Major League Gaming (MLG) is the home of professional gaming and has been since 2002. Today it is 2015, professional gaming has been around for 13 years and has grown tremendously since it began. The atmosphere, locations, games/consoles, and prizes have all changed over the past 13 years.
When Major League Gaming started, most people thought it was a joke more than anything. People thought, really professional games? Yeah, really professional gaming was a thing back then. It didn’t get much attention from outsiders and non-gamers, but that would change. The atmosphere at the beginning of MLG was nothing spectacular, the only emotional feeling you could feel was from the players and the small number of spectators. It was equivalent to watching a sports game with a small number of spectators. Over the period of time, the atmosphere grew to a whole new level; over time of course. Today the atmosphere is crazy. You can feel the intensity as a spectator, you can see the hype of the players, and there are real crowds of people watching. They’re not just watching, they’re rooting for their team, like a sporting event. Fans make signs and cheer on their favorite teams and players. Looking ahead, this will only continue to grow. There will be more fans as time goes on and that means more atmosphere and excitement. Also, as time goes by, new players will enter the scene and add more excitement to the atmosphere. I guess we’ll see what happens.
At the beginning of MLG, tournaments were held in banquet halls. Events were held at these locations for a while. I don’t know when MLG got their stadium, but there is currently an MLG stadium in Columbus, Ohio. This is where all MLG events take place. In the past there were no events in other countries or states. Now there are events in the states and in other countries, over the summer there was an event in Texas called X-Games just like the athletic X-Games, but this is for games. The winner got gold medals just like in the other X-Games. There are also tournaments called G-Finity and UMG. During the past summer there were 3 events in 3 different European countries. For the future, I can see this having some growth. I think there could be multiple arenas for MLG events and there could be more countries for tournaments. Also, when events were held in banquet halls, players would have their monitors and systems lined up on long tables. As time went by and events were held in other places like the arena, booths were made. Players are now playing in soundproof booths, with a divider next to another booth separating them. There is also a big screen above the booths for people to watch the game. On the front of the cabins are the logo and the name of the teams. I believe this will remain the same in the future with minimal changes.
Games have also changed over the years. When MLG started, the games were being played on the older versions of the PlayStation, Xbox, and even Nintendo systems. There were games like Super Smash Bros. Melee, Soul Caliber, Call of Duty, and Halo. As time went on, newer games were added to more modern consoles, just like computers. Currently there are modern consoles and computers used in professional games. Some of the games are Call of Duty, Halo, Smite, and League of Legends. This will continue in the future as well. The new versions of the games will be played on the new consoles when they are released.
As time went on, so did the amount of prize money. When Major League Gaming started, prize money was only in the hundreds. That prize money is divided by the number of players per team. So if the prize was $100, each player only got $25, so it wasn’t a lot of money, it was something but nothing special. As time went on, the prize pool grew to smaller thousands and kept growing. Now the prize pools are in the thousands, millions of thousands and some are even worth a million dollars. Now, if the prize pool is $500,000, the first place team doesn’t get all that money. That $500,000 is distributed among the top eight teams, and then divided based on the number of players.
In conclusion, professional gaming has come a long way, going from nothing worthy of recognition to where it is today. It is a very successful and entertaining scene. It has been very successful and I hope it will continue to grow and become more popular as time goes on.
