On competition

This post was inspited by Sonic's writeup.

I feel that the actual criteria for a competition, is simply whether you are better than the rest of the people that does the same thing. The problem now comes when money is required to actually stage the competition in a large enough scale (not to mention the prizes).

Magic: The Gathering (M:TG) competitions can continue in such a large scale, and pay out very good money simply because it is the nature of the game. Being collectibe, it has a steady source of revenue. For them, the competitions serve as: 1. Perpetual promotion vehicle, 2. Magnet for new competitive players that buy a lot of cards. 3. Traders in secondary markets that also buy a lot of cards.They do not need external sponsors because M:TG is self-sustaining.

Cybergames companies, on the other hand, do not have a constant revenue source. They require sponsors, and are currently limited to a small pool of potential sponsors. Only MMORPG's have constant revenue source, and they are the most difficult to create competitions that are meaningful to the mass. Sponsors pay money in the hope that their advertisement gets across to the group of people that most likely would end up buying their products/using their services.

Like, why should the achievement of a golfer that plays better golf than almost everyone else (e.g. Tiger Woods) be more significant than that of a Quake player that plays better Quake than almost everyone else (e.g. Paul Nelson)? Both of them got to where they are with lots of effort and time. Somehow the society perceives that it is. I just do not think that it should be.

I do see it changing though. More and more people are growing up sorrounded by virtual worlds. It is just a matter of time before there are enough people getting involved for sponsors to start fighting for advertisement space. I just hope that they do it tastefully.

This, for example, is a pretty good 'Geek Ad'.

And in China, Coca-Cola is already involved with World of Warcraft. Maybe they are trying to make Coca-Cola the Asian equivalent of the current stereotypical Western Computer Gamer Geek's drink of choice - Mountain Dew.