It was a dark, dingy basement. Wires and LED lights bounced off every uncovered surface. There were four women in a room that was bursting at the seams with about 300 men. The men played, the women looked bored. Testosterone was bouncing off the walls and free Red Bull did not help.
As a player struggled to master the controls of Xbox 360 to play Need for Speed: ProStreet, a youngster, who looked about 14, muttered under his breath: “Doesn’t even know how to play.”
Gamers flock to tournaments and LAN parties where they get to flaunt their skills (Photo by: Aarti Basnyat / Mint )
The right-hand corner of the room suddenly burst out in cheers—even in the virtual world, cricket had the most spectators. Amidst the excitement, adrenalin and camaraderie, the only thing missing was a breath of fresh air. The mob spilled into the alley—a colleague was approached by a middle-aged woman fascinated by the crowd. “It’s a gaming tournament,” my colleague explained. The woman looked bemused, nodded and went back to her groceries.
For outsiders, all this makes little sense; for committed gamers, it can be a matter of life and death.
Inside the room, the Delhi elimination rounds of the Vixture gaming tournament proceeded without a break, and total prize money of Rs50 lakh was at stake—more than any other gaming tournament to date.
Anyone who owns a computer, or even just uses one at work, has dabbled in gaming in one form or the other: You may have killed scores of Nazis in a Wolfenstein session or held the office record at Solitaire. It is this variety that makes gaming one of those few activities that can be indulged in complete solitude or with a raucous group of friends. The basic requirements are simple: a computer with a decent graphics card, the game itself and the patience to play for hours. Everyone can do it, but there are those select few who make it their second life and strive to beat their last highest score.
Gamers can be territorial and choosy about letting people into their groups
S. Kumar
Gamer
“The first game I ever played was
Contra at the age of four or five,” says Anand Krishnan, aka Arenaline. Sulabh Puri, aka Megadeath, is another gaming enthusiast who has even made a career out of it—he writes for the magazine
Living Digital. Puri started professional gaming six years ago at the age of 18; before that, he was just a “casual gamer”. His clan is called Omega Assassins.
“A clan is normally a group of five or more people. I chose the name Megadeath because I thought it would be intimidating to my opponents, and Omega I found when I was flipping through the dictionary,” he says.
But not every clan is fixed, as Vishal S. Kumar, a freelance graphic artist who has been gaming since 1997, says: “Our clan is very liquid, we used to be called the Anarchists but since then many changes have happened. We create clans depending on the tournaments or games we are playing.”
