[georgemcbay]

I agree.

I also have some other problems with "pro gaming" being seen as legitimate due to the insane impact corporate sponsorships have on the landscape of competitive gaming.

Granted, massive corporate sponsorships are nothing new to sports, but there's nothing in other sports quite equal to the situation in console gaming where Microsoft is the official console of competitive Call of Duty gaming. Even though the game can be played on many consoles, to play it as a "sport" you need to be playing it on the Xbox. This goes well beyond the already unfortunate lengths to which corporate sponsorships impact other sports, IMO.

And thanks to Microsoft's hardline "no cross-platform play" guidelines for the Xbox line, this isn't something that can be easily solved even if everyone but Microsoft wanted to do it.