The 2009 Major League Gaming season gets off to a grand start at the Meadowlands Expo Center in Secaucus New Jersey this weekend. With over 190 HALO teams registered in a matter of minutes, the league has opened another few spots bringing the total of teams to 224. The event is host to the prestigious HALO 3 Pro Circuit, and a Gears of War 2 pro tournament for the Xbox 360 as well. Although the league will host PC tournaments for World of Warcraft in future events this year, there will be console games only for the first event of the year.

The event will debut several new features for the league including a new live stream player, a new bracket system, a whole new spectator experience, the Old Spice Rising Star Award and much more. With thousands of dollars at stake for amateurs and pros alike, this will be a good look at the HALO and Gears fields for the year.

MLG will be streaming live video from the venue all weekend with their established PreGame Show, Friday Night Kickoff, ESPN Saturday Night and Championship Sunday. The action begins tonight, Friday April 3 at 8pm EST with the Friday Night PreGame Show. Join Faruq, Puckett, Nexy and the gang for the first stop on the 2009 MLG Pro Circuit at Meadowlands all weekend long.

User Comments

Met Str8 Rippin, Triggers Down, Instinct all a couple others in Vegas, cool guys. Can't wait for the WoW stops :)

Part-time GotFrag Writer - Fulltime Dr Pepper Enthusiast

MLG is a joke until it picks up CS. Halo is such an awful game and competitive console gaming is a joke in itself. All things being equal, none of these kids could hold a candle to the top cs teams.

djWheat and I talked about MLG last night...check out the show - http://www.djwheat.tv/2009/04/03/live-on-..

Giving out over $650k via 5 events in North America in one season is hardly a joke.

When was the last time 224 CS teams showed up ANYWHERE? Oh, that's right...that has never happened.

This comment was edited at 04/03/2009 12:51 PM

http://www.myeg.net - GET SOME! - http://www.djWHEAT.tv - Live on Three!

Once console companies fully integrate mouse and keyboards into their systems, everyone will switch, we will have a standard unless you have a PC and we can cross platform. Then all hell will break loose. Hope Sony and Microsoft are looking at this.

CONSOLES WITH FULLY INTEGRATED MICE AND KEYBOARDS GOGOGO!

#esportsea

Scoots, A CS event of that scale would require at least 60-80 tournament computers and I can only imagine it would take forever to run a tournament like that with all the different peripherals and hardware involved. You still fail to speak towards the quality of the games being played and their world wide appeal. Where are the international teams at halo 3 events? Cs events of a similar scope would draw teams from ALL over the world... Halo 3 just isn't on the same level in that sense. As far as RPG's go, WoW is about as fun to watch as shuffleboard.

CPL events of the past did not sell out their events, they had the rigs to run 128 team events, yet...did not fill events.

Why does MLG need worldwide appeal if the appeal they currently has draws 224 teams, huge stream numbers, and 10k plus spectators walking thru Meadowlands last year? And who are you to say what is quality and what is not?

We are not talking about WoW here, but while you do no enjoy watching it, the numbers that do enjoy watching it, beat the hell out of the cs numbers for every broadcaster who has done both games.

The CPL made the mistake of holding their events in Texas... Terrible location for 95% of the US, Canada and the rest of the world for that matter. MLG is at least smart to tour around the US and have their first major event in NJ/NYC. Tri-state teams galore... I doubt they get 224 for each event.

As was said above me by #8, the area where CPL events were hosted was just a poor choice. Something in either LA or NY would likely attract quite a few more teams.

Now on to the actual quality of the games. Console gaming in general is a huge joke. I really don't think people can dispute that, you can deny it, but there's no reasoning behind it. Just because MLG has the funds to put big money behind it doesn't make it take any more skill or make the games any better.

If MLG put the same amount of money behind a CS tournament I suspect they'd have overall many more spectators due to both the complexity of the game and the fact that the vast majority of console gamers don't know competitive gaming even exists, while almost all CS players know about the pros.

Then as their PC game they chose WoW?! Sure, it's a popular game, but where is the actual skill as far as WoW goes? It's probably got the lowest skill cap of any game you could possibly choose for competitive gaming that has a semi-active player base.

It seems to me like MLG is just a casual league that enjoys hosting the games with low skill caps. I really think if they changed to something along the lines of SC and CS for their supported games they would see a lot more money coming in through sponsors and spectators, and more competition.

I wouldn't be against a console fighting game in it, but console FPSes are a joke.

@Scott

QUOTE:
When was the last time 224 CS teams showed up ANYWHERE? Oh, that's right...that has never happened.

That happens quite often in Europe. I happend to be at two events (Northcon & GXP3 in 2002 +-1 year) myself several years ago in Germany which had a 256 teams limit and filled up during signup with lots of people going but not able to play in said tournaments. I am not sure I remember correctly but the Dreamhack I have been in December 06 had 512 cs team fighting to get the two slots for the 16 team pro tournament. Gamegune should have similar sizes at their tournaments and it is the same for a few french lans.

I have been at the MLG finals 2007 in Las Vegas and there were no spectators at all. Apart from people playing in the tournaments there was no one watching and the peak of people watching was like 150. If you see the setup of the "stage" you see there are not a lot of people watching usually otherwise there would be way more seats. With the current setup it looks at least crowded once 50-100 people gather there.

Sure its a totally different thing when run at Meadowlands as there live 25+mill people if you draw a 30 mile circle around the location which is a massive crowd. You could probably get the same attendance numbers running a street fighter 4 tournament.

When looking at the success MLG has its easy to say that neither the CPL nor the GGL or CGS guys were the smartest guys around but you always have to see that it took MLG about 45 mill usd in venture capital (3 series) to get where they are. MLG�s expected break even is said to be this or next year if i remember correctly - based on their forecast. CPL was break even quite quick even though the way they managed to do that made people not attend their tournaments in the end. Right now it looks like MLG is the hottest gaming property but lets wait 1-2 years and see what happens. They did not get rid of all that paid staff at gotfrag for no reason so its not going to be that easy to reach break even. "PR people" will always tell you that business is fantastic even if its not ..

PS: I am going to watch the stream and see how this years season looks like.

Consoles are for fat chicks and shut-ins...

I'm going to give my kid the first name Wulf like you #10, middle name too if i'm feeling a bit HILARIOUS

I'll be over there this Saturday so maybe some of ya'll can meet leogeo2 from Pwnage.TV. ;D

#pwnage.tv

QUOTE:
the numbers that do enjoy watching it, beat the hell out of the cs numbers for every broadcaster who has done both games.

Indeed. sad, scoots

- e-Sports Broadcaster -

although the gears of war 2 forums are more hostile than the CS ones lulz

Anyone having issues with MLG's website...this new stream player is the fail. I <3'd the old one you could login to all 3 streams at once with no lag...now MLGs site wont even load.

the only issue i'm having is getting a massive headache from watching halo, feels like the first time i played goldeneye and got motion sickness.

Console = Halo GOW2 = Only MLG, 224 Teams * 4 players = 896 = Only USA

PC = WoW , CS, SC , WC3, TF2, CS FEMALE, COD, L4D, QUAKE = ESWC, WCG, ESL, KODE5, all South Korean TV Shows / tournaments , DREAMHACKS ( 10.000 players ), and so many Lans with +100 players everywhere = WorldWide

This comment was edited at 04/04/2009 7:38 PM

QUOTE:
the only issue i'm having is getting a massive headache from watching halo, feels like the first time i played goldeneye and got motion sickness

It happens - but what can you do? Keep watching!

- David Strong -

It makes me sick to see 100k madden tourneys and the like. All these nerd-jocks that are cool enough to play consoles, and look "HARD", but to scared to move to a real system. A system you build and upgrade at your own speed, the PC. I feel they have lots of sponsors b/c they sell a product that outdates itself every five years. Then sell the games for these products at a higher price. i love it 600 ps3 and 60$ games... you guys are idiots. Have your tourneys you need the money.

console tournaments are a joke, true there is tons of money in the MLG but its a joke compared to competitive CS, these tournaments have no spectators because no one cares about it except the ones that play it.........if CS had half the backing of Halo3 does from MLG they would easily be able to have 200+ teams attending tournaments...........Put up that size prizepool and watch 200+ CS teams go to that tournament....the problem with CS is that there are no tournaments with decent prizepools, there are maybe 2-3 tournaments each year with a $20,000+ prize pool...there should be a PC Tournament system with like 3 worldwide stops (US,Sweden,China) with backing from nvidia,intel,etc which each stop holds atleast a $50,000 1st place prize and I guarentee 200+ teams will show up to all 3 spots

This comment was edited at 04/16/2009 4:01 AM

GotFrag CS1.6 Writer

im laughing so hard at this nerd of this Pc SHI**Y gamer...LOOL
s
Pc = Waste of money upgrading the Pc(Over 1000$$ EVERY YEAR) and they dont win anything for it because all of YOU S*CK and there�s no Pc major competitions...

Counter Strike is OLD and only play it nerds and no lifers nerds , bunch of bk�s , how can this guys being playing the same game for yeears????LOOOL

Hopeffuly on Xbox we had new games every single years , Halo 3 and Gears 2 are the new ones , on Pc people has different specs , much more just with every people with the SAME THINGS etc...

So thats why Pc gaming s*cks , full of nerds , ugly piece of shi*s and newbies who think they are good just because they can use a mouse and they kill people on CS.

thats why u cant go to Console gaming because is to hard for you to play wit a Controller...

i understand u , u cant be good at a HARD system to play so u have to play on Pc wich is by FAR the easiest system to play...

Oh and WoW sucks!!

Al Pc games sucks , Counter Strike ? LOOOOOOOOOOL Nice graphics LOOOOOOOOOL

true Games = Killzone 2 , Halo 3 , Gears of War 2 , R6 Vegas 2 , Call of duty 4, GREAT GRAPHICS and GAMEPLAY , not like CS wich is like HORRIBLE GRAPHICS and GAMEPLAY!!!

The blood on CS looks ketchup...wtf is that ?LOOOOOOOOOL

Xbox for LIFE , Pc Gaming is dieyng and all of u will die with it because no one of u is good enough to play Xbox , u all will get OWNED little bad kids , nerds ugly piece of sh***s!