e-sports posts

Time magazine has an article on its site called 'The Wired Bunch', that focuses on the world of competitive gaming in Seoul, Korea. The name "e-Sports" is the preferred term for the type of contested tournament play that has taken over the airwaves of South Korea since its inception in 1998.

The piece does a good job of rendering the story down into informational chunks that non-gamers can easily digest, and manages to avoid the trap of coming off sounding condescending. Indeed, the author warns that to denigrate the gaming lifestyle betrays a lack of understanding of the zeitgeist. With televised gaming on the rise in the East, what are the chances North America will realize what a huge opportunity it's got on its hands?

World of Warcraft's Arena Tournament launched on March 31, 2008, letting players immediately create level 70 characters and equip them with high level skills and epic armor. Competitors from around the world battle for up to $200,000 in cash prizes. At the same time, the Arena Tournament underscores Blizzard's intentions of using WoW's PvP gameplay as a type of eSport. WoW rose to become the most popular MMO in the world primarily because of its PvE content, and using its PvP for eSports marked a sharp turn in the game's focus. We catch up with WoW's Lead Designer, Tom Chilton, Paul Della Bitta (Senior Manager, Global Community and eSports) and Joong Kim (eSports Manager) to get the inside story about balancing PvP and PvE gameplay and what players can expect to from the future of Azeroth.