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The BBC is to broadcast a major e-sports tournament over the next six weeks.
It will show coverage of the Gfinity Elite Series contest every weekend on BBC Three online.
Some 160 gamers will compete in front of live crowds for a £225,000 prize.
There are already places where large numbers of viewers watch e-sports, but one analyst said the BBC's coverage could attract new viewers to the genre.
Under the deal, the BBC will include broadcasts of exclusive editorial content from the Gfinity tournament in west London.
The games to be played include fighting title Street Fighter V, first person shooter Counter Strike: Global Offensive, and robot football game Rocket League.
Currently, online streaming channels Twitch and YouTube command the biggest audiences for e-sports, although events are also now being shown on conventional TV stations such as Ginx in the UK.
The BBC has broadcast highlights of e-sports tournaments in the past, but said the Gfinity coverage would be "on a much larger scale".
Is watching people mash buttons must-see TV?
(Score: 2) by mth on Saturday July 29 2017, @08:28PM (2 children)
I regularly watch StarCraft 2 tournaments and there is a lot of excitement in a short time. Matches typically last between 5 to 15 minutes and can go back and forth. As soon as one player is in an unwinnable position, they concede, so matches don't drag on just to fill a fixed duration. Both tactics and execution matter and the strength of different tactics varies per map and depends on the choices the opponent makes, so every match is different.
I also watch football (soccer), but often the 5-minute summary is long enough to contain all the excitement from a 90-minute match. Unless I'm emotionally invested in one of the teams or it's a really high-level clash (knock-out phase of the Champions League), I don't watch full games, or have the video on a different virtual desktop and only switch to it when I hear something exciting has happened.
I don't consider either must-see TV, but I do think e-sports can make for better entertainment than a lot of the traditional sports.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 29 2017, @09:14PM (1 child)
And then the Terran builds a bunch of widow mines which are cheap, powerful enough to destroy a large group of units, don't die when they explode, are invisible, hit ground and air enemies, and automatically target and attack by themselves, incapable of missing. Fuck that game.
(Score: 2) by mth on Saturday July 29 2017, @10:02PM
That happens to me as well when I play. The pros will split off a few sacrificial zerglings or soak up the hits with an overseer before bringing in the main army. Watching SC2 is more enjoyable than playing it.
I do play co-op missions every now and then. It's much more relaxed.