For the last few weeks I’ve had the “pleasure” of playing in the Virgin Gaming Killzone 3 40K tournament on www.virgingaming.com. While the opportunity to play in a large-scale tournament for a game I enjoy is thrilling, I am so frustrated with practically every decision VG has made leading up to this point. So, where should I begin?

1. NO RULES!

You read that correct folks! There are absolutely no rules in this tournament. While Killzone 3 is a fantastic game on a casual-competitive level. When there is $40,000 up for grabs people will resort to ANYTHING to win. I’m not talking about weapons either. How about the ability to repair all the ammo stations in the map, get one single kill and then suicide and not spawn back in for the ENTIRE match?

Besides those cheap tactics, we also have the weapons that throw off the balance of fair play completely. Hiding with Camo on, spamming Rockets until you hit something, or placing proximity mines everywhere. These are things within the game that throw off its balance and sadly prevents the best/most skilled team from winning the match.

2. YOU WIN FOR LOSING!

I have been involved with competitive gaming for a very long time and I have never seen a system that rewards people to failing. Here is an image of how the page I am in (page 3) looks.

My team is Irrelevant

Now here is how page 1 looks:

COB is in 4th place with 55-211

The sad part is that a player in Team COB won $800 for losing (because the challenge that week was to play the most matches overall) and while I have no personal issue with the gentleman who won, that’s not what is at question here, what is at question is how Virgin Gaming is allowing teams to get a chance to win some decent money for being awful?

Sorry, but it’s the truth.

3. RANDOM SEEDING IN BRACKET PLAY!

This frustrates me just as much as the second. With teams pulling abysmal records they might potentially find themselves in a favorable side of the bracket because it’s all randomized seeding. Players who genuinely deserve to be in the top spot could get snubbed because they may have to face another potential top team in the first round! 

While the issues I have with the “no rules” policy isn’t as big of a deal. It’s rewarding players points for losing and not really earning their spot in the top 32 that bothers me. I do hope that Virgin Gaming at least tries to implement some kind of rules adjustment leading to bracket play because as it stands right now, the best players may not win.

I am a fan of competitive gaming in all forms. I am always excited to see a tournament for a new game appear and hope that the community can rally around it. This time around, I find myself regretting taking part in this tournament because I am forced to no-life this event in order to remain in the top 32. I work full-time and have lots of commitments and to have to sit there and play round after round of Team Deathmatch (which is another OBVIOUS problem) just so I can be in 32nd place is disheartening. I wanted Virgin Gaming to potentially be a home for competitive Killzone players, because they are out there! Sadly this tournament was not meant for them.

 Happy Slaying