Nick Knupffer, Intel Gaming Relations, took the time to chat with Midway about EEC2, Intel's gaming initiatives and much, much more!

Midway:	Please introduce yourself to our readers.
Nick:	My name is Nick Knupffer and I manage gaming strategy for Intel in the UK. I am a keen gamer myself and have been for many years, I have been going to LANparties since '94. Favourite games of all time include Elite, Doom I&II, Civilization series, C&C series, Half-Life and the Battlefield series.
Midway:	Intel's role in the eSports community has continued to grow almost daily, what has been and will be the focus of Intel in helping to promote gaming?
Nick:	Well our intention is to help gaming grow and become more and more popular. Events like the Intel Pentium 4 processor Extreme Edition Challenge allow gaming a greater accessibility to wider audience. I understand that gaming is already a registered sport in China and Russia and would like to see that become more widespread. The PC is the best gaming platform out there and we need to further expand PC gaming into the mainstream. There is more beyond just sponsorships and publicity - we are coming out with more exciting products that gamers will enjoy. You have already seen the Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition processor, but we have newer products that will be shipping this year. New chipsets that have 7.1 Intel High Definition Audio built in as standard (supporting Dolby Pro Logic IIx), support for new technologies such as PCI-Express and DDR2 memory, optional built in 801.11g wireless access points, RAID 1&0 support, SATA etc... All technologies that will improve the gaming experience and all these technologies and newer faster processors will be available in the next few months.
Midway:	This is the second Extreme Edition Challenge sponsored by Intel, how have you liked the progress of the first two and what is your feeling about their success?
Nick:	Well we are very excited. We were pleased with the gamer's reaction to the first one. We have so far distributed 250,000 copies of the initial video, and I am hoping we can do even better this time! We have taken note of the comments and criticisms of the 1st movie and addressed those issues. At the end of the day it is the community that will decide what will happen next. Should we do a third one? I would love to hear the community's reaction.
Midway:	How much work from Intel went into hosting and helping to run this tournament and what was the main focus of Intel's effort?
Nick:	Intel did most of the work. We came up with the concept, we found the venue (which was Landed LAN, a great LAN party in Oxford - kudos to the admin team who help out enormously), we commissioned Simon Bysshe to direct the movie, we flew in the teams and the TSN commentators, and then we edited it. The main focus was the spectators - both within the venue and on the video. It was important for us to make this even more of a spectator friendly event than the Intel Masters Championships we ran a few years ago. Everything was geared to this end from the total of 546 inches worth of plasma screens and the TSN shoutcasters doing their thing live and in front of the 200 strong crowd.
Midway:	Both Extreme Edition Challenge's have included 4K with the other teams varying, do you have plans to continue hosting these events and if so will you be choosing new teams in the future to face 4K or is there plans to included two totally different teams?
Nick:	4Kings are the Intel sponsored team in the UK and I see further UK events mostly including them. Perhaps a further movie could include a different game such as Call of Duty.
Midway:	I have spoke to TsN, the shoutcast organization at the event and they spoke of their experience as another evolution in the eSports coverage, do you feel this is true and how happy is it for Intel in helping eSports move forward in breaking new ground?
Nick:	Yes we are very happy; it is our goal to move eSports forwards and into the mainstream consciousness. What we do is guided by our vision of eSports and community feedback.
Midway:	Many of our readers understand the importance Intel has become in both hosting events but also in helping to sponsor teams in the community, what do you feel has become the more important role for Intel; team or events?
Nick:	I think that the two go hand in hand. You have to take a step back and look at the bigger picture - there are no teams without events and there are no events without teams to compete in them. Both have to grow and mature if we are to make gaming the sport of the 21st century. eSports is growing and as it grows it can learn from other more traditional sports and forms of entertainment. When coming up with ideas for the teams/events we look at things such as football, music concerts and movies. Any spectator sport is about entertainment.
Midway:	With the release of the coming movie devoted to the second Extreme Edition Challenge, how important do you think all of these different aspects movies, shoutcasts, live on-site coverage and print add to event's importance and successfulness from a sponsor's point of view?
Nick:	Well they are all vital. We couldn't do the event without all those ingredients.
Midway:	What do you think of the movies done by Simon and his movie crew, if you have seen this coming movie what do you think, if not having worked with them what quality do you expect?
Nick:	The movie is fantastic! Simon is the director, but the film crew is provided by Intel. I have seen the movie at various stages of its development as I was in the edit suite while it was being edited. I like to have a very hands-on approach to these things and this usually means that I miss my weekends and have to cope with minimal sleep! I feel that any movie that Simon works on has that "quality feel" to it, especially if he has access to the kinds of resources we have provided.
Midway:	Thanks for your time and any last words/shoutouts?
Nick:	I hope you guys enjoy the movie, and please let us know what you think! Special thanks go to Simon, Landed, Trigger, BoxLogic, Face TV and Demo Depot - without whom this movie would not have been possible.