2009 was a great year for this blog. For god’s sake it was shifted to an independent domain this year. I’ve seen it grow from 10 visitors to a day to a few hundred over the year. I’ve also seen a lot of change happening in India gaming industry — for good!

PS3 became cheaper, launched slimmer version, and Microsoft is coming out with a few good schemes for Xbox360 after killing pro model and launching Arcade +1

Couple of India themed games released and flopped. Ghajini was pathetic, Desi-Adda was so-so. -1

EA shut down marketing division in India during recession, which meant they tied up for fewer events. -1

Sega titles started releasing in  India +1

UTV is working on 3 console games (AAA titles) through it’s studios based in UK +1

EA games available through Indiagame’s GoD service +1

BYOC goes national, WCG India continues to be a disappointment. +1-1

An Mumbaikar sets a Guinness record playing GTA for 40hrs straight! +1

More stores to buy games from in India Milestone, game distributors, launches online store. +1

Redington, who distribute EA’s Xbox360 games in India, raised prices beyond Rs3k mark.. importing FTW! -1

Alienware launches gaming PC in India

Overall +3 rating for gaming this year in India. So what can we expect this year. I love to speculate so here are my predictions for this year

1> Xbox 360 price drop (by a few thousands, perhaps a cheaper elite model)

2> Cheaper games for PC

3> Better deals for second hand games online

4> More and better organised tourneys (now that the market is coming back on track)

5> More gaming blogs to make this list longer =)

Do you have any adition to make to the list? Anything I missed? How was the year for you as a gamer?

I have been checking the schedules page of World Cyber Games India (WCG) website regularly only to be disappointed by lack of updates. But turns out the dates are indeed listed, but to see those, you need to head to registration page!

As it turns out, the tournament has already started. Yes mister you read it right. IT has already started and unlike previous years when there were city based prelims, this time prelims are fully online. The prelims which started on 20 of August will go on till 15th of September. In short 8 days of prelims left!

The national level final will be held at Nehru Planetarium (Mumbai?) October 16-18.

Here’s the game-vice event dates

Carom3D  Sep 01 to Sep 15
WCG 2009 India Preliminary  Sep 01 to Sep 15
FIFA 09  Sep 01 to Sep 15

Indiagames screwed up last year with city based prelims well this year they seem to have screwed up with prelims on national level. I don’t think it’s a great idea to play against other online considering the internet speeds we have.

Also Read: WCG India 09 dates announced; Console gamers ignored

WCG India website has undergone a partial update to include the list of games which will be featured in this year’s tournament.

The list of games for this year’s WCG India includes Counter Strike, Trackmania Nations, Fifa 09, Carom3D, Asphalt 4: Elite Racing(Mobile), Wise Star2(Mobile).

The introduction of Trackmania Nations is a welcome change from the NFS series of games which have been dominating most gaming tourneys. If you haven’t played this game yet, you can download it for free from the main WCG site, the tracks which will be used in the tournament can be downloaded from here.

The console games featuring in this year’s tourney are Guitar Hero: World Tour and Virtua Fighter 5. But surprisingly none of these games will be present in Indian edition. This was unexpected considering the circumstances. Console manufacturers are trying to push their sales in the market and presence of console games at tourneys like WCG will only encourage more gamers to pick up a controller.

Now the next problem I have is with the schedule. What problem do I have with it? It says “Coming Soon” that’s my problem. What was the point of updating the site in such a way. Why not get all information and then update the site and then send out a mailer?

All I have to say is, I hope Indiagames doesn’t repeat mistakes of last year. Remember what happened?

Here is the coverage of WCG Bangalore stage, from2007, as appeared in Bangalore Mirror, Joystick page. I was supposed to cover it, but couldn’t as I had to go to Kerala on an emergency.

(click to enlarge)

(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.

Reuben does it again! He is India’s only claim to fame when it comes to online gaming and he lives up to his name by finishing fifth in FIFA 09 at WCG 2009 finals, at Cologne. 

He is without doubt the best FIFA gamer we have in the country and well I would like to wish him my hearty congratulation on the achievement. Let’s keep our fingers crossed for next year. May be, he might finish on top

(info came in through indiagames newsletter)

I have no words to describe Indiagames now. They declared WCG India stage 4 months in advance then went into a coma, come back a month before the tourney announced that the tourney will happen in three cities and now they have scaled it down to two cities – Delhi and Mumbai. Bangalore stage, which was meant to be organised on October 17 was canceled and Delhi stage which was meant to happen on October 11 was post poned to 17. This seriously sucks! If you guys can’t organise a tourney in the scale of WCG properly restrict yourself to selling old, outdated games on your website.

RUMOURED: There was a rumour that Indiagames was looking out for refs to conduct the “show” in Bangalore. It has been rumoured that the stage was cancelled as they couldn’t get refs for this stage.

(Hopefully) Final schedule for the tourney

I had written earlier about ambiguity on part of Indiagames in declaring dates for WCG India Asian Championship. Apparently now they are confused about dates for organising WCG India qualifiers as well! I had contacted Indiagames via mailto which they are yet to respond, their PR firm too was a let down as folks at Indiagames were pretty tight lipped about the whole deal. So I ask – what’s up guys? Itna sannatta kyon hai?

The website had initially informed that the tournament will begin on August 23. However WCG India now “informs” us that the dates will be announced later. Couldn’t they have mailed those who registered on the site atleast? I mean seriously? Why else do they ask us to fill in our email ids when we register?

Then out of the blue comes a commentor Tony whotold me that the Chennai qualifiers will be in October first week. But I still haven’t got a reply from Indiagames. Guys wherever you are are you ever gonna respond?

(I know this post is coming almost a month late, well that was because I spent time trying to knock some info out of those folks at indiagames)

It is also rumoured that Indiagames is planning to take the qualifying round tourament to more cities and this has caused the delay. There has been no confirmation on this front yet and it continues to be a rumour.

UPDATE:

WCG India 2008 dates announced - finally!

Indiangames, the organisers of World Cyber Games (WCG) in India had announced the dates for WCG India – 2008 long time back; in August first week if I am not wrong. But hey what about the event that precedes the glamorous WCG – the Asian Championship?

The oranisers have kept their mouth shut about this tournament which works as a warm-up for the main championship. The last time I contacted the organisers, they told me that they hadn’t arrived on any date as yet. They gave me a “tentative date” of September. Now september is here, the site however bluntly states “Coming soon” when I click on the schedule link.

WCG India - Asian Championship Schedule page

The main Asian Championship site tells me the tournament final will be on August 10. So that means we are exactly a month away from the finals of a tournament. So does Indiagames plan to organise just a namesake tournament, just for the sake of it? No seriously what are they thinking? smoking? doing?

This reminds me of a Bangalore based DOTA team, Error, who missed the tournament as they couldn’t arrange their visa on time, because of the tournament dates. So will we hear of more Team Errors this time around? Come on Indiagames, be punctual, if you feel you are not upto the task of organising such events, don’t take up the responsibility of organising such events!

Image via Wikipedia

[digg=http://digg.com/gaming_news/Get_ready_for_WCG_India_2008]

UPDATE:

WCG India 2008 dates announced - finally!

Gamers… you had your warmup at Vixture, now its time to take the heat to an international level. WCG India site was updated recently after a long gap and they have announced that WCG India will begin on Aug 23 and go on till Sept 16.

The grand final of this year’s tournament will be held in Cologne in Germany. It needs to be noted that this is the last year Microsoft will be sponsoring the tournament as per the contract. It needs to be seen if  they will extend the contract. Sony I am sure won’t mind tying up with such a huge tournament.

The games which will be featured in this year’s tournament

Warcraft III : Frozen Throne | Starcraft | Counter Strike 1.6 | FIFA 08 (new) |

NFS Pro Street (new) | Command & Conquor 3 | AOE II – Asian Dynasties (new) |

Carom 3D | RedStone

Xbox 360

Project Gotham Racing 4 (new)  | Halo 3 (new) | Guitar Hero 3(new) | Virtua Fighter 5

However only CS, Fifa, Warcraft, ProStreet and PGR 4 will be contested in India. Why? I am not sure! While in Asian championship DOTA, PGR4, ProStreet, FIFA and Virtua Fighter will be featured.

For oher details check WCG India or WCG international sites

Tournament rules |  WCG wallpapers

Event schedule