Discussion

Addictions are substances or behaviors a person depends on to get through each day, and without these, they become irritable and miserable. Addictions are more commonly associated with dangerous substances or activities people engage in, but recently, video game addiction has become more broadly known and recognized. Video game addiction is the excessive or compulsive use of video games which causes an interference with daily life activities.

The direct biological cause of video game addiction is unknown. Unlike with drugs, it is unknown how exactly the use of video games affects the brain. Some believe video games elevate dopamine and cause players to prefer being in a virtual world. Being in a virtual world allows players to dominate in ways they may not be capable of doing in the real world. In role-playing games such as World of Warcraft, players assume the role of a fictional character and interact with other players through online servers. Guilds are created in the game and players are welcome to join or invite other friends. Players become familiarized with their guild members and other daily players, so friendships are often created. Players who are not well seen in school or who are bullied may prefer dealing with others in the virtual world as a monster to feel liked.



Living in the virtual world to engage with others with similar interests seems harmless when compared to substance abuse, but excessive gaming could destroy lives. Addictions create a dependency and often consume people’s thoughts at all times making it nearly impossible to maintain stable relationships and jobs. Fortunately, there are warning signs one can look for to identify when a loved one is struggling with video game addiction. Actions such as spending increasing amounts of time playing games, constantly thinking or talking about video games during other activities, escaping to a virtual world to avoid dealing with real life lying to hide their time spent playing video games, and irritability while trying to cut back are all warning signs of video game addiction.

To prevent video game addiction, it is recommended parents keep logs of a child’s play time and encourage the children to interact with peers. If someone is suffering from video game addiction the best solution is to talk to them and limit their interaction with computers and/or video gaming systems. Since computers are such a big part of a daily life, it is important to always be open about the dangers of this addiction and keep track of progress regularly.

Week 9

 
 

A rare overshoot by Nevares with the flag in OT

A member of Where's Nevares bringing the flag into base for the tournament winning cap.

The finals are here this week. The match of the century was between Tough Turtles and Where’s Nevares. Tough Turtles came into this one as a huge underdog seeing as how they came not to practice much during the week and just kind of show up to matches (and win). In a landslide victory, Tough Turtles take the first map which was very close quarters and highly paced. The second game ends in a similar manner only with Where’s Nevares on top as Nevares got to show off his awesome skiing skills that were stunning to watch (artful?). This brought the game to a third, and supposed final, map which ended in a tie of 1 to 1 (of course). The action peaked in the sudden death overtime round when Nevares leapt into a pile of enemy fire and came out with a flag that he masterfully took all the way back to his base for the win proving once and for all, that practice does make perfection. 

At the end of this incredible matchup, we are left wondering what will happen next for these teams and players. The casters discuss an upcoming one-day tournament set for late November in which the drafting and tournament play will all happen in a single day that will surely be action packed. It was also announced that drafting for the next tournament will begin in January of 2012 and 12 team captains have already been chosen. This news leaves us interested and excited and may even motivate us to participate or at least pay attention to what happens at these events.

This week’s casting was great with fantastic quality casters watching great players do what they do best. One of the casters was an employee of Hi-Rez Studios and was answering questions about Tribes: Ascend during the match as well as discussing the game in general and trying to generate support for the game which was a great idea for Hi-Rez. Getting support from biggest fans of an older game will be crucial for Tribes: Ascend to be successful.

This week’s casting also brings about the end of the tournament and our ethnography so we reflect upon the experience now. We found that we have become very entertained by watching Tribes 2 especially knowing what goes into it. We learned a lot about the people that play these games both professionally and recreationally including the irreverent love that all of them have for the game they play. Designing a product for them will not be an easy task but knowing more about the people that we are helping will, no doubt, make the process easier. We look forward to following this community after this project and may even take it a step farther and begin participating but the things we learned here could not have been found by any other means.

Week 4

Notice the caster boxes in the lower right corner

Tribescast is a website that was started just this year with the goal of “cataloging and documenting matches that occur in the Tribes series games.” This site features a streaming page and an archive page. The streaming page is where current matches are shoutcasted live every Sunday, when the tournament games take place. The archive page features videos from current and past seasons of competitive play. Craig, who founded the website, also operates it and casts on it. Shoutcasting is the process of streaming media to viewers over the internet. Radio is often shoutcasted through shoutcast radio stations. Tribescast is a testament to the dedication that many gamers feel towards Tribes and the people that play it. The casters should also be discussed here. Craig is the main caster and started playing Tribes in 2003. He serves as not only the main caster but the cameraman for every match as it his screen that the matches show. Another caster, Erin, is the secondary caster for most of the games and provides much insight into other games as well seeing as he has not played much Tribes and gives us an outsider’s perspective. The casts succeed in giving us a bird’s eye view of games and teaching us about the game and culture associated with it. We hope that through this site, we can shed much needed light on the subject of gaming as something more than a past time.

The tournament that started this week is one that will last for a couple of months and usually consists of 10-15 teams competing in a double elimination style competition. The game is Tribes 2 and the game mode is capture the flag which means that both teams have a base and a flag. The teams must protect their own flag while simultaneously attempting to steal the other team’s flag and bring it to their base where they will receive a point. After 30 minutes, the team with the most points wins the round with a match consisting of the best out of 3 rounds. If at the end of the 3 games, there is a tie meaning each team won one game and the last game was a tie or all 3 games were a tie, then an overtime round is begun with the first person to score winning. This tournament style and game mode is a standard in most games and is popular in the professional gaming circuit. We were fortunate enough to start watching this tournament as it, and the website, began this week. We look forward to following this tournament to the very end and learning about all of the people involve as it takes a lot of work to set these kinds of things up and consists of over a hundred players. Although, these players are not getting paid, we have found that they do consist of the same type of people that are professionals and put in a similar amount of time and effort into it. We found out about this tournament and website through Connor Taylor who is also in Dr. Hammond’s Human Computer Interaction class. 

Tribes is a science fiction series of games that began with the game, Starsiege: Tribes, in 1998 and has had several sequels made including the popular, Tribes 2, and the latest, Tribes: Vengeance, in 2004. It was announced last year that Hi-Rez Studios had purchased the rights to the series and was beginning work on a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game based on the series and also announced that it was releasing a game late in 2011, Tribes: Ascend, to test out features that will be in the MMO, Tribes: Universe, to come out later. This was met with mixed reactions by Tribes fans but either way, Tribes 2 continues to be the cult hit that it was when it released. Tribes 2 was described this week as “Tony Hawk meets Quake” due to the fast paced, futuristic, first person shooting aspect, found in Quake, and the crazy fast speeds of players and the acrobatics they perform using vehicles and jetpacks, similar to things that have been done in the Tony Hawk games. The fact that this tournament and website even exist is a sign of how devout followers of this game are. In 2008, the game’s developer, Vivendi, dropped support for online play of Tribes 2 but players developed their own patch and provided their own servers to play on which have been running ever since. We intend for this dedication and resolute attitude to factor into our ethnography and design letting us know that this fan base is comfortable in front of a keyboard but probably in more of a “hacky” role than anything that could be called HCI related.

The casters talked about how the old matches were just audio and they could only listen to what was going on. We also observed the type of humor exhibited by Tribes 2 players which consisted, this week, of making inside references to other “culty” games like StarCraft which was nicely explained by our casters affirming our confidence in them to help us through the weeks. Another trait we found was the shortening of phrases and words to fewer words or acronyms highlighting the penchant Tribes players have for quick information transfer that capitalizes on everybody’s familiarity with the concepts of the game. This is similar to phrases commonly found in text messaging like “lol”. This week’s casting gave a lot to think about as far as where our direction should go in this project. We decided that this is the route we would like to take from here on out and will be tuning in every week to watch the latest round. An interesting thing we learned was the “hacky” culture, described above, surrounding Tribes 2 causing us to think about what we could design for them. We decided whatever we suggest will have to be of use to them on an aesthetic level and do something that does not have a hacky solution for meaning they don’t have a need for it right now and have not done anything like it.

Week 5

Erin and Craig returned for this week’s matchup. Erin spoke in depth about what happens when a player takes time off to play another game or simply takes a break as he has experience with both of these concepts. He said your sensitivity and intuitiveness are hardest to get back which causes your confidence level to decrease which is crucial in competitive play such as that which can be found in this tournament. Confidence is important because when players are moving at light speed they need to be able to trust their ability and get their job done seamlessly or the other team will capitalize on their shortcomings. Getting these things back can take months and may never return to the level that a player had them at so it is crucial to continue practicing and tournaments help when they are often enough to keep people fresh and engaged. 

 An HOF dutifully stands on his team's flag

A capper skiing in the hills with the enemy flag

This week, we were introduced to the strategy that many teams use on a basic level. Tribes 2 is often called the “first person shooter for everyone” because there are so many positions one can play as. Capper’s are the players responsible for taking the enemy flag back to their base and are often the same people responsible for capturing the flag from the enemy in the first place. They have to be one of the faster classes with jetpacks and have to have good “skiing” skills. Skiing, similar to snow skiing, revolves around a player’s ability to pick and choose the best path to take to optimize speed given the layout of the land. Players can also be farmers who are responsible for creating and maintaining defensive structures placed to protect a team’s base. The HOF’s (heavy on flag) is a heavily armed, slow moving player that has the firepower to bring enemies down fast and the stamina to withstand small arms fire but cannot avoid enemy actions quickly so fast moving cappers stand a chance to get in and out of an enemy base if they plan their route correctly. There are many other positions relating to offense (capturing the enemy flag) and defense (guarding own flag) and present something for everyone to like. Just for example, some more positions are vehicle operator, sniper, and light defender (LD).

This week introduced us to more concepts of the game as we continue to learn about the game and players at the same time. The strategies that we learned about this week were particularly interesting as we now know this game is more than just shooting but really takes a team to be effective with everyone contributing their own unique part. Both offense and defense presented us with some exciting ideas such as the quick moving, but precise cappers or the, more than meets the eye, defenders that have to ration people (keep some protected to take the place of living players upon death) and make the most of what they do have. The organization of it all gave us something more to consider for our design as most of these teams probably don’t have dedicated systems to help with their team structures (probably just word or text documents). 

Week 7

This week, we continued to learn a bit more about the overall strategy of the game. In one of the maps played today, Blue Moon, vehicles were seen by the casters as highly prominent. The vehicle that was seen the most was called the Shrike, pictured below. My interpretation of the Shrike was that of a futuristic fighter jet armed with dual blast cannons. It can fly extremely high to avoid enemy fire and is many times used to assist the heavy offense. The Shrike is a one-manned vehicle driven by a “shriker” and is generated from the home base using some kind of device. The most skilled players can climb into one and never give it up or get shot down. However, in this match, it appeared as though the Shrikes were mainly used to go on kamikaze-like missions to intentionally crash into the enemy’s base, knocking out a good section of their defense.

This week was also very interesting due to the large amount of drama that ensued. The casters described this as a normal thing, stating that, “It wouldn’t be Tribes if there was no drama.” The main deal that the casters talked about was their minor qualms with some of the team captains. This ranged from their methods of playing to their general attitudes as a whole. For example, they talked a little bit about how one team liked to take too much time pre-game to strategize and get their team together. They also complained about someone else complaining about everything. One big complaint was over the actions of one particular team captain, who was told the casters that he didn’t know his particular match was being casted and that he didn’t authorize it and the casters were wrong for casting it. In general, there was just a lot of sarcasm and griping done by the casters, but it doesn’t seem like they ever have any intention on confronting anyone on the issues that they have, but prefer to just talk and make jokes behind their backs.

The biggest drama of the week came in the kicking issue. During the time before the last match, three more casters joined in to observe the game, and one of them got kicked (or removed from the server by another user so that they may neither play nor observe) by one of the team captains.

Several reasons were thrown out for this. One reason was that it was a revenge play for the caster kicking the captain during a scrimmage some time back. Another was that a lot of players were displeased that there being too many casters. (There are usually three, and at this point, there were six). This brought up a pretty good point, considering each user, rather it be a player or an observer, takes up bandwidth on the server, and too much bandwidth can cause a game to lag (which no one wants). This was brought up later after the game began when every caster except for Craig got kicked. Naturally, this caused the casters to get very upset and the ones that kicked them, but some of them decided that out of respect for the players, they would stay out of the cast.

Drama is never nice, but it may have been a good thing to see here because it’s so relatable. No matter what organization, job, hobby, etc. we are involved in, there is always going to be some kind of drama in our life. This just goes to show that while people may be different in a million different aspects of life, there are so many things that are just part of our human nature.

Week 8

This week on Tribescast, the semi-finals have begun and the moods of the players definitely reflected it as games ran harder and faster than usual. The casting has taken a leap forward as some of the captains that have been kicked out of the competition helped out and discussed more strategy. The viewer count was also noticeably higher as players that were no longer playing were watching to see what happens and possibly learn a thing or two.

Communication was also discussed this week as the casters were talking to other people in many different ways. Some of the most popular ways to communicate are in-game chat, voice over IP (VoIP), IRC, and forums. In-game chat is all text based and usually consists of trash talk before the match begins or complaints about the process taking too long. VoIP is used by the teams to communicate with each other in real-time during the game and facilitates the quick rate of information exchange required to win games. Internet relay chat (IRC) is another popular way for people to discuss things. IRC consists of, basically, instant messages exchanged among a group of people be it the casters when they don’t want to say something or a team’s bench players that want to talk to each other in privacy. IRC is usually one of the most secure methods of communication as well as VoIP. Forums offer a way for players to discuss results of matches during the week as they are optimal for big audience focused, slow moving general conversations. Tribescast, itself is another great example of communication and satisfies the goal of informing the audience of what is going on. Privacy is a big concern when communicating and, as noted before IRC and VoIP is often the most locked down to protect the teams’ strategies. It was also discussed this week that most teams have one or two people watching the Tribescast and reporting it to their teams in an attempt to tell them about things going on that they may not see. This would have to be done discretely as the ethics of these kinds of actions are questionable at best.

The topic of strategy came up heavily this week as the casting captains revealed how they would act on the maps being played out. We managed to get our hands on a 6 page strategy summary for a team in the middle of the tournament and it gave us a lot of insight into all the work and planning that goes into these kinds of events. We will not post this information as it is somewhat sensitive and states what players are on what positions and highlights how they play. Instead we will summarize the format found throughout the document. The strategy is split up by map in the most abstract layer. Next, the offense and defense is separated into separate areas followed by a table mapping each position to a specific player and their role during the game. Finally, an overview of the offensive and defensive strategies is given to get the players in the right mindset. This report is done in a very detailed manner and highlights the time and effort that these teams put into this. It continues to baffle us that this is all being done for no money and no real reward other than bragging rights and the love of the game.

Week 6

Week 6

     In South Korea StarCraft is the countries’ biggest source of entertainment. It is much like football is here in America. StarCraft professionals will spend as much as 14 hours a day practicing. They have around 100 competitions a year and no off season which makes this a very tough career choice. In South Korea computer nerds are the sex symbols for the 21’st century. Fan clubs are made for these gamers which have more than 100000 people. These pro gamers are the top celebrities of the country.

     The professional StarCraft teams are sponsored by large companies. The largest team called KTF is sponsored by a South Korean cell phone company. These players make six figures each year. Days before the competition KTF goes into isolation to practice for many hours.

      The tournament goes on in a big expo center like area and the combatants are locked up in a small glass room with a computer and headphones. The participants then play 1 v 1 and the matches usually take around 15 minutes. There is a huge crowd and they cheer for their favorite team .The teams take turns going 1v1 and whoever wins the most games comes out the champion.

     How good the player is based on his / her actions per minutes. A good gamer that plays StarCraft a lot may get up to 50 actions per minute. The professionals get up to 350 – 400 actions per minutes.

FAST AMP http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbpCLqryN-Q

Week 3

Week 3 Report

Recently a professional gamer won $100,000 and shared his success story on a popular forum.

We posted some of the best questions:

My name is Nadeshot, and I've been a pro gamer since 2008. I also have built a pretty big following on youtube. Here is a picture of my championship team from CoD XP - I'm 2nd from the left.

How long have you been gaming for?
I've been gaming ever since I can remember. I played all the classics: super nintendo, sega genesis, N64...all of that.

How did you get into competitive gaming?
I'm a very competitive person so eventually while playing CoD4, my friend turned me on to a website called gamebattles, and it all started from there.

What is your favorite game of all time?
Favorite game of all time is tough, and I do love all the classics. Probably will get a lot of hate for this one, but I'd have to say Halo 2. I'm a very competitive person, and multiplayer is huge for me in games. My best memories of gaming all stem from Halo 2, so I have to go with that.

Honestly, do you ever get tired of COD (call of duty)?
Right now in my gaming career, I'm pretty burned out and unmotivated. Kind of have to kick my own ass just to get on the game and practice.
I must also ask, what kind of reaction do you get from family with regards to your career/hobby choice?
My parents always used to yell at me to get off the game, and didn't believe me when I told them there was money involved. I think this definitely changed their minds if they still had any doubts. I was in L.A. when it happened, but my parents were jumping up down from what I heard. I actually won $5,000 a couple weeks beforehand online, and that made them go nuts, I can't imagine what they were doing when I won 100k!

How old are you?
19

What kind of training regime regiment regimen do you and your team follow?

Mostly, we just get on around 6:30 everyday and play for a couple hours against other pro teams. Haven't been playing as much as I should though as of late.

How does your standard of play compare to overseas leagues?

We actually beat out a European team in the finals to win the $400,000. There is a slight skill gap, but its not obnoxious.

Do b****** go wild for pro-gamers?

There are "pro hoes" in our league while were at events, you'd be surprised...

How would you say professional gaming has affected your personal life?
To be honest, I've always been pretty shy. I had plenty of friends in high school, but personally I enjoyed staying in on weekends and just staying up late and gaming. I would play all day and night, unless I had work. I started working at McDonalds when I was 15, and recently just quit due to the $100,000. I'm also in college. Either way though, the friends that I've made in this industry, and all the relationships I've built with other players over the years is honestly stronger then I have with anyone in real life. I basically grew up with a lot of these other pro players.

How do you "make it" in MLG?
It all takes time and experience.
What's you contract like with MLG? Do they pay you enough to play full time if you didn't include your winnings? (I know nothing about professional gaming)
This is pretty much it. We still sign contracts with MLG, but they don't do much for us except for stipends when we go to events. Prize money is MLG's basic duty as a league.

What do you think the future of professional gaming looks like?
eSports is getting bigger and bigger everyday. I think we're gonna surprise a lot of people in the future with how big competitive gaming will get.

Do you consider gaming to be a job, or do you still enjoy it as a hobby?
This is my job, also a lifestyle. Not many gamers can make this their career, I guess I just played my cards right throughout the years.

How much does your controller cost? Or do you just use the standard controller?
Standard controller.

How many hours per day do you practice? And how to find people to practice at this competitive level?
Not as often as I should nowadays. Usually, back in the day, I'd be playing atleast 20 hours on the weekdays, and then all day on Saturday and Sunday. Gamebattles is where most pro call of duty players started, and it all stemmed from there.

Who's the oldest pro gamer that you have met, either in your genre/league or outside of it, that's still active?
In the competitive scene, there are people of all ages whether it be sponsors, spectators, or players.

Do you have anyone you really respect/look up to in the pro gaming world?
I'm a huge fan of gaming in general. I used to idolize pro halo players, and now that I'm pretty good friends with some, it's a pretty cool feeling. I also have my fanboy moments with some SC2 players, haha.


How respectful is the pro CoD scene? Is there much trash talking, or is it more polite, or just mixed based on who happens to be involved at the time?
Pro CoD scene used to be very immature, but most CoD pros are pretty good friends just because we've known each other for so long.


----------->Generalize about the conversation here!!!!

Week 2 Results

Week 2 Results   

     At Clockwork Games and Events there was a Magic the Gathering tournament. There were people of all ages ranging from about age 9 to age 25. There were around 40 people that were in and out. There were actually two girls there that were hanging with the rest of them. The tournament took place in a very crouded musky room filled with tables that were for the tournament.
 
     People had big albums full of cards and there was a lot of trading and talking about stats before the tournament began. The smell was musky and kind of foul because of all of the bodies in the little tiny room. There was a football game on one of the TV's there but no one even cared to glance at it. Some common talk among the participants was all of the tournaments that they have been to and strategies they have seen other people use.
   
     The structure of the tournament consisted of teams of 2 each open up 4 packs and create 2 decks and play with that. It would be a round robin tournament with the first place team being the victor. There were 13 teams of 2 participating on this specific day. In explaining the game to us, one of the guys mentioned that it was a legitimate game like poker. There is a 400 page official rule book that explains all of the rules. The concept of the game is that you play as an avatar and summon creatures to attack, but you need certain landscapes to play certain creatures. There are also a lot of supporting and enhancing cards that will help you through the fight.

Deliverable 2 - Project Proposal and Week 1 Results

Neal Roessler
Chandler Cell
Andy Hampton
Zac Casull



Deliverable 2 - Project Proposal

Target Group:
     Professional and Hardcore gamers will be the main focus of our 10 week study period. We chose this group because although some of us have experience with gaming as a pastime, we decided professional gaming is very different than anything any of us has ever experienced. There are many opportunities to observe these people in their “natural habitat.” We will plan to meet at common gaming grounds such as, Clockwork Games and Events, FX, and eventually we want to go to a big dollar tournament.


Hypothesis:

     The expectation from this group is that it is male dominated with varying personalities from the quiet loners to the obnoxious attention cravers. Tendencies towards violence and verbal abuse will be interesting subjects to observe while observing as this has become a bit of hot button topic over the last couple of years. The scope of this study will range from individuals to local group competitions. From this study we hope to gain useful insight into this group that can be applied to our proposal of a product to be used by professional gamers     While having fun in the form of games is important to many people, few can say that they take it to the limit by playing on average 30 – 40 hours a week, and even fewer can say that they are “professional” or make money for playing. We expect that the players we meet will have very little time for other things in their life that most of us have time for. We believe that instead of the normal person who watches TV for a few hours then reads a book for a few hours, and then hangs out with friends, the hardcore gamer will replace all of this with pure gaming time. Is this an unhealthy obsession or is there a legitimacy of it all?


Argument of Appropriateness:

     This study is appropriate because of the many subjects we anticipate to observe while conducting the study. Demographic observations will show trends in the gender and age of participants which can further be broken down and compared to our own experiences with what would be considered “normal” people in these ranges. The violence and verbal observations mentioned above will also be valuable given the recent Supreme Court case regarding violence in video games and its effect on people who play which fit squarely in our target group. This study is not inappropriate as we have no reason to gather personal information beyond age, gender, and possibly appearance. Conducting interviews and attending public gaming events also prove appropriate and do not in any way break laws. This study will be exciting because of the breadth of people we anticipate on studying in a very animated environment that keeps them coming back for more.     This study will take us into the little known world of professional and hardcore gaming. Few can say that they have played a game 30 – 40 hours a week or that they are in the top 1% echelon of the entire gaming population. This is a highly competitive and profitable network of people who consider themselves as legitimate as any football or basketball player. This can apply to HCI in a variety of ways. Since video gaming consists of interaction from the human to controller we can find ways to improve this as their are few better to interview than the players who use them 10 fold more than anyone else.


Argument of Feasibility:

     This study is feasible because we will cover many different aspects of professional gaming conducting several interviews with acquaintances as well as observing competitions and tournaments. We also hope to eventually participate in the activity if the opportunity presents itself to one of us or one of our acquaintances.     There are many tournaments going on if you just look them up online. It is all about keeping your eyes open. Just walking on campus We saw a guy with an MLG shirt on. (Major League Gaming) and asked him if he played MLG and sure enough he does. Our first encounter at Clockwork Games and Events went great. There are magnitudes of people who are willing to talk to us and show us their world. There are plenty of opportunities to find and study professional and hardcore gamers. Through statistics and interviewing these we can learn enough to validate or contradict our hypothesis as well as form a comprehensive conclusion.

Deliverable 2 - Week 1 Results


     We attended a Gears of War 2 tournament at Clockwork Games and Events which we found out about through the internet. This experience proved to support some of my hypotheses and disprove others.

     Upon arrival in the outlet area where Clockwork was located, I found it on the side of one of the buildings with poor signage out front. This lead me to believe that people who go here are a fairly tight nit bunch because advertising was nowhere to be found and the hours of the venue were odd, seemingly catering to an after school crowd. Once inside, I noticed a pretty sophisticated setup consisting of a row of 8 XBOX 360 consoles mounted about 1 foot off the ground on the wall with 8, approximately 20 inch, screens and 2 larger screens above them. The lighting was poor, as to be expected, and the interior was actually quite nice with about 6 tables, for card games I assume, and 2 couches in front of the console laden wall along with other various chairs. There was also a counter as I assume this place also sold games, cards, and snacks.

     There were people of all ages ranging from 9 to 40. People were in and out but the amount of people averaged to around 15 or so. There was talk that one of the participants there was a former Major League Gamer. We learned that people that usually come to Clockwork play card games and video games.

     It was explained to us that Gears of War 2 tournament would consist of 10 participants in a 1v1 double elimination tournament bracket following Major League Gaming rules. The winner received a new copy of Gears of Wars 3 sponsored by FX Games, represented by Chris, and some prize money. We entered in 2 of our own members, Neal and Zach, to support the event and immerse ourselves a little.

     Everyone there was relaxed and enjoyed the company of other fellow gamers and we know many of them were familiar with each other. They were happy to converse with us and answered a lot of our questions.

     It was heavily dominated by guys but there were two girls that attended but did not play. Julio is the tournament manager and assigns the rules of the game and prevents cheating such as screen peeking.

     In the first game there was a 9 year old kid that beat a 18 year old and he was calling him out by saying “Now Suck This!” Everyone was animated and very into the tournament, yelling at the TV’s and having a good time. There was a lot of smack talk, sarcastic hostility, and jokes among everyone there.

     We met Jacob who is in high school. He aspires to be a professional. He plays at least 3 hours a day. He recently played a $1000 tournament but got beat by some “hardcore kids” He says it is a lot about getting in some people’s heads. If they are young you can get in their heads with some smack talk he says, and “put the kids in their place”

Prior Assessments and First Results

Prior Assessments and First Results
Prior Perception:

     We decided to study the world of professional gaming instead of a single group of people. Expanding to this larger scale allows for a more comprehensive glimpse into a lifestyle and does not limit us to a specific set of people. In this paper we will describe our expectations, perceptions, and future plans regarding this field.
     Our initial expectation of what we will see is a stereotypically geeky culture that is predominately male and focused on what they do. These people will probably tend to be fairly private individuals that have been doing this kind of thing for years probably on the same game. We expect our interactions with them to be minimal as we do not foresee long, drawn out responses to questions or prolonged conversations occurring.
     Integration into this group may prove to be easy or difficult as we are not anywhere near as skilled, or even familiar with, most of the games we will see and they may be a good or bad thing. We will have to take the position of the audience for a majority of the study and will probably have only 1 or 2 people able to participate to any competitive degree in any of the events we plan to attend. We plan on attending gaming competitions and following some people that we have connections to during the study. We plan that our interaction with a group of hardcore professional gamers will go pretty smoothly. We think that they will be happy to have us interview and examine them. We think that if we play a game with them they will not get frustrated because we will not be that good. To get integrated in the group we will need to learn the game lingo and how the game works that my target group is playing. We could even practice a little or watch videos so we can figure out everything that is going on. We expect that some of the people I encounter will be “elitist jerks” and will not want to associate with us because we are “noobies”. We expect that for the most part though the pro gamers will be very helpful and explain to us their underground lifestyle and how they think. We think that eventually they will wonder why we are following them around and observing them and we will have to bring up the subject that we are following them around for a class assignment. We have a positive outlook and we think that this will be a good learning experience for us and others.     We hope that we will gain some meaningful insight into this broad area and be able to present an interesting perspective concerning this topic.

Initial Results:

     We visited a semi-pro gamer’s house and asked him some questions. Tyler was very open and helpful and seemed to like the fact that we were asking him questions about something he was passionate about. Tyler played a game called Halo Reach for the Xbox 360. He kept up with the actually professionals that played the game and he watched the Major League Gaming games when they aired. Tyler is currently sharpening his skills and looking for a team to go to this year’s tournament. The Questions and responses that we asked him are as follows:

What’s your ideal amount of time gaming per week?

· A: 40 – 50 hrs/week

What percentage of players would you say are considered professional gamers in any given game?

· A:About the top 1%

Where would you put yourself in the rankings?

· A: Maybe top 10% give or take. But in a team based game such as Halo, there’s only so much skill an individual can have, and it more comes down to how good you are as a team.

Do you see the same names across leader boards of different games?

· A: It’s usually pretty exclusive to one game. There’s only so much time you can devote to a particular game.

What’s the drink of choice for gamers?

· A: Red Bull

Who is the best pro in Halo Reach?

· A: RoyBorg and IGotYourPistola. They’re on the same team. Also, Ninja is top 24 and featured on Justin.tv

How does a tournament usually go?

· A: round robin style bracket into a 16-team pool

How much does a winner get paid?

· A: Depends on the size of the event and the buy in fee, but usually around $125,000

What is a team made up of?

· A: Four players and usually a coach

We expect that Tyler will gives us more information to this particular realm of the pro gaming phenomenon and introduce us to more people like him. Our group plans on going to local tournaments and observing the people that participate there.

Initial Results Summary:
     The first interaction we had with professional gaming consisted of an informal meeting with one of our connections that is a semi-professional. We only met with this one person, Tyler, so as to give us an entry point into this field.
     Our first meeting consisted of a meeting with Tyler at his residence on Tuesday, introducing ourselves and what we would like to do, and a small interview with Tyler consisting of some broad questions we had about the area and his personal experience as well. On first arrival, his apartment appeared how I expected it to be. Minimal, kind of messy, and what little furniture he did have related to his technology in some way (TV stand, consoles, etc.). We proceeded to introduce ourselves and describe the project in a general sense as not to influence anything Tyler would do or say later. Through questions we learned that about the top 1% of gamers in a particular game can be considered professional which usually equates to around 100+ players. An interesting made by Tyler was that at a certain point, a single gamer cannot get any better and they must begin working with a team to become truly professional which is why competitions usually consist of only team contests. In addition to being on teams, professional gamers must have a coach for their teams to act as an anchor and keep the team on task and off each other’s backs.
     Overall, we gained a lot of insight from Tyler and hope to continue our study with him and others in the future. We are currently working on plans to attend as many professional gaming events as we can find and maybe even find one that Tyler can enter in.