This past weekend, thousands of gamers descended upon the Anaheim Convention Center to spectate and compete in one of the biggest video game competitions of the year, put on by
Major League Gaming. Over two hundred teams of four individuals competed for the Halo 3 Championship where prize money totaled almost $60,000; while an additional $60,000 was up for grabs for titles such as Gears of War 2, World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, and EA Sports Madden NFL. An estimated
700,000 people viewed the live stream over the course of the weekend.
In this interview, Matt spoke about many of the misconceptions of the gaming business, including companies continued persistence of trying to bring video gaming to broadcast television; instead of focusing almost entirely on internet streaming.
DD: Do the events themselves make money or are they mainly put on to increase your user base?
MB: They’re mostly a break-even proposition. It’s as you know, because you’ve been here, it’s a big undertaking, it’s a big production. It’s six tractor trailers, and we drive them around the country, so it’s a big deal. But the live event is not really what sponsors are buying. They’re buying integration into our digital media and into the online competitions. And so eighty percent of what they’re paying for, eighty percent plus, is integration into that digital world. Then they come here to have the direct contact with the consumer, which they love. But I think it’s a big misconception about our business is that it’s about the live events, because they’re so big and attractive, but it’s not really what the business is about.
DD: Is MLG profitable at this point?
MB: It is.
DD: How much money have you taken in to date?
MB: We have raised about $42.5M.
The full interview can be found over at
Techcrunch