Could you please introduce yourself?

Matt Ringel, CEO of the World Series of Video Games.

The WSVG has exploded onto the competitive gaming scene so far this year with two impressive events, WSVG Lanwar and The Intel Summer Championships. Looking back on the events, is there anything you would change or add to them? Can you tell us anything about WSVG London or China that will be different from these other two events?

Actually 3 events—there was DreamHack in Sweden back in June. We were pretty pleased with how these first events came off. But these were the first three events ever held by the World Series of Video Games, so sure there are numerous things we will change or add in the future. For instance, while we already produce more streamcasts from the events than any other tournament, we are aware that because we have six competitive games, that has forced choices on what is being shown at any one time; we need to ramp up so we are able to catch and carry terrific matches when they are concurrent. Sound is also a tricky challenge; we fielded this far better in Dallas than in Louisville, but because we have a consumer gaming festival going on at the same time, we do generate noise.

China and London are notable for two reasons. First, they take place in remarkably different venues than our other events: China is in a large arena, and London is split across three floors right in Piccadilly Circus. Each of those events are expected to be the largest gaming competitions ever held in their respective countries, so we are really looking forward to these.

The Major League Gaming tour is one of the biggest, if not the biggest American eSports tournaments, focusing solely on console games. Earlier this year at the WSVG's two events, smaller console tournaments were held for Halo 2, Project Gotham Racing 3, and Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter. Do you believe the WSVG can rival the MLG tour? If so, how does one compete with such a monster like the MLG?

A monster? Hmm, my mom told me there was no such thing as monsters. I think its early days before anyone can declare a single winner in this space, and I think you need to clarify how you define “biggest”—both we and World Cyber Games are bigger in terms of attendance, media reach and prize pools. MLG clearly has the biggest Halo tournaments. To address your question on rivaling the MLG tour, we don’t see it as either/or-- we’re a very different organization than MLG. MLG is a Halo and Smash League. We are putting together an international tournament circuit that brings together the largest gaming events in the world, and we have six different competitive tracks on both PC and console.

MLG's prize purse for their regular season events is greater by $24,000 per stop and their attendees for the first event of this year's season had literally 10 times the amount of the second WSVG event, the Intel Summer Championships (approximately 160 at MLG, 16 at ISC). What do you think about these numbers and the stranglehold that MLG has over the console community? Do you think it's a WSVG marketing problem as well?

This question reflects some inherent bias towards Major League Gaming. You also have your facts wrong.

First, let’s be clear that while MLG has $24K more in Halo 4x4 on an event by event basis, our total prize pool of $1.3M in cash and prizes is over 50% greater than their pool of $800K. Our pool is spread across six games.

Second, the comparison of Halo team participation (besides having our numbers wrong) is wildly off base. For one, you are comparing the World Series’ second event EVER to MLG’s fourth year of Halo events. Of course they are going to have more Halo competitors than we are. But what you are not saying is that we had over 1000 competitors at that event across our tournaments and 15,280 people in attendance!! So do I think WSVG has a marketing problem? Hardly. Most of the competitive community and corporate sponsors have remarked how well we have done to bring in a mainstream audience to spectate the tournament and participate in the gaming festivals that adjoin them. Remember, before we ran the WSVG, we ran consumer gaming events that routinely pulled in over 350,000 people a year. Marketing is our strong suit.

And now about that stranglehold MLG has over the console community….for every half a million console players who are currently being strangled by the MLG, there are 99 million console players who have never heard of them. Again, these are early days JP. Don’t choke too soon.

The MLG is very strict on their media rights and letting outside press in. Do you believe that the sole ownership of the teams and all of their media / press is hurting the progression of eSports as a whole? Why or Why not? MLG also signed Final Boss and T-Squared, arguably two of the top competitors in the Halo 2 world, to exclusive deals meaning they cannot play in other tournaments besides MLG without permission. Does this leave any room for other organizations such as the WSVG to expand into console eSports when the best team in the world isn't allowed to compete freely?

Obviously, we aren’t in any position to comment on the specific practices or policies of the MLG. And while all these questions seem to want to pit the WSVG and MLG against each other, we actually like the MLG management a lot and get together in New York from time to time.

Our policy is to let all the press in, and give them pretty free reign of the event once they are registered with us. We don’t survive without each other and we wouldn’t gain anything by keeping honest and accurate reporters out of our events. We do draw a distinction between press and media, the commercial exploitation of our content for non-news purposes. We do license rights to a number of media for such purposes, but we evaluate this on a case by case basis.

With respect to the MLG player contracts, so far, some of the top MLG players have indeed competed at WSVG events, and quite successfully at that. And why not? More prize money for them, more exposure for their sponsors and for the MLG. And there is plenty of room for other organizations in console eSports. On the Halo side, you have to consider the fact that Xbox directly supports the World Series of Video Games’ and World Cyber Games’ efforts, but not MLG. And the world’s best action in Project Gotham Racing 3 and Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter is happening over at the WSVG. No one has even left the starting gate when it comes to an important growth area of console eSports, and that is the sports titles. Based on the number of players worldwide, console eSports will overtake PC in a number of years and it is an open playing field right now.

At the Intel Summer Championships two MLG signed teams, Xit Woundz and Str8 Rippin, both placed 1st and 2nd respectively. One might argue that the best pool of talent for the console side of eSports is within the MLG. Do you agree? Also, what do you think about the MLG teams who all wore MLG apparel for purpose of promoting MLG at your event?

I would agree that the best current Halo and Smash players in the US are managed by MLG. I’m glad that we’ve created an environment and a circuit that they find appealing to compete on as well. As far as apparel is concerned, we do not restrict sponsor logos that players wear on their body. We understand and support the fact that the players need to earn a living, and a significant component of the value they can deliver back to a sponsor is a logo on their shirt. It’s real estate.

Currently a surge of Dead or Alive 4 tournaments have been occurring and the game is gaining a lot of popularity in the competitive scene. Are there any plans to add this game into the WSVG console lineup for the next tour?

We haven’t determined all the games for 2007 as yet. We have always thought that fighters make for great tournament play and spectatorship.

A lot of talk in the past about Counter-Strike: Source overtaking the competitive scene has died down. Recently, Valve has announced updates to Source game play as well as fixing Source TV. Is there any hope for Source fans that CS:Source will be used in WSVG tournament play once again?

Although Valve has been putting some time into CS:S we have made a commitment to the community to use CS1.6 in 2007. This does not mean that we would not pick up CS:S also if the right situation presented itself.

Shortly before ISC, the WSVG announced that Dell would be the newest official sponsor of the league. With this sponsorship, the Dell XPS M1710 laptop systems would be used exclusively for the Quake 4 events, while the Fatal1ty-branded computers would continue to be used for the Counter-Strike events. It was then realized that because of the way these specific laptops were made, Creative's soundcard was not able to use OpenAL (which is a huge factor for Quake 4 players) and they were forced to play the biggest tournament of the year without it. Additionally, players complained about monitor settings, as well as USB to PS2 mouse and keyboard problems. Will these situations, especially the OpenAL issue, be fixed for the upcoming tournaments, and why were these issues not realized to begin with?

The Dell XPS M1710 laptops shipped with the latest hardware, including the PCMCIA-Express card slots. The soundcards provided by Creative were standard PCMCIA and not express, as the express version of the cards did not support OpenAL according to Creative. The last couple of tournaments have not been the only tournaments to not have OpenAL.

The M1710 laptops also did not include any PS2 ports. All peripherals needed to be USB. A players’ meeting was held prior to the start of the tournament to alert players that all peripherals needed to be USB. We told them that anyone wishing to utilize a PS2 peripheral would need to bring a PS2 to USB adapter. We were providing mice and keyboards for anyone who did not have one or did not have an USB peripheral.

The CPL recently chose Quake 3 as their "World Season" game leaving the WSVG as the only tournament circuit to currently feature Quake 4. Has the WSVG debated about using Quake 3 instead of Quake 4? Would you rather continue to use Quake 4?

We have been very happy with Quake 4.

With Unreal Tournament 2007 coming out next year, some players foresee the Unreal series to re-capture the spotlight as the prominent deathmatch game. In the past, while the Unreal series has seemingly secured many more casual players than the Quake series, it has never had a long life as a professional tournament circuit game with its predecessors, Unreal Tournament 2003 and 2004. Will a Quake series game, whether it be 3 or 4, continue to be used for next year's WSVG season?

We haven’t determined all the games for 2007 as yet. We like the Unreal series a lot, but have made no determination as to its inclusion.

Many players have complained about the overwhelming noise from sponsor booths and overhead announcements during tournament play at events, including the infamous Guitar Hero booth directly next to the tournament area at ISC. Does the WSVG have any plans to rectify the situation?

“Infamous Guitar Hero” was not allowed at the event, and was shut down very shortly after its discovery the first day. Most people appreciated the significant improvements we made to the sound issues from the LANWAR event to this one. While there are further improvements we will make in the future, the community is by necessity going to need to adapt to more ambient noise, lights and distractions not just at our events but at tournaments worldwide. It’s a byproduct of success, as eSports continues to grow. I don’t know we’d want it any other way. There is so much incredible energy at a WSVG event, and that is something that will continue to build over time.

Thank you for your time Mr.Ringel. Is there anything else you would like to add?

No, I appreciate your interest, and hope to see more of the DPAD community out at World Series events.

Note from editor: Rod "Slasher" Breslau contributed to this article.