By: Andy ‘Fro’ Popkin
(This is an editorial piece. The opinions in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of compLexity Gaming or its parent company.)
Hola folks. It’s been a minute since I wrote one of these, but I got the urge to educate my fellow gamers. The other night I was watching the recording of WCG Ultimate Gamer on my DVR. I just got ATT U-Verse and HD channels so I watch anything I can now. Anyway… While watching this “interesting” show I realized that this shit is killing OUR style of gaming and what I consider the best part. The show consists of Xbox 360 and only the 360. Nothing else what so ever. Not sure if that is a deal that they made with 
Samsung and the other sponsors, but I personally don’t like it. Yes the best competitive console games are all on the 360, but there is more to gaming than just fucking Xbox.
Rock Band, PGR4, Halo3, NBA Live 2009 (terrible horrible pick btw) are the games that I can remember so far. Oh yeah Street Fighter 4 I think too. All of which I guess are games that are played in events like MLG, WCG, and more. But when you look at the REAL gaming events, all of them started out as PC gaming events. CPL, ESWC, even WCG. They have evolved into what gaming might end up being in the future, but I just don’t like it. To me going to CPL was all about watching some bad ass .5 and 1.6 action. Nothing is better than NoA vs. SK or coL vs. 3D, coL vs. Fnatic, etc on LAN. It brings the best out of teams, and nonstop baller CS. You just can’t get the same feeling while watching some randy girl play NBA Live 09 for the first time and get dominated.
The CGS ALMOST ALMOST had the shit on lock down. PC and console gaming, that’s the way to run a real ultimate gamer. My grandma could run over people in GTA if I spent 5 min explaining how to do it. But no way in hell could she sit down here and start to spray n pray frag. What I’m trying to say is, these jokers on the Ultimate Gamer show, besides swoozie and maybe PMS girl, could never compete with the best of the best in halo3, cs, cod, tf2, pgr/forza, and doa/sf4. All that shit would be impossible for those kids to actually compete with. CGS had real gamers in a much different format, but it was still a better way to promote gaming and show people that gaming is a ‘sport’ that belongs on national TV. The dudes
over at CGS just didn’t understand what gaming really was either, and their quest for riches failed fast because it was only about the riches.
Many of the current top managers/sponsors would tell you right now that shows such as Ultimate Gamer, CGS, and MLG are all they care about anymore. Counter-Strike is slowly dying in America and also a little bit in Europe. It’s an outdated game, the best players are getting too old for it, and the new ones are not nearly as good. The more mainstream gamer doesn’t even know what the fuck CS is, they just know they can unlock achievements on XBLive to get their e-dick to grow. These people are what the gaming gods believe is all they want to invest in. I agree on the fact that people go where the money is, and it’s not in Counter-Strike anymore. But I would still like to see 1.6 get its chance to shine once again. The biggest thing CS has against it in going mainstream is that it’s very difficult to broadcast on national TV. The game looks shitty, and it’s hard as fuck to explain in a matter of 2 minutes. The basics yes but Joe Stevens won’t know that jDeag just oneDeag’d three people to clutch doing a 180 on each one half blind. He will only see that Justin Summy got three kills this round. The Complexity Franchise is now leading the bullshit r us championship by 3 points in their quest for the Lactaid Milk Million Dollar Pay Day!
I’m not really making sense anymore, so to recap. Console gaming is slowing fucking REAL gaming like a maid that gets tipped extra to ‘clean out the pipes’. The only thing left I have to say is if swoozie does not win this show, I will have lost all faith in the true pro gamers, and maybe even gaming itself.
