Cyberathelete Wins $150,000 Video Game Championship

[Ted Striker]

WOW


This dude has won over $230,000 in money this "season" playing video games.

Now THAT is the bomb.

We have clearly gone into a new era of video games. I expect this prize money to go up and up. First video games eclipsed movie revenues, now can we expect it to compete with sporting events?

------------------------------

'Fatal1ty' wins championship tournament

NEW YORK (AP) -- A video game master from Kansas City, Missouri, won a $150,000 prize on Tuesday by besting a rival in the Cyberathlete Professional League World Tour Grand Finals.

Johnathan Wendel, 24, who goes by the name "Fatal1ty" in the world of multiplayer games, beat Sander Kaasjager, a player from the Netherlands known as "fnatic.Vo0," for the competition's top prize.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/fun.games/11/23/game.tournament.ap/index.html

http://www.thecpl.com/league/?s=news&p=newsitem_919

[Zopperoni]

Kaasjager

That name alone warrants no need for an alias.

[Ted Striker]

What does it mean?

[FrostyBoy]

I don't know if this is an international tournament or not, but the world just had WCG (World Cyber Games) here in Singapore; this is a large tournament for the best of the best around the world.

I went in to check it out, they had a LOT of computers, I've never seen so many computers, the logistics of what I saw was mind boggling to me.

The place was very loud, and before I walked in, I warned my girlfriend that there are going to be A LOT of geeks in here and half of them will have hunch backs and dress funny. I was kind of joking.
But sure enough, the moment we walk in, we realised we had entered geek city.

But anyway, the machines were PS2, XBox and PC.


Winners:

Counter Strike: USA
Warcraft III: China
Starcraft: Korea
FIFA Soccer: Germany
NFS Underground 2: Brazil
Halo 2: USA
Warhammer 40,000: Korea
Dead or Alive: Japan
Freestyle: Korea


I only watched Japan, dead or alive grand finals, was interesting to watch, but I told my gf, that the best players are probably not in this hall, but sitting in some basement or dark room, hidden from the world.

[Ted Striker]

Damn I wish I could have been there.

The Cyberathelete championships were international but it looks like it was only North America and Europe.

In the WCG you mentioned, the Koreans pwn3d some categories as expected.

[Nacht]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
What does it mean?

Cheese hunter

[Seeker]

Why do other nationalities even bother attempting to think of competing against the Koreans in StarCraft?

The country that has three 24 hour tv channels devoted to it, a cereal, players who open malls and restaurants and get mobbed by screaming girls?

You do realize that if a Korean lost the StarCraft championship to Japan, he would have to go on national TV, cut off his own head, and then eat it?

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Seeker
Why do other nationalities even bother attempting to think of competing against the Koreans in StarCraft?

Goddamnit. You took my line.

[Cyclotron]

Counter Strike: USA

Obviously

Warcraft III: China

Seems a bit random, but ok

Starcraft: Korea

I'm sure there was never any serious competition here

FIFA Soccer: Germany
NFS Underground 2: Brazil

Seems like these two should be switched...

Halo 2: USA

Again, obviously

Warhammer 40,000: Korea

Makes sense, it's basically starcraft for tabletop game geeks

Dead or Alive: Japan

I bet they'd do well in the beach volleyball edition too

[General Ludd]

"Cyberathlete"

[Sir Og]

I think last year at WCG the Bulgarian dude finished second or third at SC. IIRC he was the only non Korean in top 10

[Bosh]

Yeah, watching one of the Starcraft channels with enthusiastic announcers and a crowd of screaming girls was really my "we're not in Kansas anymore" moment when I first came to korea.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Nacht

Cheese hunter

[Traianvs]

How on earth can you devote a tv channel to starcraft? So what do they do... broadcast SC games around the clock?

[Seeker]

No...it's THREE channels...