We haven’t heard of any gaming tourney since BYOC, now esports India has listed two, and both are in Hyderabad.

The first is RGCL Tournament

Team games

CS, DOTA

(First Prize – 25K, Second – 10K for both)
Individual games

COD4 Modern Warfar

FIFA 10

(First Prize – 10K, Second – 5K for both)

Venue

Jubille Hills Hyderabad, Rd. no. 36, HYDERABAD, SVM@36 , RUSH- FEEL IT( GAMING ZONE)

Time

Saturday, 16 January 2010 10:00

The other event is the finals of IMBA Gamer, you’ll find some CS and DOTA gods here

Venue : Rush Gaming cafe, Hyderabad
Time: Jan 30th at 10.00am  onwards

That’s all for now folks

“Dude.. Balu… where have you been? Why haven’t you been posting anything?” The couple of guys who read this blog but refuse to comment, asked me that in the past few days. The main reason I have been away from the blog, has been due to BYOC, which by the way, was a lot of fun. (I was tired after 24hours of standing around, talking, gaming etc etc)

Speaking of BYOC, Bangalore killed the concept of ‘Bring Your Own Computer’ altogether, even I’m to blame. Hardly anyone brought their own

computers along, from that I hope you understand that most people who registered, came for the tourneys.

While I was there at the event on and off, taking breaks to make a few pub owners richer, I noticed that most of the crowd hung around the CS and DoTa tourney leaving anyone who wasn’t part of these groups to ogle to Alienware laptops or play Quake 3 on the few other systems around. (at least that’s what I did) As it got dark, the crowd swindled and only about 80 of the 250 plus registered participants were around. Most of them were again DoTa CS clans who were taking part in the imbagamer tourney which was also being organized there. Nice arrangement overall.. The crowd was noisy and they kept at it despite an old security guard doing his own round of yelling (ehmm… at the gamers).

Being a participant driven event, it wasn’t required for organisers to hang around and see to it that everything’s organised in a civilized manner. It just happened. Though it was very well organized, there were a few complaints though. Around 8 teams registered for the CoD4 tournament, but by he time it started (10pm) only one team was left. Another team volunteered to participate later on, this confusion could have been avoided. The console space, set up by Consoul.in saw hardly any particpants and they decided to pack up pretty early. Can’t really blame them.

When I spoke to Ashish Gupta, Director of Xteme Gaming who organized the event, he said that every city’s been different. “Delhi’s big on LAN gaming, Mumbai had a good share of both, while in Bangalore it’s all for the tournaments. We’ll need a different strategy for each city. The turnout was good enough considering it’s being organised for the first time. Plus, we were really busy with other events as well and did not get enough time to promote this event,” he said.

Publicity aside, there a few things which could have made the event better.

1> The console section was in a corner, most gamers would have missed it as there was indication anywhere that such a section exists.

2> An separate space for LAN gaming and only for LAN gaming. The space allocated for LAN gaming was taken over by clans who were eager to practise.

3> DVD drives in systems. Not all of us carry around games in a pen drive

4> More goodies =D There were plently already to offer to winners and to a few lucky guys. But more’s always welcome.

5> Get some console manufacturers on board. Are you listening Microsoft, Sony?

6> There were lot of outstation participants, get more Bangaloreans to participate

Here’s a full list of winners as posted by Eports India

FIFA

1 – Akshay Sundhareswaran [Chennai]
2 – Sabeel [Bangalore]
3 – R.Kartik [Chennai]

Need for Speed Most Wanted
1 – Deb kumar
2 – Mohan S
3 – Aashik

CS tourney
1 – ETOS
2 – DsP
3 – Step

IMBAGAMER  DOTA tourney
1 – A clan that comprised of Vishak (Max), Kashif (spoon), Devilrules21, Str_I_ke, Varun_Nightwolf, RajtheImmortal (players from Chennai and Bangalore) came first at the BYOC.
2 – Spindix’s clan from Bangalore’s Zapak came second.
3 – D_Destructor’s clan from Hyderabad

Few pics from the event, courtesy of the organisers

We had earlier written about Bring Your Own Computer (BYOC) LAN Party and gaming tournament which will be organised across the country. The event will be held on the same dates as announced earlier, so start packing your PCs or do some last min modding to add extra oomph to your rig. In the tournament section however, you will be able to use the systems provided by the organisers alone.

And all you console gamers, please don’t stay away, there will be a lot of console action as well at the BenQ Console Zone.

Meanwhile, Consoul might be arranging a few Xbox360 consoles which gamers can rent out at Bangalore. The organisers of BYOC will rent out PCs and monitors to gamers who find it inconvenient to carry their rigs along, but it’s not sure if it’s restricted to Delhi or if it’ll be available in all locations.

This is the first time the event’s being organised outside Delhi and we wish the organisers best of luck, as we need such events to really encourage gaming culture in India.

The venues and the dates for the event are as follows

Delhi : 7-8 Nov.

Venue: Global School, NBCC Plaza, Pushp Vihar, Saket.

Mumbai : 14-15 Nov.

Venue: Ajivasan Hall, Juhu Tara Road, Near SNDT College.

Bengaluru : 21 Nov.

Scared Heart School, Behing Good Shepard Auditorium, Museum Road.

Hyderabad : 28 Nov.

The games for the tournament

Counter Strike, DoTa, Call of Duty 4, NFS Most Wanted, Fifa09

See you there folks

PS: The organisers say there’s Rs10lakh worth of goodies for taking.. okay stop drooling

We certainly enjoyed playing Ashes Cricket 2009 by Codemasters a lot, and now we have been informed that e-xpress interactive, the distributors of the game in India, has tied-up with NRG Gaming Lounge in Mumbai to organise a Ashes Cricket 2009 tournament in the city. The tournament will feature PC and Wii versions of the game. From what I have heard, the Wii version is fun to play and much simpler than the PC version.

Below is the schedule for the event which will be held this Saturday (Sept 12)

12:00 pm – 1:00 pm     Registration

1:00 pm – 1:30 pm       Introducing players to the game, explaining the rules

1:30 pm – 6:30 pm       Ashes gameplay event (tourney time) between all the players

3:00 pm – 4:00 pm       Exhibition match on Wii and interaction with media

7:00pm – 7:15 pm        Prize distribution

Venue: NRG gaming lounge, 74 Krishna kunj, RA Kidwai Road, Near SNDT College, Matunga, Mumbai-19

Timing: 12pm onwards.

Prize sponsor: Leadtek

Also Read: Ashes Cricket 2009 PC Review: Howzat

(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.

Fed up of watching Roadies and Splitsvilla? Well I am at least. One is full of wannabes who are just out of their tens, the other remind me of a B-class Bollywood movie. So I stopped watching both.

Well that being the case I need something to watch on TV and that’s when I came across this story on Inquisitor on a reality show for gamers. Called WCG Ultimate Gamer. (Yes World Cyber Games is involved so its B.I.G big)

The SCI FI Channel, in partnership with Samsung and the World Cyber Games, presents an all-new reality competition series to find the "Best All-Around Gamer." A diverse group of contestants embark on an intense and emotional journey in hopes of winning prizes that include $100,000 and the ultimate Samsung electronics package, complete with the company’s most advanced technology products. The winner will also be the face of WCG and represent the WCG at events around the globe including the 2009 Grand Final in China.

The twelve contestants who live together will compete against each other in challenges that include traditional video game play as well as real-life video game simulations, which place the contestants in situations inspired by best-selling and world famous games. Man who wouldn’t be part of a video-game? It would be so cool no? Every time something bad happens you could just go back to the last save point and reload! =P I guess I will write in-depth on that later on!

Unfortunately for me, the show doesn’t air in India, but anyway I guess I will watch it online over here.

The next piece of info comes from WATgame. There is going to be a Killzone 2 tourney, well it has started already in Delhi. No stage in B’lore to my disappointment! Anyway for more info on the tourney you can jump here.