Ask the typical American about their competitive gaming knowledge.  It’ll probably be limited to Steve Wiebe, Billy Mitchell, and that friend who owns you at Guitar Hero because he beat Freebird on Expert.  The scoring systems in Guitar Hero and Donkey Kong require no context.  If I double your score, my dick is twice as large as yours.  That’s their appeal: If you want to prove yourself against a world record, all you need to do is find the game, play it, and quickly discover you have no chance in hell.

When Mitchell and Wiebe fight for a Donkey Kong score, people respect their ability, or view them as circus freaks.  In both cases, the audience moves on with their life and doesn’t give it a second thought.  Golden Age games are a bonafide test of skill, but one only watches another play them when they’re waiting in life.  They’re fuck-boring to watch.  But games built on a “high score” mentality have a superficial mainstream appeal.  That’s why Activision is in the rumor mill for a Guitar Hero television show, even after the Rock Band show defied physics by bombing so badly no one noticed a thing.  Ultimate Gamer was the closest thing to a real look at competitive gaming, but that show lied to itself.  It was an all-console-gaming reality show designed to sell a PC gaming competition.

Meanwhile, proven competitive games languish.  They only have the weight of their own fan base to appeal to gamers.  Starcraft is that one movie (I’m sure this has been done) where people kick the shit out of each other with their minds.  It’s the closest thing competitive gaming has to American football.  It’s offense, defense, ball control, strategy, and risk-taking.  Unfortunately, Americans haven’t grown up playing and watching Starcraft since they were four.  When the New York Times whipped up an article on the newly-founded college Starcraft league, their barometer for ability wasn’t the amazing range of skills required to play the game.  It came in the form of “clicky clicky”.

Peter Liu, a junior and chemistry major who was doing live commentary with Zhang, said he could manage 200 A.P.M., or actions per minute (an action is any keyboard or mouse click). “My fingers get sore,” said Liu, a Protoss. Professional South Korean players have 400 to 500 A.P.M.’s.

It’s the high score implication: The higher your APM, the better you are at Starcraft.  I don’t fault the Times for dumbing it down, but the average Starcraft player knows this is bullshit.  The perception of “if it can’t be explained in a score, I don’t care” needs to change.  If Blizzard has serious interest in making competitive Starcraft their meal ticket, they need to change the perception.  When Sci-Fi was looking for a pro gaming show Michael Morhaime should have been the first person outside the network’s building.  He should have busted in with a pickaxe and said the following:

“Looking for a pro gaming show? My company made Starcraft.  The South Koreans love this shit.  Our sequel to this game will be out soon.  Here’s what we want: You guys take some cameras and cover a year of South Korean Starcraft.  I’m an important guy at the world’s largest game developer, so we have lots of money, and we’ll pay you to broadcast the show.  Competitive Starcraft II is gonna have the biggest fucking impact since the dinosaurs were wiped out..  You got that?  Make it work.”

That’s the conscious effort you need.  Until someone changes the message, changes the idea that competitive video game isn’t about the highest score, you’re going to continue having the “next big competitive game” become nothing more than a supplement to the hardcore fans.