Play and WIN

World Cyber Games is a premiere gaming event to which seven Indians have qualified this year.

World Cyber Games is a premiere gaming event to which seven Indians have qualified this year.

The Sunday rains did not deter the posse of adventure seekers lining up outside Essel World last week. Amongst the sparse crowd was a group of gamers who had travelled from different cities across India to participate in the finals of the regional round of World Cyber Games,the largest running global videogame tournament. The tournament is currently celebrating its 10th anniversary.

The sponsors of the India edition,UTV Indiagames,got almost 1500 players across six cities of Delhi,Mumbai,Pune,Bengaluru,Hyderabad and Chennai to compete against each other across four different games such as Counter Strike,FIFA,a mobile game called Asphalt and a promotional game T20 Fever developed by the sponsor company. The gaming competitions were held offline as well as online since July. The finale saw eight winners across the four games of which seven will go to Los Angeles to represent India in the Grand Finals of the tournament to be held between September 29 and October 3.

Speaking about the games Vishal Gondal,head of Indiagames said,The regional tournament this year has been the biggest in terms of scale and participation which is an encouraging sign. We8217;ve given the marketing,sponsors and the event a huge fillip this time. Parents still think its uncool for their kids to be taking gaming professionally but the gaming industry in countries like USA and China is bigger than their movie industry. It is initiatives like this that will drive the growth of gaming in India.

The company has been promoting the event since 2002 in the country. This year,however,WCG India saw more than 50 lakh registrations with more than 1.25 lakh unique gamers and more than 2 million page views on the website http://www.wcgindia.com,making it one of the biggest gaming event in the country of the year. However,the tournament has been riddled with problems of all kinds. For example,21-year old Rahul Kumar who won FIFA game last year could not make it to China due to sponsor issues. Kumar won the tournament again this year and has made his plans clear. 8220;I want to be in the top eight or at least the top 15. I interact with players from Europe and watch videos online to develop tips and improve my game,8221; said Delhi-based Kumar,who plays for 10 hours daily.

Team ATE from Mumbai,consisting of five team members,who won Counter Strike also seemed excited at the prospect of competing with gamers from across the world. 8220;It is exciting to be crowned as the winners. We practice our game seriously for almost four-five hours and hope to win the tournament in LA as well,8221; team leader Mikhail Mehra said.

While FIFA and Counter Strike are computer games,Asphalt is a mobile game that was connected centrally to make it multi-player. Mumbai lad Naveen Uraon won the mobile car racing game brushing off the limited number of players the game attracted.

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I played against two or three players and started practising for it only a couple of weeks ago. I am a big fan of the series and am fine-tuning my strategy for the world series. My main concern is not to be hit by other cars and keep to my track, Uraon said.

The winners were also given goody bags containing pen drives,graphics cards and other paraphernalia. Putting the tournament in perspective Gondal said,The Olympics sees participation from 72 countries whereas WCG has contestants from 84 countries. Now,compare its scale.