The MLG Logo.
Major League Gaming, also known as MLG, is the largest organized league for worldwide professional competitive gaming and tournaments. The privately held company was founded in New York City in 2002, and has now attracted competitors from over 28 countries worldwide. MLG uses several media outlets to popularize their tournaments, mainly through TV, via ESPN in the USA.
MLG posts videos, tactics, leaderboards, tips from professional gamers, and other content on their website. Fans can visit MLG's website to upload their own videos to the site and access the content of their favorite games that MLG currently focuses on. Halo's last tournament in MLG was in November 2–4, 2012, showcasing Halo 4 and was later dropped by MLG because of a contracting issue between Microsoft and Virgin Gaming.[citation needed]
Tournaments[]
MLG gamers in action.
MLG's main function is to organize competitions and present leaderboards of the top competitors in a game. MLG's most famous tournament series is the MLG Pro Circuit, a series of five events that occur each year. In these events, competitors of all games compete at various locations (usually a major city in the United States, though one event has been held in Toronto, Canada). Because MLG is fully sponsored, players competing in an MLG tournament are provided with all necessary equipment, including televisions and video game systems, but not game controllers. Some players may choose to bring their own equipment anyway to practice before the competition. Typically, each MLG tournament is held over the course of a weekend (Friday through Sunday), with the only exception being the Playoffs/Championship, which occurs over a period of four days. MLG used a system where they went with 5 tournament leading up to a National tournament where the 1st place prize money was $100,000. In 2012, MLG changed their tournament setup leaving 5 tournaments with a national tournament and switching over to 4 tournaments a year with each tournament showcasing each season (for example: "Winter Championships or "Fall Championships"). In November 2–4, 2012 was Halo's last tournament in MLG showcasing Halo 4 before its release.
Pro Circuit Ladders[]
Players wishing to participate in an MLG tournament compete in online tournaments called Pro Circuit Ladders. Pro Circuit Rank Points can be earned by winning Pro Circuit Ladders; these points determine seeding for the Pro Circuit events and often offer cash prizes. The Pro Circuit Ladder is split into two groups: the Ladder Competition and the Playoff Bracket. Top teams in the Ladder Competition, who compete over several weeks of tournaments, earn a spot in the Playoff Bracket. The Playoff Bracket is a double-elimination tournament to determine an overall victor. To enter Pro Circuit Ladders, players require MLG/Gamebattles Credits, which can be purchased from the MLG online store. In the case of a tie in the final match of any MLG tournament, the tie-breaker will be either a team rocket or team swords match. These matches are used as a tie-breaker since they are seen as requiring the most amount of skill. The reason they are not used during regular MLG matches is because they are far too difficult to master even for elite gamers competing at the pro level. However in 2011, MLG went through some changes and stop using this system.
Gameplay[]
- Main article: MLG (playlist)
MLG uses Halo 3's Forge in order to create MLG-specific map variants for use in their events, the MLG Matchmaking playlist, and GameBattles. Between the Default maps and MLG maps lie many differences. These included: Player spawns, player characteristics, weapon placements, weapon spawns, no vehicles, and no equipment. In Halo: Reach, at first MLG used the in game maps but later as the year's went on they used 90% forge based maps and 10% in game maps.
MLG Playlist[]
On March 12, 2008, MLG announced that an MLG playlist would replace Team Hardcore in Halo 3's Matchmaking. The playlist was released online as a ranked playlist on March 31, 2008.[1] The MLG playlist, along with the other Hardcore playlists, were moved to the Ranked Playlists after the Hardcore Playlist was retired as of August 4, 2009. (The same playlist showed up in Halo: Reach but in Halo 4 we were reintroduced to this similar play style playlist called "Team Throwdown")