15 listopada – wczesny poranek – Polacy po raz drugi w historii zdobywają Cyberolimpijskie Złoto w grze Counter-Strike 1.6 i zgarniają przy tym 35 tysięcy dolarów, zyskują chwałę na całym świecie jako sportowcy, którzy potrafią taktycznie myśleć i walczą do ostatniego… ostatniej rundy, a kibice w Chinach mogliby się pogryźć o autograf jednego z naszych graczy. Niestety w Polsce tak nie ma i nie będzie, ale mimo wszystko jest coraz lepiej. W sumie moim zdaniem jest już bardzo dobrze i chyba nie ma co się łudzić – lepiej nie będzie.

Praktycznie wszystkie media w Polsce pisały o sukcesie polaków, a gdy wrócili z Chin parę razy pokazali się w TV dzięki czemu mogli wytłumaczyć zwykłym, kompletnie zielonym w temacie esportu na czym on w ogóle polega i co to jest. Poniżej podaję kilka linków do wywiadów i tekstów z zawodnikami po World Cyber Games 2009. Ciekawe kto będzie o tym pamiętał w styczniu.

Polsat – “Się Kręci”
TVN – “W rytmie miasta”
TVN Warszawa – “Mistrzowie World Cyber Games”
Onet.pl – “Zwykły człowiek z niezwykłą pasją?”
TVN 24 – “Polacy strzelają najlepiej na świecie”

Wszyscy chcemy, żeby sport elektronicznym został równoprawną dyscypliną sportową w naszym kraju, ale czy to coś zmieni? Gracze komputerowi mają już wszystko co im do szczęścia potrzebne – są Mistrzostwa Polski, duże turnieje LAN-owe, pieniądze, a lig od koloru do wyboru. Co by to zmieniło? Może interesowałoby się tym więcej ludzi, ale nie aż tyle żeby w największych telewizjach powstawały np. programy tematyczne, a najlepsze pojedynki byłyby transmitowane na żywo, wątpię by nawet w Faktach sportowych mówiono coś o esporcie. W końcu stacje TV musiałyby za to płacić, a wiadomo że od facetów siedzących przed komputerami, co chwilę klikającymi i wykrzykującymi zdania, które w 70% składają się z przekleństw lepiej sprzeda się nawet polska, meksykańska lub jeszcze jakaś inna telenowela.

Sport elektroniczny dla mediów cały czas będzie tylko ciekawostką, której przeznaczą maksymalnie 10 minut swojej ramówki…

The young man from Costa Rica, Federico Beeche, won fourth place in the World Cyber Games (WCG) with the game, Guitar Hero.

Guitar Hero is a game in which a person must play a series of songs with a control that simulates an electric guitar.

As the player moves between different tracks and levels of difficulty, ever larger scenarios are presented as a symbol of a journey to becoming a rock star

The WCGs were held from November 11 to 15 in the Chinese city of Chengdu with representatives from 74 countries.  With nine years of existence, it is considered one of the biggest events of its kind.

Congratulations go out to this young man from Costa Rica.  Even though this is not a real sport to many, it shows that you can achieve great things through dedication and hard work.

Shame on you Channel 7 for letting this air! Oh, who am I kidding. Your researchers have the intelligence of 12 year olds and the conviction of a pine nut. Heaven forbid showing unbiased, truthful (as possible) reported facts that may go against the grain of conservatism so as to effect the ratings of Sunday Night. I suppose you would get more over-hinged criticism from the thoroughly uneducated and overtly conservative audience if a more balanced story was shown (save the children! Who will tell us games are bad!).

I viewed Game On! thinking you would cover the aspects of Australia’s participation in the World Cyber Games, however, sadly, this was just a thinly veiled cover for the real story of Ross Coulthart’s video game bashing on the issue of addiction.

The fact is:

1. To master anything requires an incredible amount of time and dedication (take for example Gladwell’s rule of 10,000 hours, not particularly scientifically correct, but often used as a yard stick), often multiple hours of practice a day for many years. So does aspiring to become a player at the highest level and putting in the effort behind it (as is seen in WCG) a demonstration of addiction? If you said yes, then, by that logic, your favourite footballer would be considered an addict of football. Rubbish? Well consider the hours of practice required, consider the dedication, consider the ambition. They are fundamentally the same.

What, but the computer gamer doesn’t sweat or work out, gain muscle mass or cardiovascular endurance, I hear you exclaim. But the measure of a humans growth is not merely limited to physical aspects (far from it, I would argue, the accumulation of knowledge and development of intelligence is bound to last longer than physical prowess for the vast proportion of the population. I would rather be a Nobel laureate than win the Brownlow Medal in AFL any day). In fact, research as far back as five years ago shows cognitive benefits from gaming (Gee, 2005) with current research investigating the extent of this cognitive enhancement (Steinkuehler, 2006).

The quote, “What is lacking in sweat is made up for in sheer numbers” is, frankly, insulting. The best gamers in the world have highly developed cognitive processes developed through gaming such as pattern recognition, system thinking and  highly enhanced reaction processing.

2. I agree that there are a very small number of people who “over-use” games and there are even an astoundingly small number of people of have died from unnaturally long continuous bouts of gameplay. However, the vast majority of gamers simply interact with the medium as they would with any other media. In fact 63% of the US population would be considered a gamer (NPD, 2007), spending at least 10 hours a week on gaming and gaming related activities (while this isn’t the Australian population, we don’t really have any studies. However, if the Australian Parliament Standing Committee on Communications, Information Technology and the Arts (2008) uses this as analogous to our situation then so will I). So, would television viewing habits require the use of television addiction boot camps? If we applied the same principles of consumption as we do to television we would see many times the number of television “addicts” compared to video game “addicts”.

What researchers can agree on at this time is that the vast majority of the current research being done on the psychological effects of gaming particularly addiction is ineffective and irrelevant. In fact, despite all that is being said in the media and by lobbying groups, there is yet to be a definitive clinical definition as to what defines “video game addiction”

Applying criteria related to gambling addiction does not work. For example, someone playing an MMO, especially if there was issues with guild relationships that he or she may be involved in will of course think about the game outside of playing it. He or she has already emotionally invested in the game. The relationships made in that environment are real, never mind how shallow or wide they are. The hype surrounding this issue is also skewing results unfavorably, Dr Richard Wood writes in his book The Myth about Video Game “Addiction”,

“Some people are being mislabelled addicts by concerned parents, partners or others when they have no problems with their game-playing behaviour… Some people who are concerned about their own behaviour… end up labelling themselves as video game addicts.”

And, really, humans are inherently addicted to things. Our evolutionary survival instincts dictate that we love to eat too much, we are obsessed about sex and anything that provides reward from input is bound to provide more reward from more input. While the comparison to gambling, smoking and alcoholism are all valid comparisons, however, I won’t stoop to that level to beat the drum, but, just say, addiction is part of human nature and gaming is a relatively less harmful than a lot of other possible addictions (if research results in a clinical definition) out there and the amount of media frenzy it attracts is unwarranted.

The use of a respondent in the programme who claimed to spend 15 hours a day gaming is highly sensationalist.  For all I know he really does spend 15 hours a day gaming, but in a survey done by Nick Yee in 2005 of over 3000 world of warcraft gamers only 2 respondents spent 15 hours or more a day gaming. This is a minuscule proportion of the respondents, in fact, the average number of hours spent playing World of Warcraft among all 3245 respondants was 22 hours per week, which is in fact similar to the amount of time the average Australian spends watching TV (26 hours per week), indicating that gaming is possibly replacing television time in these respondents.

Something in the back of my mind is thinking this report is a reaction to the amount of time people are now spending on games rather than television. In a recent survey by Roy Morgan (2008) the average Australian (over 14) still spends 43% of their media viewing time glued to the television with computer usage coming second at 21%. However, the most telling statistic is in the younger portion of the people surveyed where the gap in the two mediums was much less apparent. Respondents aged 18-24 almost had no different with 36% of their media viewing time spent on the computer and 37% of it spent watching the telly. Something I suppose would be a scary statistic for networks about the projection of TV influence in the future.

3. “…they’re just games”

This was the most infuriating thing said on this program. They’re just games. Well. If they were “just games” how come the games industry dwarfs the movie industry and yet, in Australia particularly, attracts comparatively little government funding in comparison to the film industry. If they were  ”just games” how come the average gamer in Australia is now over 30 years old and, yet, we have no R18+ rating classification, even with 98% of the population (IEAA, 2009) seeing the benefit such a rating would have (such as educating parents on what content is applicable for their children, the argument many of the opposition peddle, which is baseless because 92% of surveyed parents say they know what their children are playing. And, even if kids these days are more savvy (which they are), they aren’t telepathic, they are not going to spend hours devising and implementing brute force algorithms to break a 4 digit code placed by their parents to play a game rated above their age).

Such a view that games are juvenile and puerile has no statistical weight. It seems this form of technophobia is nothing new, television caused the silver screen industry to spew propaganda dismissing the television as harmful to family relations as a survival technique, and now they are ubiquitous. Such is the same with games, the arguments against addiction, violence in games and social degradation are scapegoats we have all seen, petted and then subsequently roasted before.

We are in an age of unprecedented media saturation. Our views are unfortunately disproportionately shaped by what we see, which is often a reflection of popular views, further distilling it. I would think, however, that we were all intelligent enough to see everything through a critical frame of mind. But, the saying rings true that 90% of a population is moronic viewing media almost as a form of blind faith, if a current affair programme says this, it MUST be true, never mind there maybe underlying agendas, never mind there may be mitigating factors, it is black and white.

While we are media savvy, it seems the majority of the population is not savvy enough to distinguish sensationalist “newstainment” (which, unfortunately, is more economically viable) from truly factual and unbiased reporting. It is a trend that is worryingly becoming more apparent (we need more Media Watch).

So, Sunday Night, under your guise of “award winning unbiased presentation of facts”, don’t muddy the water of a new and already overly contentious issue. It does more harm to a growing and influential Australian industry and the culture surrounding it, than it benefits Channel 7’s wallet.

P.S. I’m going to get a call from my mum probably later tonight telling me to stop studying games now =_=. Thanks Channel 7 for bringing further doubt into my parents minds about my future. They weren’t exactly confident to begin with.

Watch the video here (notice the complete lack of even basic scientific grounding. Dr Tao Ran’s use of anecdotal evidence explaining the condition of 15 or so kids and then linking it with the “health of Chinese youth” is farcical . If you are going to use a scientist, at least use someone who is recognizably knowledgeable in the subject… Not some random who is willing to spout anything to get on television (DONT YOU DARE DEFLECT THE ISSUE ONTO RACISM))

http://au.tv.yahoo.com/sunday-night/video/#fop
(3rd one across in the gallery)

P.S.S. I am waiting on the transcripts to be released for me to more accurately quote Ross.

Baietii de la “The Elder Gods” (Perry, k1d0r, MARIUS, Taofik si Darky) ne-au reprezentat tara anul asta la cel mai mare turneu mondial de jocuri, respectiv World Cyber Games. Turneul desfasurat in Chengdu, China a gazduit sute de gameri profesionisti din zeci de tari care s-au intrecut pentru faima de a fi campioni mondiali la jocurile unde au participat. Printre acesti gameri s-a aflat si cunoscuta echipa TeG care desi era considerata “outsider” au reusit sa castige grupa cu 3 victorii din tot atatea meciuri. Din pacate, ne-am oprit in optimile de finala acolo unde am intalnit prestigioasa echipa fnatic (Suedia), care putea fi invinsa daca baietii nostri erau putin mai concentrati.

Cu toate astea multumim TeG, singura echipa romaneasca care reprezinta tara noastra cu succes indiferent de rezultate.

Zapewne wielu z Was czeka na chwilę, gdy na największej growej imprezie na świecie, World Cyber Games, zagości któraś część z najpopularniejszej serii bijatyk, czyli Tekkena. Teraz nadszedł moment, kiedy to od nas, graczy, zależy, czy Tekken 6 znajdzie się wśród listy gier, w które rywalizować będą najlepsi podczas przyszłorocznych finałow WCG 2010. Pod TYM ADRESEM możecie głosować na poszczególne tytuły w różnych kategoriach. Wśród bijatyk znajdziemy następujące produkcje: Dragon Ball: Raging Beast, Street Fighter IV, Tekken 6, Virtua Fighter 5 oraz WWE Smackdown vs RAW 2009.

Czy muszę coś więcej dodawać? Myszki w dłoń – głosujcie!

źródło: forum Tej-City Team

World Cyber games 2009 finals was held at Chengdu ,China .
82000 spectators were came to see the world finals.
There were 600 players form 65 countries compete for the grand trophy
Team Korea(South) won this year grand final with 3 gold,2 silver, and 3 bronze medals.

Country ranking:

1st

Korea (South)

2nd

Sweden

3rd

Germany

Closing Ceremony.

WCG 2010 grand finals going to be held at Los Angels ,USA with celebrating
its 10th anniversary.

Image courtesy –

http://www.wcg.com/6th/main.asp

by v000nix

In diesen Tagen trifft sich die Spielerelite der Welt bei den World Cyber Games in Chengdu, China. Eines der 12 Spiele im Veranstaltungskalender ist unser aller Lieblingsgame: Trackmania Forever!

Auch 2 Deutsche Spieler, namentlich Pascal “gaLLo” Jager und Stefan “BOmBz0r” Kopper, sind mit von der Partie.

Ob sie es bis ins Finale schaffen werden, kann ich als Aussenstehender nur schwer beurteilen. Aber wer weiß, vielleicht hilft ja fleißiges Däumchen drücken. Wie es dann wirklich ausschaut, könnt ihr im laufe des morgigen Tages auf dieser WCG-Übersichtsseite erfahren.

Wenn sie es in das Finale geschafft haben, könnt ihr euch das Endmatch im WCG-Livestream anschauen. Allerdings findet es von 11:30 – 12:30 statt, sodass ein Großteil der Trackmaniacs nicht zuschauen kann.

Jedem anderen bleibt dann auch wieder nur die bereits erwähnte Übersichtsseite, um sich zu Informieren.

Ausserdem ist vor ein paar Tagen die Spiele-Abstimmung für die World Cyber Games 2010 in Los Angeles online gegangen. Trackmania hat auch diesmal wieder harte Konkurrenten wie NFS, Burnout und Gran Turismo. Mit eurer Stimme können wir es jedoch schaffen und Trackmania noch bekannter machen.

–> Zur Abstimmung

Zum Abschluss nochmal ein fettes “Toi Toi Toi!” an unsere 2 deutschen Kameraden!

The future is always uncertain. But it’s not always a bad thing. It gives us great reason for us to hope, to dare to dream, to think about the question…

What if?

-

I’m traveling to Pasir Ris at night on the MRT. I look outside; everything is dark and I can’t see a thing. That’s the thing with the route to Pasir Ris, the trees always block the view.

Feeling bored, I turn my attention to inside the train. I realize that the train is really empty. There are only a few people left in the carriage, and we’re all sitting way apart from one another. With perpetual darkness outside and emptiness inside, I suddenly have a sense of weariness.

I recall in the last Harry Potter book, The Deathly Hallows, Dumbledore gave Harry the option to board the train and let it take him onward, or to return to the mortal plane. He chose the latter and thereafter defeated Voldemort.

I suddenly felt like I’m on the train, and that all the train is doing is taking me onward, on an endless journey.  A non-stop path, if you will. That if I wanted, I could leave my life just there and then, and forever live out the rest of my existence on that train alone. Loneliness engulfed me and I am sorely tempted to do just that. It’s rough, and it’s been tough.

I have been fighting an one-man crusade all this time. A seemingly unbeatable opponent looms on the other side, surrounded by former allies who somehow defected to the other side. Am I an extremist? Have I really lost sight of the bigger picture? What have I done to make myself seem like the bad guy here? Is it my self-righteousness at play again? Questions that need answering but won’t be answered.

I feel like the Punisher. One man, on the pursuit of justice. Respected for being on a personal war. Treated as a mad man for thinking he can win.

My thoughts grow heavy, and I’m starting to wallow in self-pity. The feeling is so overwhelming I can hardly stand to bear it.

Then I grow sober. No, I will not give up. No, I will not let up. No, I will fight till the end. This is what defines me. I gotta keep this up.

I shake my head. I scrunch my face. I clench my fists. The train pulls into Pasir Ris Station. I stand up and alight, walking with renewed purpose.

-

It’s the happiest day of my life. Or thus far, anyways.

The atmosphere is great. I excuse myself awhile to one side, just to take in everything. I look across the room.

Everyone’s making merry and catching up. They eat and drink, laughing at jokes someone at their table has cracked. The room is huge; I didn’t hold back for this. The lights, sights, and sounds, all have been carefully planned out by my friends and I. Chandeliers hang from above us all, and ballroom music is being played in the background. The food is excellent and every single table and chair is put into place perfectly.

Butterflies are fluttering about in my stomach. I close my eyes to stabilize myself, then open them again.

I look over, and I see my mother with a proud look on her face, her prodigal son finally maturing. She’s talking at the top of her voice, bragging about how much I spent on her for this event to all my aunts and elders. I shake my head, smiling; she’s never one to boast about her children. But just this day, she finally has a good reason to do so. And I’m glad she did.

My dad, as usual, keeps to himself. This time, this place, he isn’t an outcast from the rest of my family, extended or not. He has a smug look on his face, and he knows that he has finally trumped others in something, that he isn’t as useless as others think. He raised me regardless of anything, and that, I think, speaks more volumes than words.

I look to another side, and I see my cousin persuading his son to eat. I can’t believe that this was once the guy who would talk to me for hours on end about an arcade game. My smile grows wider and wider, as his son cutely refuses to drink the shark fin soup, and he has an exasperated look on his face as he keeps trying. My, my. How have we all grown.

Again I turn my head, and WCG, my best buddies, are talking and laughing loudly. They propose toasts over and over again; one of them is visibly red in the face. Then they start making jokes about one another, and they break out in laughter again. Guess some things really don’t change.

I startle, and awaken to my senses. I have neglected my duties as host. I return to the specially tagged VVIP table for Arielle, where every one at that table matter loads to me. We laugh, we drink; we laugh again. We talk about how all this seems to be such an impossibility at the time of conception of the idea, and how it’s like a miracle that everything fell into place. She says she’ll pass me the money that she owes me, as part of the bet we made so many years ago. I decline, saying her belief in me all these years is worth more than any amount of cash. She laughs it off, but I know she appreciates it.

“Hey.” A familiar voice comes from behind me.

I turn, and beam brightly. “Hey yourself.”

“How are you holding up tonight?”

“I’m doing good so far. It’s really scary though.”

“Yes, I know, right!” She sighs, then smiles. “But I’m really glad we did this.”

“Me too. You don’t know how much I have envisioned this day.”

She doesn’t reply, but simply tilts her head to one side, like she always does while pondering a question.

I embrace her tightly with my arm, squeezing her slightly, and then kiss her forehead.

I take a deep breath in, and scan the room once more.

I see the happiness and joy of the people here.

I see the utter disbelief of some present, as if the invitation card they got was a joke, and they are on the biggest and most elaborate episode of Punk’d.

I see the disapproval of others, who strongly opposed us from the start, on the grounds that this was not right and not supposed to be.

But most of all, I see my dreams coming true. Everything I wished for, is now falling into place. Thank the Gods for that.

In spite of everything that everyone has said about every single thing along the way, I made it through. WE made it through, because we kept holding on.

“You okay?” She asks, bringing me back to reality.

I look at her. “Of course I am. I’m always okay with you around.”

We both smile, and go about entertaining the rest of the guests.

-

This world is evil, and I intend to change it.

The sacred sanctuary I visit is desecrated by scumbags and lowlifes. Day after day, I hold back my rage, choosing to ignore the facade that so many people maintain in this place. I see the evil that spreads in this place. It is like a poisonous mist, engulfing you, choking you, until you have no other choice but to submit to it.

I am scared. Few things scare me, but I must admit, the thought of my favourite place, gone… daunting. Intimidating. I fear for the future of this place; I fear that the bright future that has been laid out for this place will be destroyed by these evildoers.

This will not happen. This will not happen. This WILL NOT happen.

Because I have a plan. A plan to heal the world.

I will become a vigilante.

They are the stuff of legends, the backbone of any good comic book, and my childhood idols. And tonight, I intend to join their ranks.

Death is coming for them. I am become Death.

To Be Continued…

(I am tired)

-

Już za 9 dni w Chinach odbędą się globalne finały World Cyber Games 2009, na których zjawi się m. in. Złotka Piątka, lecz tym razem to nie jest news o nich. Dwie drużyny, a mianowicie niemieckie mousesports oraz kazachstańskie k23 postanowiło wymienić dwóch zawodników specjalnie na te zawody. Więcej…

Life has been a little hectic since I’ve returned from my trip to the World Cyber Games in Chengdu, China.  I’ll spare you my touristy run-down of airport delays (Beijing rockets silver iodide into clouds to make rain, but ended up blanketing Beijing in an unseasonable blizzard), sleep deprivation (left a forehead print on the glass revolving door, poured noodles on my partner’s laptop trying to show my mom my breakfast over webcam), internet restrictions (no Wikipedia, no Facebook, no blogs, no Youtube, and a very sensitive IP blocker), and personal excursions to different corners of Chengdu (the mountain where Daoism was founded, tons of street market haggling, and harrowing cab rides).  I will, however, name-drop it like it’s hot.

TorcH and I sat across the aisle from SirScoots, a well-known personality in eSports, and MoB Shift, one of the two Guitar Hero players for USA.  The flight was uneventful save for my sudden and unparalleled achievement in Pokemon Pinball: access to the Mewtwo Bonus Level and an all-time high score of 1,517,277,700 on the Blue level (which after some research I’ve discovered is not a very impressive score… let down).

Waiting in the Beijing airport, I lost track of TorcH and glommed onto the group surrounding the US WCG managers, Paul, Aaron, and Natalie.  Also in that group were Jamal, an Ultimate Gamer contestant, and one of my new friends, Sean “Wraith” Snack.  Paul ended up saving the day and getting us to Chengdu that night whereupon we were greeted by… a gaggle of uniformed volunteers speaking English, offering bottles of water, and encouraging us to relax in a special seating area while we awaited our shuttle!  It was our first taste of celebrity, and it was pretty neat.

At the hotel, the lobby was set up with tables dedicated to registering teams.  There were uniforms and meal cards and room keys for the players who all shuffled off to bed by 2am China time (all of China is one time zone). I had been awake for 25 hours and most other for much longer than that, so I was determined to sleep as long as possible.  Fortunately I didn’t because then I would have missed the players’ tour of the Panda Research Base the next morning!

Ah, the day of the police escort…  For the 30 minute ride to the panda base, we had a cop leading our bus the whole way (as a note, the banners for WCG still lined the road two full miles from the venue) and other cops along our route blocking intersection traffic so we could pass.  We were rushed around the base by our volunteers/herders and tour guide, but the pandas were epically adorable.  On the ride home, I sat with a group of referees in panda (excuse me, pander, as the Chinese pronounce it) hats and got to know Nicholas White, an Australian ref who has attended several WCG final events.

Upon returning to Century City, the combination hotel/event hall, we got our passes and entered the venue for the first time.  And here, we come to our agreement from my last post.  These aren’t the original “scantily-clad ladies” I was promising, but readers, feast your eyes on the lovely booth girls of Samsung!

These beautiful girls (and several very attractive guys) populated every exhibitor booth in various teams of costumes.

There were futuristic soldiers, elves, school girls, deal-or-no-deal types, space aliens, airline stewardesses, and even some cat-girls… whatever best related to the individual products (however tenuously).

What’s more, they all spoke at least some English, and were always eager to help me understand or get me to participate.

So suck on it, boys… I got to be around tons of hot Chinese girls and you didn’t.

Coming next installment… how Team USA fared and who owned the most face! (hint: it wasn’t us)