I scream, you scream, we all scream for a TV screen – especially when it might be showing Counter-Strike. Everybody that loves gaming wants to see it broadcast into as many homes as possible, as long the game isn’t Duck Hunt or Counter-Strike: Source. And I know a lot of people would choose Duck Hunt out of the two.
So you’d think the announcement that the World Series of Video Games reached an agreement with CBS is a good thing. After all, even if CS isn't one of their featured games, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. And it is, but it’s not the smashing success once you look at the games CBS will actually feature. Let me explain.
First, we have to go back a couple months. It was a dark day for CS fans, so I’m sure we all remember when the WSVG announced they weren’t going to use CS as a primary game. Instead, they were using Fight Night 3, Guitar Hero 2, WoW: Arena, and Quake 4. Lost in the hubbub was part of a GotFrag interview with Matt Ringel, the President of the WSVG. GF asked him about the decision, and this paragraph was part of a larger answer:
“Counter-Strike was a challenging issue for us, because we do want to do more coverage with broadcast network television-- not satellite, not cable, but broadcast. Keep in mind we were the only entity to do this last year, which put us in 104MM homes in the United States. Network standards and practices are different for, say, CBS than they are for, say, DirecTV. Graphic shooter content is problematic for the network.”
I didn’t pay much attention to that paragraph while I was reading the interview. I didn’t dismiss it like foreign intelligence from Nicole Richie, but it wasn’t exactly gripping news. (If you’re wondering what that kind of intelligence would like, I think it would go something like this: wine shortage reported in France, Germany is stockpiling Guinness of mass destruction, China is developing a new form of nuclear cocaine.) I wouldn’t be surprised if most people didn’t read too much into it. Ignoring the violent content seems to be a systematic viewpoint, not just a crazy LANDodger perspective. At least, I hope so. We’re all vaguely aware CS is rated M (FOR MATURE!), but that’s about it. We enjoy the gameplay and we think other people would, too.
The media doesn’t share that opinion, and you don’t have to be sued by Jack Thompson to know that. And although it’s certainly not as big of a crisis as some people make it out to be, it doesn’t matter because the perception is already there. Whether violent video games make kids more violent or not, if games like CS are going to be shown on broadcast stations like CBS, the community is going to have to fight the view that they do.
Fast forward to the recent announcement with CBS. What’s missing? If you didn’t forget the title, I’m pretty sure you figured out it’s Quake 4. Here’s part of the announcement from the CBS/WSVG press release:
Each episode will include segments on the competitors, as well as extensive competition footage for the featured titles, which include “Blizzard Entertainment®’s “World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade®”, Activision’s “Guitar Hero II™” and “EA SPORTS™ Fight Night Round 3.”
Quake 4 is still one of their featured games and the press release didn’t even mention the game, let alone have coverage information. So my initial happiness about the deal was tempered a little bit. I’m comforted by the fact that Halo has been broadcast by the MLG, but it wasn’t exactly on primetime – the one episode I saw was on at 7:00 AM on USA. That’s mid-afternoon for most gamers (me included), but it’s not the mainstream coverage we’re all hoping for.
There’s been a lot of talk about how to get CS on television and what’s holding it back: lack of a broad fanbase, a connection to the average person/non-gamer, problems with the pace of the action, and the presentation. Maybe we’ve all been looking in the wrong place – the biggest obstacle to mainstream CS might be the fact it deals with guns and blood instead of mad riffs and wicked chords. It obviously won’t totally prevent exposure – DirecTV doesn’t seem to mind very much. But the lack of Quake is still a little bit of a wet blanket on an otherwise big announcement.
