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Introduction
I always felt I had missed the opportunity in the early days of Quake3 to attend all the great tournaments that we all remember. Although I did have the chance to attend the RazerCPL event back in 2000, by the time I was old enough to easily travel by myself, the Quake3 tournament scene was limited to QuakeCon and ESWC. With the release of Quake4, I wanted to relive the dream I had in the early days of Quake3 to attend all the major events around the country. Now more than ever, I was better equipped to provide a different type of coverage that was not normally seen. That type of coverage would be very high quality video, High Definition video. Starting with the Winter CPL event this past December, I put a sizable investment into new equipment that would make covering these events an event better experience to the viewers at home. Up to this point I had been using a small Sony DV camera which up to this point had served me well. The video quality was good, better than what most sites offered, but I wanted something better. My new Sony FX1 camcorder would be my new tool in my effort to cover Quake4 tournaments and events around the country in the way in which I would loved to have seen them myself. While I write this article in the first person, none of the work I have done these past few months would have been possible without the help of my friend and co-worker, UltimateP. Now on to the events...

:: The First 3 Events

Winter CPL
The Winter CPL event would be the first of four events I would attend. Covering an event such as the CPL is very different from an event such as QuakeCon. During QuakeCon, I am usually too busy attending workshops and discussions during the event to pay much attention to the tournament until the finals. Traveling to Texas for the second time that year, I was not completely sure how the event would work out. It was the first of many of what I like to call experiments that would take in the coming months. Only two weeks before the event had I e-mailed the CPL for press passes. Within two days, confirmation of our admission to the event as press was received. Upon arrival to the event, our press credicals were documented and out pre-printed passes were ready. To make a long story short, this first experiment had worked out. The CPL did not limit our video coverage in anyway and treated us with the utmost respect. The trip was success with videos from the event reaching over 20,000 downloads.

TransAtlantic Finals
Three months later, our second experiment of the year would take place. Also on short notice, I contacted the GGL about filming at the TransAtlantic finals which would take place in the TimeWarner building in New York City. While not as smooth as the confirmation we received from the CPL, our negotiations with the GGL lasted two weeks. In the end, I believe it was a problem with the TimeWarner venue itself that was concerned about filming rather than the GGL trying to limit our coverage. Opon arrival at the TransAtlantic event, the GGL officials were aware of us filming and allowed us to be inside the tournament area for the best shots possible. We were treated very well and pleased with the event. This event produced approximately 15,000 downloads.

E3 2006
Two months later, also on short notice I decided to attend E3 2006 mainly for the preview of QuakeWars being shown at the event. Since the trip was planned so late, I was unable to secure a guarantied press pass, but decided to travel to the event anyway and try my luck. This event, as the first two turned out to be a huge success, with video downloads reaching over 25,000.

QuakeCon
Even though I wouldn't consider QuakeCon one of the experiment events I have attended in the past year, it's still worth mentioning for many reasons. First off, I have been attending QuakeCon since 2002 without any media black out problems to date expect for when id showed off some Doom3 editing material in 2002. QuakeCon out of any event I have ever attended has been the most hospitable to the media. While QuakeCon always has made deals with organizations such as TSN or iTG to cover the tournaments, that has never stopped other media from filming or using in-game footage for their own promtional pruposes. To sum it all up in one sentence, QuakeCon is a paradise for media. That's why the event gets such good coverage each year.

WSVG Summer aka Intel Summer Event (previously CPL Summer Championship)
Before the CPL lost all their sponsors and sold the rights to the WSVG for their Summer Championship event, PlanetQuake4 was already planning on attending the event, mainly for the fact that out experience at the Winter event had been so good and the number of top players at the event would be much greater. This event along with the rest would be another experiment. I call all these events experiments, because we show up not knowing how much we will be able to film and how we will be treated. Of course we contact the appropriate media channels for the organizations before hand, but not being a huge corporate conglomerate, we do not sign legal contracts with these events. We assume we will be treated kindly and be allowed to cover the event in the way we wish. In the end though, we have no legal binding agreement to fall back on for the occasion that we would be denied coverage.

Our negotiations with the WSVG started weeks before the event. A response from officials at the WSVG was hard to come by even after numerous e-mails were sent out. After talking with Slasher following his trip to WSVG's LanWar event we were made aware of one of their employees named Toyna. Our Director of Operations, UltimateP, would be chiefly in charge coming to an agreement with the WSVG for filming at their Summer Championship event. UltimateP discussed our matter with Toyna and forwarded her our list of employees who would be attending the event. This list would be larger than it has ever been before. Because of the scale of this event compared to the others, we felt that additional help was needed to fulfill the coverage we wanted to provide. First on the list was an additional videotographer who would take over the main role of shooting the event. Secondly, we needed someone with the keen understandings of the tournament and players who would be able to conduct meaningful interviews. The first person who came to out mind was Slasher. I had meet Slasher earlier in the year during the TransAtlantic event and after finding out that he had no plans to attend the Summer event, decided to fly him to Texas to help us with video interviews along with providing coverage here on ESReality.

From the start, the WSVG Intel Summer Championship event did not seem as if it would be another success in our line of experiments. Upon arrival at the media registration counter, our names were no where to be found on any list even though we had exchanged countless e-mails with the WSVG's press agency. Even though our names were not documented, we were still able to secure media badges. Going back to our negotiations with the WSVG before traveling to the event. In order to film any video or take picture at the event, they wanted us to sign an agreement that would limit the video to a ridiculously short amount of time. Also, the agreement would force us to wait until 30 days after the event to release any video. PlanetQuake4 made it clear to the WSVG that these limitations would not work out and were assured that an updated agreement would be forwarded to us. Even by the time PlanetQuake4 reached the event, the updated agreement was never received. How serious could this organization be we wondered. No event which expected to receive proper coverage would limit video and picture coverage so severely. Things seemed to be going on without a hitch on Friday afternoon. We had been filming random video inside the tournament and vendor area. By Friday afternoon, our first videos would go live on the Internet. One of the videos included video of Fatal1ty and other tournament competitors. In was simply random footage to give everyone at home a feel for the event. By early Friday morning, UltimateP received a call from Matt Ringel, the CEO of Games Media Properties. During our weeks long back and forth e-mail discussions with the WSVG never once did they bother to give us a call. Even when we attempted to call their press agency and that the agent was not available did we received a call back. Mr. Ringel explained that we did not sign any agreement to film therefore we would have to sign something before we would be permitted to re-enter the event. We signed a new agreement and proceeded to film.

Conclusion

The discussion I wish to start with this article is, does having exclusive media agreements at professional gaming events help or hurt the the industry to grow? Does limiting third party media organizations from displaying similar coverage aspects as the official media partner help or hurt the community that wants to know what happened at the event? Does having the only archive of the event's happenings in low quality streaming video set the coverage of such large events back?

In closing, I haven't looked forward to QuakeCon so much since my first time back in 2002. I can't wait...

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