I actually expected sponsorship of raiding guilds a while back, when the race for Naxx was happening. With many stories about corporate figures playing WoW, I figured they would see the value of marketing with a widely known guild. The only big drawback I saw was being PvE based, and not PvP based. You could see some sponsorship on guild websites like DnT, Curse and others, but I was expecting something along the lines of what Nihilum got from Steelseries.

http://www.nihilum.co.uk/news/28/

Now comes word of sponsorship in PvP. Judging from past history, team sponsorships for PvP is not uncommon for popular games. My question is, how much sponsorship can we expect to see in WoW?

That looks pretty hokey on a number of levels. Not sure what to really think of that.

This sort of reminds me of a thread I just saw that I'm still chuckling about (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...85660001&sid=1). As much as WoW has a huge subscriber base, I just don't see it as having enough of a pure competitive system to garner such interest.

My biggest concern is the Steelseries logo. It seems to feed bad gamer stereotypes:

Nice catch on the logo , I had a chuckle on that.

Where are his legs? Or can't he see them?

Ahahahaahahahahaha, oh god that is great.

I can see it, easily. Look at previous sponsership for Blizzard's competitive events like the DotA, Brood Wars, and other tournaments. WoW easily exceeds the popularity of those events, with a larger audience in terms of demographics as well.

Lots of people are looking for the edge, and if say the winning team from the world arena tournaments all use Nostromo n-52's with Athalon processers, Nvidia graphics cards of various types, and Steelseries mouses(?) and headsets, those are gonna be really popular.

This is business, and sponsership sells.

God, DotA.
The half-legacy of my old GM. He helped write DotA beta and worked out bugs for DotA 1.0

Number #1 PvE horde guild on my server is sponsored by gold farmers.

http://ministryguild.net/

Honestly, I don't see anything wrong with getting a little money for playing World of Warcraft in WINDOWS VISTA on my DELL pc, drinking COCA COLA and eating PAPA MURPHY'S PIZZA, and listening to my friends in VENTRILO on my BOSE headphones.

Free website and ventrilo, what more can you ask for?

I'm getting sick of this circle-jerking over a competition that hasn't even started yet, honestly.

Bibdy, make sure Retro gives these nobodies the beating of their life in the post-season. =)

http://www.check6gaming.com/news.php?id=67

one team one dream, too

This is a very good point, I'm actually looking for a new mouse (as my MS Intellimouse is 7 years old has seen better days), if it turns out that the top PvP teams use a certain kind of mouse, I might be inclided to go buy it...assuming it's at a similar price point. I work and play WoW on my computer, that's it. Any mouse will do for work, so that leaves WoW. After the tournament is done, I think you'll see a lot more of this.

Free gold & herbs?

Why don't you just go down to office depot and buy a mouse?

More to the point, why would you buy a mouse just because some power-gamers use it? They probably just realize that it doesn't really make a goddamn bit of difference in WoW as long as it has enough buttons for your style and functions correctly.

SKILL CLICKERS?

Headshots in WoW do double damage right? Serious gaming here... fatal1ties mouse makes you frost shock twice as hard... stupid.

The whole mouse thing is silly - most sponsorships are classically for coupons, mousepads, or maybe travel expenses to quakecon. We declined sponsorship a couple of times, because it mostly means inviting some scrub to your guild. Even barring that, you generally get nothing out of it. This has been going on for a decade in the FPS gaming world, and only a select few people have seen any benefit of it beyond what you'd earn in 1 days worth of work at a real job.

News flash kids: Very few people who don't play WoW, care about WoW. XI isn't going to put DnT leader on his resume, and he's in a more prominent position than you are. Until there are stadiums filled to watch some 12 year olds hit 2 buttons and claim ownage in an arena, I don't think this sponsorship idea will get very far... especially as the much more competitive games tend to go nowhere on this either.

well there is this big global tournament thing starting soon...

See, that's just the point, there are so many different kinds of mouse(s) out there, I have no idea which is the best for WoW. So I wouldn't buy it just because some powergamer uses it, I'd buy it because it seems like it's a great mouse for PvP.

I don't have time to compare every mouse available, so if it turns out that 20 out of the top 22 teams (made up numbers btw) use a certain type of mouse, then maybe it has value to at least check it out.

It's no different than people asking on forums what good PvP'rs do with Keybindings. So there's no reason to get so upset about it.

Come on, it should be obvious. For the first adopters, the sponsorship has already paid any dividends for the sponsors. How many people had heard of the Steelseries brand a week ago? How many have heard of them now, if not by seeing them on Nihilum's site, then by seeing them referenced in the context of the "hey, what's with WoW guilds/teams getting sponsors?" discussions of late. Or in the context of their logo looking like a lardass.

But anyway, it's just cheap advertising. I don't think anyone is going to go out and say "oh man, Ming uses X Brand Keyboard, maybe if I buy that then I too can execute stunlocks that will make the gods themselves gape in awe!" But when a dozen gaming magazines and websites interview the finalists in the first international tournament, those teams with sponsors are definitely going to be plugging the hell out of those sponsors. It's a small investment with potentially large dividends. Nothing more.