The organization I picked for assignment 3 is Major League Gaming (MLG). Major League Gaming is a massive pro gaming circuit in which there are four games that are competed in to win big cash prizes. The games are Halo 3 (their most popular game), Gears of War, Rainbow Six Vegas 2, and World of Warcraft. In each game the top 8 teams earn prize money from first which earns $20,000 to eighth who earns $2,000. There are massive amounts of money that are circulating through this league and thousands of people attending each event trying to win this money. The league travels across North America holding these popular tournaments in major cities mostly in the United States, cities such as Orlando, New York, Chicago, Dallas, and San Diego to name a few. The league has been to Toronto twice but that is the only stop they’ve had in Canada to date. During the tournaments not only are there thousands of people attending these events but also hundreds of thousands of people watching the live broadcasts on their website, check it out at www.mlgpro.com. Since MLG is a new organization, no older than 6 years, it has plenty of opportunity to express creativity in the company. That is what I will be discussing, creativity and Major League Gaming.

Major League Gaming is a very creative organization as they have to be. MLG is a company based on a circuit in which travels around North America hosting gaming tournaments. This is creative in itself but in order to bring thousands of people out per event they must think of new ways to get people to travel to cities. Some of the things MLG does to get their

fans out is based around their website. MLG will host tournaments on their website with winning prizes of trips to MLG events, they will also involve a lot of the pro players in

with some marketing, and they like to connect with fans and new-comers by hosting their own style of YouTube called the Gameroom which is the exact idea of YouTube but with

gaming videos. With this and a very busy forum, MLG connects well with their crowd and allows themselves to be open to others with easy access to discover what MLG offers.

MLG creates many of these ideas through brainstorming and big group meetings, as you can imagine putting a bunch of gamers together in an office could seem a little crazy. They like to have fun and that is what MLG is

based upon. Everyone who is apart of the company is a gamer in a way, either for fun or competition. The goal of Sundance Digiovani (CEO of MLG) was to create an organization in which can flourish in the area of competitive

gaming and we all know that gaming is fun so he based his company around this. What MLG does to foster creative is allow freedom to their employees to think of whatever they want to and suggest it, all ideas are open to consideration. Since MLG is a new organization and growing rapidly they have the freedom to try new things and

take risks. A lot of brainstorming and group meetings are used in MLG, all sorts of employees attend these meetings as well, from the referees to the CEO, this allows all perspectives of the company to come together and

generate new and unique ideas that would allow the organization to grow even bigger.

While MLG is an organization that fosters a lot of creativity they do have some problems in trying to get these ideas out there. Money and time is an issue for this organization to

implement their ideas as well as good organizing. Fostering and creating new ideas isn’t the problem for MLG, the problem lies in the execution of the ideas. When the organization first

started out, they had trouble getting their name out and getting people to travel to these events because a lack of funding and weak marketing. Now with endorsements and sponsors from other major companies such as Xbox, Dr. Pepper, and Stride to name a few, they have the opportunity to explore new and creative ideas. It’s not that MLG had a lack of fostering

creativity it’s just they can be restricted to exploring those ideas.

These are more like additions to the organizations creativity rather than changes because the company is so creative already and have barely any barriers. MLG does hold a lot of meetings with numerous amounts of people

all over the organization, this creates mass amounts of brainstorming, MLG needs to continue these meetings even if they get to a point where the organization grows really big, it’s key for the organization to communicate with all the

people involved. This is where a lot of ideas are created. Since MLG is such a close community I think the organization could hold some workshops for their employees, this is just another reason for bringing the employees together and talk about the company they work for. Activities involving the company such as trying all sorts of new things with the games and how it each tournament is organized can allow the staff to have fun but to also explore

new ideas on how the organization is running. Since most of the people who work for the company are all over North America because it is a travelling circuit some employees won’t be able to see each other and express new ideas for the company in person, the use of an online forum just for the staff would benefit them great as they have a means of communication from wherever they are and can share ideas through the forum. While MLG is all about

community, all new and unique ideas come from abroad the company and it allows for a friendly and open environment to work. That is why MLG is so successful right now and will continue to be.

Plan of Action Cost Consequence If Not Executed

• Group Meetings and Brainstormingsessions with all sorts of employees. (Ten person meeting) The ten people change each meeting except for CEO.

• Salary of each employee attending that meeting for the day. Salaries vary for referees, to marketing staff, to technical staff, to CEO. Average cost per three hour long meeting would be roughly $5,000.

• Company would slowly stop growing as new and innovative ideas wouldn’t be generated. MLG wouldn’t expand. Fans would lose interest and people wouldn’t discover what MLG is if they didn’t come up with new marketing ideas.

• Creative Workshops with Employees. Like the group meetings but much bigger.

• Online Staff Forum

• Salary for each employee attending, $50,000. With each out of city employee being flown out, $30,000. Food and Beverages, $5,000.

• Loss of communication between staff, lack of idea generation, staff start to lose interest in work, and a lack of community in work. All this equals to staff being dissatisfied and not wanting to work as hard.

• Salary of one technical staff to make the forum on the website, $1,000.

• Harder to generate ideas from all staff around North America. Loss of community and possible ideas. Hard to foster creativity when it’s hard to communicate with someone across the country.

References: www.mlgpro.com

Major League Gaming is an organization that is based around community. It was created off a community and keeps growing

based on that same belief. Without a sense of community within the organization it is difficult for the company to foster creativity.

While MLG does have a sense of community, creativity is ever flowing through the organization from all it’s employees. It is a fast growing company and will continue to grow if they keep

doing what they do and if they make a few changes in order to communicate their ideas better. I see MLG continuing to grow

and becoming an even more popular and unique organization in the near future.