(As appeared in DNA, Bangalore)

The IPL is over and India is out of the T20 World Cup. If you are sitting at home and wondering how to forget about India’s disastrous exit,  may be you should pick up a controller and start preparing for ‘gaming season’, starting next month.
The two biggest tournaments of the year, World Cyber Games – Asian Edition (WCG-A) and Vixture, kickstarts in July. WCG-A is organised in India by Indiagames and the winners will get a chance to participate against champions from other South-East Asian countries.WCG-A is a prequel to the World Cyber Games where champions from all countries in the world will be pitted against each other. Vixture, on the other hand, made an impression last year when they decided to give away Rs50 lakh in prizes.

HAUNTING PAST

Both these tournaments though big in their own terms, have a very shady past. WCG is littered with incidents of postponement and poor organising — especially in Bangalore.
In July last year, the Bangalore stage of WCG was cancelled and it was rumoured that it was because of a shortage of referees. Vixture on the other hand, was applauded by gamers for the way it was organised. The turn out, however, was poor in comparison to the gifts they offered. In Bangalore, only 10 teams (of five members each) turned up to participate, out of which five teams were selected for the finals in the same city.
There were quite a few gamers last year who suggested that the tournament should be organised as an individual tournament than as a team event, because a lot of people had trouble finding members to team up. This, despite Vixture having an active blog, to help gamers find partners.

PRESENT PERFECT

This history however, might change soon. As stated on the Vixture site, the rules are set to change. But, they haven’t disclosed the new rules, the event date or the games as yet.
Gamers are hoping that the organisers will announce the dates soon, so they can start practising accordingly.
Gautam Singh, a city-based gamer was very happy with the way the tourney was handled last year. “It was very well organised. What I liked most about the tournament was that it was console-centric; a welcome change compared to other tourneys organised in India.” He was part of Team Consoul,which made it to the final eight in last year’s tournament, after qualifying from the city.
The WCG Asian edition will not have an Indian league to select players, says Ajit Kashyap, head of WCG India. “We have been assessing the performances of Indian players in recent tournaments. We will be sending whoever is in form for the Asian final which will be held in Singapore,” he says. “The main WCG qualifiers will happen only in October,” he says.

GAMER CONNECT

According to Arun Mehra, chief promotional officer, Zapak Entertainment, gaming tournaments play a very important role in bringing new gamers into the fold. “They are the strongest promotional vehicles for gaming. There might be people who are only slightly interested in gaming, but the competitive environment in tournaments make them more interested in gaming,” he says.
Zapak recently organised a tournament targeted at children between the age group of 6 and 12 years and to their surprise, more than 1,00,000 children participated. Bangalore alone had 26,012 participants.

For more details on WCG, visit wcgindia.com and
for Vixture, vixture.com.