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Let the cyber games begin!
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Nine Indians will participate in the Third World Cyber Games to be held in Seoul from October 12 to 18.
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As you read this, nine young Indians are honing their skills with mouse and joystick, chipping a second off here and there. They practice day and night, sometimes individually, sometimes as a team, playing popular computer games such as FIFA Soccer; Warcraft; Half-Life Counterstrike and Age of Mythology. It's all work and all play.
The nine are the national finalists in India of the 3rd World Cyber Games -- the Olympics of the computer games arena -- to be held in Seoul, South Korea, between October 12 and 18. They will compete against 600 people from 55 countries for Rs. 175 lakhs ($ 350,000), the prize-money sponsored by the Korea-based computer and entertainment company, Samsung.
They took part in preliminary rounds held by Samsung India in New Delhi, Bangalore, Pune and Mumbai; Over 10,000 hopefuls competed at the computer consoles at each of these venues.
Locations such as the Megabowl in Bangalore and the National Science Centre in Delhi's Pragati Maidan, saw traffic jams for two days as hundreds of kids who had registered online, turned up at their allotted slots and took turns at the PC terminals. The youngest participant was a five-year-old from Delhi.
Computer games have become one of the most lucrative, fast growing sectors of the entertainment business. Smart companies such as India Games have been making games in response to the global hunger for software to go with games machines such as Sony's PlayStation or Microsoft's Xbox.
These machines are not too thick on the ground here, but that's no problem! Most Indian youngsters are able to find PC versions of the same games -- you can always go to a cyber cafe or use the home or office PC when no one's looking. And with the new generation of mobile phones coming with special enhanced LCD colour screens, locating a `elite' version of these games that will fit comfortably on the limited memory of the cell phone is no big deal (the big deal and big bill comes when you try to play wireless with others, as the phone's cash-o-meter in the SIM card keeps running). Last week, Intel, the biggest guys in the chip-making business, announced they would soon launch a special processor finetuned for gaming. Almost every PC vendor includes a few games as freebies when you buy a multimedia home machine.
How will our desi talent measure up against international talent in Seoul? Let's wait and see.
A. VISHNU
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Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
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