Video Game Leagues, The Primary Companies, Processes And Regulations

A dream amongst younger individuals and maybe older ones, the thought of making a living simply by playing video games is usually a dud one. There are many possibilities, such as video game testing, but the reality behind that is that it's terrible hours, terribly boring and only a small chance of promotion. However, for those who wish to look further afield, video game leagues might provide the reality to your dream. Allowing players to compete against other challengers, these leagues offer serious sums of prize money and items to those that win said leagues. It is, however, a very difficult process, as you will be competing against the best and most serious gamers the world has to offer, either in person or over the Internet and on your own or as part of a team.

The Main Leagues

There are several major leagues that dominate the world of competitive gaming. The first is the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) has been around for six years and has awarded over three million dollars worth of prizes. It primarily focuses on the first-person shooter (FPS) games and is a venerable option. The World Cyber Games (WCG) provide annual events with tremendous amounts of money varying between four-hundred thousand and five-hundred thousand dollars. They provide dozens of gaming genres from strategies to FPSs. The Pro Gaming League (PGL) also stands with the larger leagues and focuses on the console gaming sector, though offering less prize money.

The Process Of Elimination 

Generally, the leagues all have reigning champions who are teams or individuals whom have won the previous events. These champions are then challenged by amateur players and teams who have entered the league, usually paying a fee to do so. From here on out, it's a very standard competition, where the the amateurs fight amongst themselves until only the best remain, then they're pitted against the champions. There are variants amongst each league, such as the champions also competing within the tiers instead of facing only the winners.

The prizes are not always monetary. They can sometimes be physical items such as graphics cards, consoles and other items of varying monetary values. The following year sees the champions written in to face either returning or new competitors.

Cheating

Obviously cheating has become a serious rule that no one is allowed to break. The actual means of cheating can vary from game to game, where some players may use 3rd party programs to manipulate the game's data or in other cases, the player might exploit certain parts of the game to give themselves a superior advantage over other players. Generally, there are always referees and judges to deem whether the players' conduct has been has been honorable or not.

Recently, hardware has come under scrutiny as well, since hardware has come a long way since standardization. It's possible to purchase controllers that provide macros, which allows the player to press a button once and have that button repeated faster than is humanly possible. Furthermore, it's easier for such macros to reduce large combinations of keys into a single button press. These have been banned from gaming leagues due to the obvious advantages provided.