The Championship Gaming Series Region 1 Season 1 regular season has completed and the experience has been unique to competitive gaming to say the least. Many variables set this league apart from previous endeavors. Franchise teams with drafted players, salaries for all, and the unique overall point system spread across several games and genres, and all the bells and whistles of a Hollywood production are contributing to what looks very similar to an NFL, MLB or NBA type professional league, with a little WWE thrown in for fun. It is possible that none of these variables contribute as much to bringing competitive gaming into the professional realm as does the rules and enforcement of those rules by the CGS. Even more so may be the sense of discipline that exists in this particular instance of eSports history in the making.

In the past, online and LAN tournament gaming has been plagued by a lack of discipline by everyone involved. This has been a naturally accepted practice as online gaming has always been about fun first and foremost. As gaming progressed over the years, a professional element has tried to break through to showcase the potential of gaming as a “legitimate” sport. Leagues such as the Cyberathlete Amateur League and the Cyber Evolution Online league have developed professional divisions with their CAL Invite and CEVO Pro leagues, the CPL, ESWC, WCG and more have tried to bring about a professional side to gaming. These leagues have strived to make gaming a real sport and have done a decent job. However, there has always been a major factor in many peoples opinion that has kept these leagues from achieving the ultimate goal of being professional and that one hangup has been rule standards and enforcement of those rules.

Too many times, fans of “professional” gaming teams have been disappointed by reschedule after reschedule, disputes gone awry, bad officiating, and a general lack of caring for the consequences by teams and league officials. Over the years leagues have made some progress, CEVO with a payout for each match (has since been removed from league); ESL and others with demerit point systems, yellow cards, red cards and the like have worked to a certain extent. The main problem with most of these is the lack of repercussions to teams for breaking rules, diminishing the effectiveness of league admins and essentially crippling any real enforcement of rules.

The Championship Gaming Series seems to have gotten a handle on this long running problem in eSports. Their answer is to hit the salaried players, teams and managers where it hurts. That would be in the pockect book of course. Although this is not the first time that approach has been tried, the success of the CGS with its enforcement is not only the money aspect but the attention of organizers and admins to every detail and a committment to enforce the rules with fines.

Each night of the first two weeks of the CGS Region 1 regular season started with a team/player meeting in which rules for TV and gameplay were repeated and franchises warned of the repercussions of their actions. Most of rules deal with on-air activity, in and out of the game. Things like cell phones, competitive sponsor products are absolutely prohibited and what most would consider normal tv set rules are discussed with Mike Burks, emmy award winning producer for the CGS, with Craig Levine leading the meeting. Each and every night, Levine goes over the most recent list of rules with each franchise as they enter the tournament area.

Obviously matches have to be on time. There is no window, leeway or compromise on this at all by the CGS. Franchises are to be on time, ready to play exactly when they are told by tournament admins or they forfeit. No question. Fines will also follow. In one instance during week two, a CS player had taken leave and his team had to retrieve him and were warned, even though the player managed to get seated right as the match went live.

As match nights progress, players and or teams are seated in advance of matches, with CS players readying up, except for one and last player readies on Levine's command. Each and every match has admins watching each player or team for the slightest infraction. For PGR, the race is started and paused and players wait their start with raised hands away from controller. The start is counted down by admin and players grab controllers and start racing.

The latter rule was strictly enforced earlier this season in an incident where Nolsen "Beisbol" Perez, a PGR3 player for the San Francisco Optx, was disqualified in an Optx's match against the Dallas Venom. Perez had grabbed his controller before the countdown was complete and CGS consultant Craig Levine stepped in with a disqualification for Perez and the match was restarted with only his one teammate to face the other two players on the opposing team. The entire matter took only a matter of seconds, the decision was made, the punishment was handed out and play continued.

Obviously one cannot anticipate every variable in rules throughout all these games. Most of the games have obvious built in rules and some not as much. Many of the rules about TV are still works in progress for the teams. Some of the game rules are as well.

In one instance during another PGR 3 race, a small dispute arose over a move by Skittles to reverse course and interfere with the competition. After a few seconds of surprised looks and chatter around the room, Levine stepped in and paused the match. A decision was quickly made amongst Levine and admins with a penalty being given and a restart. Although there was not a specific rule for this incident, Levine and company made a quick fair decision. Not only did the CGS resolve the issue quickly, they also revised the rules for the game to include the infraction as illegal. The next night franchises signed off on the revision to that rule in the nightly pre-match meeting.