The Good

Max "Goodeh" Silver takes a second look at the lighter side of the three part series focusing on the CGS, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

Pouring hate and scorn on the CGS is like creating a top 10 European team list that annoys Luke “KritikaL” Green, pretty easy. I’m going to take the hard choice and find 5 points of good in the brief time the CGS had in eSports.

Links: Part One: The Bad

1.6 Stars play Source

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Try and think of a Counter-Strike: Source scene where Birmingham Salvo doesn’t win every event they attend, pretty odd right? Without the CGS we would most likely still be seeing this team place 9-12th at ESWC in Counter-Strike 1.6. The CGS instantly changed the ambitions and game choice for almost all top Counter-Strike 1.6 teams in the USA, we saw fRoD still dominating with Complexity, old greats like Ksharp and Volcano play, teach and learn with the “new” source players and even the incredible Cogu. It made a great spectator sport and without the CGS it would never have happened.

Image Courtesy of theCGS.com

The changeover never fully materialized in Europe which can be attributed to several things, including lack of European franchises, and with the CGS dying most of these players have gone back to Counter-Strike 1.6. We can still be thankful for the brief period we got to see Olander take on Warden, and it looks like Salvo are here to stay.

Money (and something to aim for)

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In Dr. Gonzo’s article he cited a lack of money for the players as something to put in the “bad” column, I beg to differ.  Up until the CGS launch the most a player in any PC game (excluding Warcraft 3 and Starcraft) could earn from salaries was limited to around 1500 dollars a month, and this was for the best of the best from the biggest FPS game in the world, Counter-Strike. If you played source you were limited to one of the few organisations that were paying incredibly small salaries, these organisations could be counted on one hand.  The CGS changed that completely.

Suddenly a player could earn up to $30,000 salary for a season that lasted a matter of months in an exciting location with everything paid for, food, accommodation and spending money. Throughout the rest of the year a player was free to do whatever they fancied, a full time job or university. It was a great choice for any young person to go for. I haven’t even yet mentioned the sums of money a team could win if they made it to the world finals, Birmingham Salvo’s Counter-Strike: Source team won $250,000. To put it in perspective they would have to win 33 I-series events back to back to achieve that.

The money didn’t just go to the players, you had managers, writers and other crucial staff in the eSports zone finally getting what they deserved for their time in eSports.

My mum watched it with me. (Television and Exposure)

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 I never thought I’d see my parents watching video games with me but Christmas last year they decided on their own volition to watch the Championship Gaming Series world finals on Sky. This was promptly rewarded by my father falling asleep and my mother repeatedly asking me if I really knew that Paul Chaloner from the television. Regardless of the failure of the CGS to enthral the outside edge of the young male demographic you can’t deny the exposure that the successes and stories got attracted media and viewers that would have ordinarily take a look at competitive video gaming and gone straight back to a piece on Amy Winehouse’s latest antics. During my time in LA I saw and talked to some of the biggest media organisations in the world, Fox, CNN, the BBC and many more. On the back of the Salvo World Championship win they were featured across the wide spectrum of magazines and newspapers, and I’m not just talking the Sun.

Image Courtesy of Birmingham Salvo

This greatly raised the profile of gaming and no matter what you have to say for the production value the fact that ODEE got recognized in Disneyland Paris as another one of those “Men from the TV” speaks volumes. The mainstreaming of competitive gaming can only further the attraction of new sponsors to the industry and in that respect it truly is a shame the CGS is gone.

Console and PC holding hands

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eSports has always had a huge split between the various platforms, and even on the same platform in different genres. CSS players don’t give the time of day to FIFA players; FIFA players couldn’t care less what Forza racers were doing and for the Dead or Alive players, if it didn’t have a joystick they didn’t care; the CGS changed all of that.

Suddenly with the franchise system 10 players from four different games were thrust together and told to become a team.  It didn’t matter if you win your FIFA match 4-0, you have Dead or Alive Female and she’s just been crushed again 5-0. The system united players like no other before it and it broke down some of the walls holding back gaming. By the end of it I saw CSS players training on FIFA, DoA players playing CSS half a world away and ReDeYe smashing me at Forza.

Lessons can be learnt from here between several of the largest eSports communities, Counter-Strike: Source and Call of Duty, source and 1.6, without wanting to sound like a peace loving hippy it benefits all of eSports if we’re pushing forward together.

The Story

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This is probably my most cringe inducing cheesy and sappy point yet, so I’ll also make it my last. It was never an executive board cutting hundreds of thousands of dollar cheques that made the CGS what it was. Despite all the claims of the target audience being mainstream, the television focus not being on right aspects on the games, the primary focus was always on the players. 

The players made the league what it was, they created storylines like the Messy overtime win after losing five straight rounds in Dead or Alive 4, the LA Complexity team that dominated in season one yet lost their streak for season two. These storylines cross game boundaries, they cross eSports boundaries and ultimately they cross over into the non gaming public. I don’t play Forza, or even own an Xbox 360, yet when Birmingham Salvo took out the Berlin Allianz in the last corner of the overtime race to win the entire match I found myself leaping up in the press box and yelling some unmentionable exclamation. I was excited and so were the usually bored 300 strong crowd.

Image Courtesy of theCGS.com

Gaming needs more of these storylines to excite both old and the new viewers of eSports; the CGS showcased the power of building a persona around the players and teams. We all know there is (was) a grudge between FM! Toxic and London Mint, why can’t that be celebrated rather than mentioned in hushed tones in between the usual Pez interview?