I realized today that many people do not know or have never heard of MLG (short for Major League Gaming), or what even what competitive gaming leagues are. In short, these leagues are comparable to sports leagues: high competition, “confidence is key,” clutch plays, and even the use of drugs for that extra edge.

Last year during the 2008 season MLG reached its peak when the league grew an outstanding 1337% (I’m not kidding; leet percent) through a recession. This success is most visible in that year’s Doctor Pepper Sponsorship of the team Str8 Rippin and the MLG Dr. Pepper bottles which featured Tom Taylor, one of the leagues most treasured pros and captain of the team Str8 Rippin, on over 1 million bottles sold throughout the United States. The CGS, short for Championship Gaming Series and also MLG’s top competitor, also had to retire in 2008 facing huge financial problems.

The league mainly focuses on console games (with the exception of WoW). Currently, however, MLG’s lineup only consists of Halo 3, their flagship game, and Gears of War.

From what I’ve seen in gaming leagues, MLG has hosted by far possibly the best competitive scene within the United States and the console gaming realm. Much of this success has to do with the Halo series, most notably Halo: CE and Halo 2 during the original Xbox days when the competitive scene in console gaming was virtually non-existant. Now with the Xbox 360, and gaming becoming more and more accepted as a sport and not just a hobby “nerds” flock to, the league has grown to amazing new heights and has shown no signs of losing popularity.

And what would be MLG without its players? Because MLG is built around competition, the top pros in the league don’t view gaming as “just gaming;” for many of them, it’s their job and they take every ounce of play time they get to reformulate strategies, tighten up their game, and push for that little extra something-something that will drive their team to an event win. This includes upwards of 8-12 hrs of practice per day leading up to the event, studying the ins and outs of game-plays from rival teams, and yes, even trash talking during the tournament. This is no joke; these pros are completely driven, focused, and determined individuals who will not and cannot settle for anything less than a first place finish. Teams go as far as LANing (“Local Area Network” – where two teams will play each other face to face in the same building over a switch board to get rid of Xbox Live and internet lag) one to two times before events. That means they have to travel to each other’s houses across the country before traveling to an event which is scheduled every other month.

You can also find an immense amount of similarities between MLG and other sports leagues. Other than the pro’s win-win-win-mentalities, many actually take the drug Adderall to help their focus in-game. This more or less amounts to what steroids are for professional sports players, and, yes, it is a hotly debated topic amongst the competitive scene and one MLG does not like to discuss. But no league is perfect, and with such fierce competition it’s understandable that people resort to game performance enhancing drugs.

In closing, I wrote this little write-up on MLG to share my love for competitive gaming, and perhaps as a future reference to posts I write dealing with the league. The 3 and 1/2 years I’ve traveled alongside the MLG community has been a blast, and without it, I don’t think I would be as interested in gaming as I am today. If you’re interested in more information about the league or competitive gaming, head over to MLGpro.com.

You can also watch many of the rebroadcasts from past events:

• (Halo 3) Columbus 2009 Finals – Str8 Rippin vs. Triggers Down
• (Halo 3) Vegas National Championship 2008 Finals – Str8 Rippin vs. Instinct