Having had a couple days off, and being at home - I was pleased to have a friend over for lunch today. We had a nice lunch and retired to the ‘office’ for some retro-gaming. I’ve been messing with MacMame and we had a great time playing HyperSports, and trying out some other old favorites. In passing, he mentioned that it was too bad there wasn’t a pro league for gaming, since at one time in his life he wouldv’e loved to give that a go. Well, it looks like there might soon be: if Major League Gaming out of NY has their way.

According to the Wall Street Journal, “A company seeking to elevate competitive videogame playing into a professional sport said it has raised $10 million in financing and appointed a former Time Warner Inc., executive as president.”

I think there are some games that would make a pretty good spectacle on TV - a lot of people who have never played computer games may not be able to distinguish a good game from a movie at a distance, and in some cases, the story is better! I’d be more interested in following a real time strategy game like Warcraft III, which is like a 3D game of chess played out with little armies or a fast paced tron-like game like
Armagtron, over a competition of memorized moves to complete some 2D platform game under some insane time limit, but whatever games are showcased, there would need to be a good ‘observer’ system where you could watch the action from multiple viewpoints, and I would brook no un-intelligent commentary.

Since it’s gaming we’re talking about, wouldn’t it be cool to have it open to the whole internet to compete live on TV?