More Video Games Will Be Added to Major League Gaming Competition in 2012

Quote: Major League Gaming (MLG) has experienced record growth riding the success of three key games – Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops, Blizzard Entertainment’s Starcraft II and Microsoft’s Halo: Reach. But with more people watching streamed matches online and more fans attending key events around the country, MLG is expanding in 2012. Sundance DiGiovanni, co-founder and CEO of MLG, said next year will see a lot of changes. In addition to a new central MLG location and shorter mini-seasons throughout the year, there will be new video games and more opportunities for amateur gamers to compete for cash and prizes. DiGiovanni talks about what games are likely candidates for expansion next year, as well as what real sports MLG is looking at for its new format, and where tour stops will be held in this exclusive interview. What real sports did you look at to create MLG? If you look at tennis, which has these major events and then these grand slams, there’s a structure to it and it’s an ongoing, points-based system. That’s been what we’ve been most comparable to in the past, but moving forward into the future we will have a slightly different structure. There will be a little bit of that happening, but we will try and pick and choose.  The reality is that we’re a digital sport.  We’re not traditional in the sense of the physical locality of it in terms of the audience and the delivery mechanism. What sports best replicate your new format for the 2012 season? What we’re trying to do is learn from sports that have been successful in building leagues and media businesses such as golf, even though it doesn’t necessarily translate directly to our audience. We also looked at the NFL, NASCAR, and USTA. We’re borrowing a little bit from each of these in terms of creating a structure that’s going to work for our audience, as well as our players. But there ...
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