Cyber Games to focus on the masses

This article is mainly about the World Cyber Games (WCG), a domain and competition for serious competitive gamers, having casual games such as Guitar Hero III and Fifa 2008 introduced to it. Mobile phone games have also been included in the WCG. The WCG normally only consists of includes real time strategy (RTS) or first person shooters (FPS) games. These games generally attract serious and professional gamers. These games also require much more time, practice, coordination and knowledge of the terrain to win as compared to Fifa, Guitar Hero or mobile phone games. Thus, these types of games are considered as “casual”. However, I know that no games are actually “casual”, since every game selected for the WCG is very competitive and require a lot of skill to actually beat the other players.
The organisers did so to spread the gaming culture to the masses, including professional female gamers who have been increasing yearly. The organisers want gaming to be accessible to everyone, non-professional or female or even older gamers.
I fully support this change in the WCG categories. I believe that having a wider range of games would lead to more gamers wanting to participate or participating in the WCG. There are many gaming competitions, and the WCG is the biggest and most well known out of all of them. Thus, the changes in the WCG might lead to better changes in the other gaming competitions. This will also help aspiring and currently professional gamers in being reassured of them having gaming as a career. Why and how does this assurance come about?
Although a lot of professional gamers are sponsored by companies such as SK Gaming, having a wider range of games also creates a stronger belief for aspiring professional gamers since they will be further assured that there will be multiple competitions of games that they specialize so that they will be able to support themselves economically and make a living out of gaming. If people are insecure about their future, how will they be able to step forward? It’s the same concept with gaming. When aspiring gamers know that it is possible for them to make a living out of gaming, will they then proceed to become professional gamers.
So, where does this lack of assurance originate from? There are very few professional gamers as compared to athletes and musicians. Gaming requires as much time, effort, practice, coordination, preparation, and most importantly, skill and talent as compared to music and sports. There are people who love gaming and are addicted to it, but, the same goes for music and sports. The risks are the same, maybe even lesser. People have died through excessive gaming, but such cases are rare. However, much more people have died and multiple accidents have occurred in sports. Yet, sports are so much better recognized then gaming. People all over the world train, work and compete in the Olympics. Everyone is excited about the Olympics. However, how many people actually care about the WCG, the biggest gaming competition that occurs yearly. It is a miserable few as compared to those for the Olympics. It is considered an honor for athletes to win the Olympics in the name of their country. But, who actually cares when their country wins the WCG. The only country that properly recognizes gaming is Korea, where gaming is a national sport and the professional gamers over there are treated as rock stars. Why is this so?
This is largely due to society’s negative and discriminative mindset. Many parents and people think that gaming is “a waste of time and a waste of life”. Therefore many people do not choose professional gaming as a career. This causes the player base to be low, which in turn leads to companies or governments not sponsoring, assisting, or hosting gaming competitions. This finally comes back to parents believing that gaming is not good as a career. Thus, the vicious cycle repeats.
So, society’s negative mindset is the root cause of gaming not being well recognized as a career and a good hobby. However, I believe that this negative mindset can be corrected. One first step is of course to increase the possibility of gaming being a proper career that people can advance into. Athletes and musicians are able to do what they love to do as a career. So, why should gamers be any different? I believe that gamer should have a career foundation as good as those of athletes and musicians. Gamers should be well recognized and taken as seriously as athletes. I believe that this can be done through government and global assistance. If the people around the world and the government support gaming, then many companies will sponsor gaming competitions. This will increase the price money and thus gamers will be able to make a proper living out of professional gaming. The changes in the WCG categories are just a small step to achieving this goal. The mindset of the people is still very important and has to be changed. One first step to doing so is for the media to stop degrading gaming and associate it with people facing problems after having being engrossed in gaming. There have only been neutral and negative articles about gaming. When has there ever been an article that promotes gaming? This is not because there is nothing good about gaming, but it’s the mindset. Thus, changing the way the media portrays gaming is very important since the media largely influences the perception of the people.
To end it off, I think that this change in the WCG categories would set a stronger foundation for the gaming culture. This is just one out of the many changes to come that would assist professional gamers in their career. I believe that society should start correcting their negative mindset of gaming and think through it properly. I sincerely hope that one day, gaming would be on the same level of recognition as sports and music.

Word Count: 1000
Link: http://www.straitstimes.com/Singapore/Story/STIStory_258472.html