The AMP team
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Eau Claire Market
Thursday, July 24 - Sunday, July 27
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Deep at the bottom of every person’s skull, no matter how liberal or open-minded, exists a very detailed archetype for the “video game nerd.” Even most gamers think of other gamers this way, though they themselves are, of course, the exception to the rule. This Platonic gamer is typically overweight, myopic, doesn’t quite grasp the intricacies of bathing or skin care and has self-diagnosed himself with Asperger Syndrome to dually account for his social ineptitude and encyclopedic knowledge of anime directors. Like any generalization, there are those who fit this description, but over the past five years, gaming has been gradually moving out of the dimly lit, Cheeto-scented basement.
Amp Energy’s AMP Your Game tour represents the antithesis of this archaic gamer stereotype. Touring the country like a Gibson-esque Carnivále, AMP Energy (a subsidiary of Pepsi) is bringing a 3,500-square-foot mobile gaming venue, with 80 gaming stations equipped with Xbox360s, Wiis, PS3s and portables. In addition to the family-friendly cyber-fair, AMP is also scouring the country for the last member of its sponsored Pro Team, the only one of its kind in Canada. The current members of the AMP Pro team, Nelson Triana, Leo Vitelli and Bo Kovacevic, all play a number of different games, though the one they all have in common — and the reason they need a fourth player — is Bungie’s enormously popular Halo 3.
“What's cool about pro gaming is that a kid can watch a match, and then go home and do exactly the same thing,” says Triana, captain of AMP’s pro team. “My general idea is that being good at video games means you’re good at something else as well. I was really good at sports in high school, and a lot of that transfers over into gaming.”
In addition to being Canada’s top-ranked gamer since 2004, Triana is also Major League Gaming's Canadian spokesperson. MLG (www.mlgpro.com) is virtually the only professional gaming promoter in North America and broadcasts matches over the Internet in association with ESPN.com. AMP Energy’s all-in sponsorship of a professional team to compete in an ESPN-endorsed league clearly marks it as an extremely bankable mass media.
“The great opportunity for us is with the pro gaming team,” says Matt Webster, part of Pepsi’s brand-marketing team for AMP, with the pitch-perfect intonation of a PR magnate. “These are the guys who are really embedded and the true influencers in the gaming community. We want to be involved with the best within this entertainment segment. What better way to get involved with gaming than to sponsor the best guys within gaming? Gamers are a subset of our key demographic, which are males, 18 to 24. Our ideal customer is a 21-year-old male, so you can see how that fits in there nicely.”
Central to the moral quagmire that surrounds much mass-media discussion of gaming is many games’ reliance on violence as a gameplay device. Though violence has existed in games since they clawed their way out from the loins of the ’80s, its hugely increased verisimilitude in the last decade may have catalyzed their ever-increasing popularity. All sports are distillations of war in some way, and violent games simply replace the layers of civility that encase them with a virtual, consequence-free environment.
“There’s a few different aspects to our strategy,” says Triana. “The battle rifle is our weapon of choice, so we train a lot with it. Also, we always try to take enemies down two-to-one, and we learn what their spawn points are so we can get ’nades in there before they even come back to life. In Halo 3, as well, Bungie introduced a playback system that automatically stores your last 25 games, so we can go in there and take a look at our strategy and our opponent’s strategies as well.”
Like football, where the arcane rule book can render the game itself incomprehensible for a casual observer, the constant blur of colours, feverish clatter of gunfire and bizarre objectives in a video game can pose similar problems for spectators. Though there will be no running commentary available at AMP Your Game, one of MLG’s most prescient features is extensive, more-or-less assessable narration of each match.
“Gaming is becoming more mainstream, so it’s important for non-gamers to know what’s going on,” says Triana. “If you ever have the chance to take a look at an MLG event, it’s definitely more on the professional side than the ‘gamer’ side. They’ve gone to great lengths, and they realize that people want to watch a professional league, not a league that’s disorganized. That turns people off. They want to see something that does have structure, and that’s what MLG is doing.”
The AMP Your Game Tour runs until July 27 at Eau Claire Market. For the full schedule, visit www.ampenergy.ca.
