XBox 360 League - The Biggest Competitions And Challenges

Some individuals go through life doing very little with their spare time. They work, come home and watch TV and play games. While others have hobbies, you're intent on winning the next big video game. Fortunately for some, this isn't as unproductive as you might think. While you'd have to be exceptionally good, there are plenty of opportunities to make money and win prizes with your honed video gaming skills. There are various leagues all over the world with varying levels of games, players and rewards, including an Xbox 360 league. If you think you're good enough and you want the time you've spent playing any one of the Halos to mean something, then you could consider entering a league and trying to qualify.

Major League Gaming (MLG)

In existence for ten years now, it's considered one of the foremost and most venerable of video game leagues. It focuses on annual tournaments utilizing multiple tiers to filter out the champions. Within these tournaments, there are six major events to coincide with the six games in use. There are some games that have been part of the competitions since the start, only changing to sequels, and some are brand new to the tournaments. With Major League Gaming, the PS3 editions of games are usually used, but in the case of some exclusive games like Halo or Gears of War, the Xbox 360 is utilized. MLG hosts both online and live events around the world, depending on the event.

What Games Are Used?

The Halo series is an arcade-like first person shooter (FPS) that provides many close-quarters maps and levels for players to face off against. However, there are also larger maps with vehicles and differing objectives, making the series perfect to suit many different roles. With it's insane popularity and large fan base, it's perfect to be used as standard fare for any major gaming league. Call of Duty has also seen tremendous hikes in popularity over the past few years. While the current generation of Modern Warfare 2 is soon to be ousted by Black Ops, the original Modern Warfare saw its own use within many major console gaming leagues. As they all provide high-quality gameplay and are FPSs, they're a perfect complement to the Halo series. It's likely Black Ops will replace Modern Warfare 2 in the next leagues.

Gears of War is strictly an Xbox 360 series, but has proven that good gameplay beats any limitations. Unlike the previous two entries, Gears of War is a cover-based third person shooter and revolves around players working either alone, in a pair or as a four man team trying to kill their opponents. It provides a high degree of competition and is perfectly suitable for such gaming leagues.

Rules And Cheating

The rules of any video game league are not unlike sports leagues. Cheating, however, is a very subjective system for video games. While obvious cheating such as manipulating the game to provide an advantage will clearly result in an immediate disqualification, there are other types that occupy a grey area. Some controllers, for example, provide macro buttons that allow the player to simply press the button once and it will play out a prearranged combination of buttons at any speed the player wishes. This provides an inhuman advantage, but is hard to monitor and can be considered cheating in some courts.

Video Game Leagues, The Main Organizations Procedures And Regulations

For some of us, playing games is a way of life and many of this demographic may often wonder at a life where playing games is actually productive. It would come as surprise for these individuals, then, to learn that there are, in fact, almost a dozen major video game leagues that have hundreds of attendees and competitors every year. Millions of dollars of prizes are given away annually to the winners, meaning it's not just a passing fancy, but a completely viable way of life, provided you're the best of the best. These leagues utilize some of the most competitive games around, not all of them new, and people from all over the world compete, both in person and over the Internet. The participants can take part as either teams or individuals, depending on the league and game in question.

The Main Competing Bodies

Competitions are generally set up by several major competition-holders, but these generally don't hold official game-specific leagues. For example, there is no official CounterStrike league. The Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) is the big one and the one who has dished out over 3 million dollars in prizes over 6 years. Venerable, this big hitter provides competitions primarily in the area of first-person shooters (FPSs). The World Cyber Games (WCG) is considerably bigger than the CPL in that it offers up to 500,000 dollars a year and features dozens of games of varying genres. The Pro Gaming League features gaming on consoles, rather than personal computers, but offers less prize money.

The Process Of Elimination 

Generally, the leagues all have reigning champions who are teams or individuals whom have won the previous events. These champions are then challenged by amateur players and teams who have entered the league, usually paying a fee to do so. From here on out, it's a very standard competition, where the the amateurs fight amongst themselves until only the best remain, then they're pitted against the champions. There are variants amongst each league, such as the champions also competing within the tiers instead of facing only the winners. Once a team have beaten the champions or the champions have retained their throne, then the prize money is awarded. Sometimes it's money, but it's also commonly dished out as items worth the same amount, such as graphics cards, computers, etc. The events are then arranged for the following year with the new or old champions being written in to defend their titles.

Rules Against Cheating

Obviously cheating has become a serious rule that no one is allowed to break. The actual means of cheating can vary from game to game, where some players may use 3rd party programs to manipulate the game's data or in other cases, the player might exploit certain parts of the game to give themselves a superior advantage over other players. Generally, there are always referees and judges to deem whether the players' conduct has been has been honorable or not. Recently, hardware has come under scrutiny as well, since hardware has come a long way since standardization. It's possible to purchase controllers that provide macros, which allows the player to press a button once and have that button repeated faster than is humanly possible. Furthermore, it's easier for such macros to reduce large combinations of keys into a single button press. These have been banned from gaming leagues due to the obvious advantages provided.