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ShareMumbai: Welcome to the world of gaming where you are no longer a passive audience to an ending that you may or may not like. You can change the rules of the game and re-write your own. You can teach terrorists a lesson and wipe them out off the face of the earth or can don the role of a knight in shining armor and sweep your damsel off her feet.
There is room for plenty of possibilities and you are the king or queen. "The best thing, however, is there's no marginal diminishing returns because once you master gaming you won't want to stop," says Ajit Kashyap, head, World Cyber Games India -- the organiser behind the international video game competition in India.
Gaming is big business today and the World Cyber Games Championship (WCG) last year saw 73 countries participating and that won it a place in the Guinness World Records surpassing even the Olympics in terms of participation!
But that's not why gaming is in the news. The Asian leg of the gaming championship that is being held in Singapore on July 4 and 5 will see 14 Asian countries participating. The equipments used in gaming are : mobile, PC and console.
"Each continent has regional tournaments and the winners from each region go on to the finals which will be held in China during the second week of November where we are expecting an even bigger participation consisting of 84 countries this year," says Ajit.
So what's the criteria for the selection of players?
"We check out the gamers' form and then only invite them to the tournament. The participants are between 17 and 30 years of age.
What can the winner expect to take away at the Singapore round? This championship isn't big on moolah but they can definitely look forward to certificates, medals and goodies like mobiles, computers etc by the sponsoring companies and of course the invaluable experience of getting an exposure to international gamers before they get into the world gaming arena.
"We spent the last 10 years trying to digitalise our working space and now for the next 10 years it's all about digitalising ourselves," says Ajit about our increasingly technology-driven entertainment world.
He adds, "The face of entertainment has changed today with gaming eating into the mainstream entertainment market share as people want interaction and not passivity."
Ninteen-year-old Reuben Pereira who is doing his B.Com has been gaming since 2006, and won the silver twice for India at the Asian championship. He says, "Different games have different strategies and require different skill sets. I am extremely passionate about gaming and love the thrill of it." He adds "Everyone is expecting me to clinch the gold this year and I am excited and hope that I can live up to their expectations."
