Gamers, want to win $10 million dollars?
People like to watch other people play video games. They like it so much that tournaments for competitive gaming — or e-sports as it’s known — are packing stadiums and offering multi-million dollar prizes.
They’re also getting the attention of the likes of ESPN, which televised the “International Dota 2” Championships in Seattle over the weekend, with winners soon to be announced.
Tickets to “Dota 2” sold out in an hour at the 17,000 seat Key Arena, and millions of people were expected to watch the games on ESPN2, ESPN3 and online.
Erik Johnson is with Valve, the company behind “Dota 2.”
“This is a huge amount of fun for us, we’re all fans and we get to kind of show off a little bit, put on a big show for everybody,” says Johnson.
“Everybody” includes hordes of young men ages 18 to 34, a group advertisers love.
Nicholas Taylor, who teaches digital media at North Carolina State says cable tried airing gaming championships in 2008, but the timing was wrong. That’s not the case anymore.
“As it may have been, a shot in the dark, let’s put it that way, for ESPN six years ago, is now probably a pretty sure bet in 2014 and going forward,” says Taylor.
ESPN says it hasn’t committed to any other e-sports coverage. But, Taylor says, the sport is so big, it’s going to happen.
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