for others to aspire to. Every single aspect of their League Of Legends coverage is done at an incredibly professional standard, so much so that I was a little bit bamboozled when the BBC didn't use it when it was on BBC3's streaming service and instead used their own far shittier presentation. You look at any Riot affiliated event shown on their main youtube channel and you'll go 'yeap that looks like it should be on TV'. I know people on this site use Valve and DOTA2's international production as the gold standard but actually as a total package and doing it week in and week out Riot really have made a loud case for E-Sports to be viewed by more than just the absolute devoted with it's incredible production values and roundup shows. Activision Blizzard certainly have the money to do the same but I'm skeptical if they'll actually achieve what Riot did... simply because the roster of games they'll be promoting initially aren't nearly as popular as Dota or LoL.

But @austin_walker ESPN doesn't air the superbowl!

edit - dammit this was already replied to. that'll teach me.

I can't see MLG being anything more than a misleading name. It seems to me for a true MLG to succeed it couldn't have a majority ownership by any gaming company.

Man I think my Gamebattles account is long gone...I think...I hope? that was a strange time in my life.

Depends, if Activision pays Riot and Valve for the rights to show highlights and talk about those matches on a sportcentre style show I could see it happening.

Someone's gotta finally outdo Reggie in that department. Feels like the man has continuously been the butt of his own jokes for two hardware cycles now.

@johnnymcginleycc:@austin_walker

I think you're giving ESPN far too much credit. They have repeatedly shown a failure to maintain journalistic independence by allowing license-holders and advertisers to influence their content choices & editorial stances. Also, ESPN may have been successful in the past, but not so much anymore.

ESPN may be a notch or two above the usual homerism coverage of local sports talk radio, but that's about it. They employ some respected journalists (esp. 'Outside The Lines'), but the network's reputation for integrity within the profession as a whole is nearly non-existent.

This isn't merely my opinion - it's the accumulation of ESPN's business practices over decades.

NFL Pressure Influences ESPN Content (Again)

ESPN Journalists Call Out ESPN

ESPN Dictates Tebow Hype From The Top Down

ESPN Execs Care More About Image Than Integrity

OK, that's fair, but my point being this would be even more pronounced were they owned by a sports equivalent of a major video games publisher.

I dunno. This seems like a bad move. FPS and MOBA are terrible spectator experiences for the average Joe and the FGC has a toxic attitude towards the whole Esports thing. I doubt we'll be seeing news roundups on top players and Sunday Night Halo matches.

I always find it a little odd whenever a company says they're aiming to be the 'ESPN of esports' when they aren't worldwide (case in point, I only hear about ESPN in these conversations) while esports tries so hard to at least straddle Asia, America and Europe.

It's business decisions like this that make me thankful the fighting game community is so resistant to being part of the eSports scene. There is obviously money and sponsorships being thrown around in the FGC, but the event structure, product integration and management seems to come from the bottom up and stuff happens because it is what the players and fans want. eSports just seem so forced by comparison, all these companies want to monetize it as fast as possible and make as much money as possible that they are making moves like this to control as much as they possibly can while dragging the community with them. I have no problem with people wanting to make money off this stuff, but eSports are quickly becoming the dark cyberpunk future version of the FGC and I'm glad there is one group out there that is having none of it.

Electronic sports.

So only popular and relevant in the US like ESPN?

@slag: Honestly - why would they even hire someone from Breitbart to be there in the first place? They're so far from being a reputable source of anything I can't imagine letting anyone they employ anywhere near an event I was running.

This is a weird thing but professional Call of Duty has always been weird. It's a scene that has to rebuild itself every year and its dependant largely on the quality of the game. A game which switches hands every year. Some years the developers care about maintaining a competitive level, other years not so much. Luckily MLG has almost always been there to try and provide some stability.

Call of Duty and MLG have been pretty much synonymous ever since the game started being played competitively. MLG has undoubtedly been the largest supporter of Call of Duty's professional scene and has played host to some of it's largest tournaments throughout the years. However 2 months ago Activision established the "Call of Duty World League" with MLG's main competitor ESL. Add to that Mike Sepso leaving MLG and heading to Activision 1 month before that. This makes this acquisition confusing or completely logical depending on how one views the circumstances of this takeover purchase.

Activision has enough video game properties to make their own esports league be a viable property. They don't need to license games from any other company and they have plenty of money to advertise and find venues.

Woah woah woah steady on. Say what you want about most games but LoL and Dota aren't 'forced' they're both highly successful and have grown organically over the years. Everyone wanting to be LoL or Dota is forced but 'Esports' or pro-gaming is a real thing now that has aired on TV in multiple countries with millions watching and tens of thousands selling out large arenas. You don't have to like it obviously and it seems you're a fan of a very specific aesthetic but not all esports are forced.

ESPN is more likely to become the "ESPN of eSports" than Activision

Man, MLG going to become a popular punchline again? Neato.

Why do they have to buy MLG?

With 45 million, couldn't they just have some insane multi-million dollar prize pool tournament and viewers/players will flock naturally?

What a fucking terrible idea... No body wants an ESPN of Esports, correct me if I'm wrong, but I doubt ESPN itself is even growing with the big declines in cable subscriptions and stuff

@kingyo Thing with ESPN is, even with declining subscriptions etc they are still something like 40% of Disney's revenue, they WERE over 50% at one point. So shooting to be ESPN still makes sense for now.

Seems like MLG was slowly dying off as time went on. Probably a good move for Activision / Blizzard to buy it on the cheap and at least have something for their esport games. Because they do have an audience for some of those games.

I just think it's crazy to announce this purchase as the ESPN of Esports when there's no LCS or International. How about humbly try to build MLG up to be a force again?

They still need to solve the riddle of making games that are accessible to play and easy to understand, that are also fun to watch.

LoL and DOTA are fun to watch from the perspective that using the overhead POV I can form a informed opinion of the state of a game, assuming I know the rules. This ameliorates some of the mechanical complexity that the game requires to play.

COD is a lot more easy to understand from a mechanical perspective, but frankly sucks as a spectator sport, since there's no easy way to be informed, as a spectator, of the gamestate. This is true from both perspective (first person camera or zoomed out overhead view), and from an overall progress perspective - it's easier to tell at a glance who's winning in LoL by how many turrets are down.

EDIT:

For all of the people saying that they shouldn't aspire to be like ESPN, I agree out of principle, but keep in mind that live sports are basically all that's keeping television from Netflix-style subscription service (which I would prefer, but your ABCs and FOXs might not).