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Karachi Gaming League 2007: Gamers rake in the cash with Counter Strike 1.6, Need for Speed

* How about earning Rs 50,000 for playing a video game?

By Ali Akhtarzada

KARACHI: There’s a flickering light in the corner of the room. You can only catch a split second glimpse of him, and only if you can predict which way he went when the light flickered off. There’s a lot of smoke, which makes it hard to see the two bodies in the corner, by the blood-stained wall - they were alive just five seconds ago.

No, this is not an excerpt from a script for a horror flick; it has nothing to do with the multi-billion dollar movie industry, but, you’re quite close - it’s a typical situation from the 35-billion dollar videogame industry and many countries are trying to get a slice of the pie. Pakistan, currently, doesn’t even have a crumb.

Things seem to be changing though. Most of the money in the video game pie is from the world of game development, but quite a bit is made from playing games. It may not sound like much of a career, but, the fact of the matter is that a professional video game player can make over $200,000 a year! And these are real jobs; it’s not a one-month-on then one-month-off job. You can actually get hired as a professional video game player. Make sure your parents read this.

Nonetheless, Karachi Gaming League (KGL) 2007 is a step forward. It was held Sunday at the Expo Centre and was organized by Fariya Xtreme Gaming, with Minister for Sports Kamran Mansoor and MPA Faisal Sabzwari appearing as the chief guests. There was Rs 140,000 in cash prizes to give away by the end of the day as well.

The league didn’t start at the Expo Centre. There were qualifier matches in different gaming zones throughout Karachi. The league consisted of four videogames: Counter Strike 1.6 (CS), Need for Speed - Most Wanted (NFS), FIFA 07 and Warcraft III – Defense of the Ancients (Dota).

The most popular videogame in Pakistan currently is CS and the same was true for the KGL. There were 80 teams from Karachi and 16 of them made it to the league yesterday. For Dota, there were 32 in total and 12 made it to the finals. As for FIFA and NFS, all the players participated on the same day, there were no qualifier matches held before hand - 32 teams for FIFA and 20 for NFS.

At the end of the day there was a lot of cash to be won: Rs 50,000 went to the first place in CS and Rs 25,000 went to the runner-up. The Dota winners got Rs 30,000 and the runner-up got Rs 15,000. The winners for NFS and FIFA got Rs 10,000 each (there were no runner-up prizes for those games).

At the forefront of this push into the gaming market were two companies: Fariya and Green Frag. While Fariya organized the entire event, Green Frag was providing coverage and instant updates on their website (http://www.greenfrag.com/beta/default.aspx).

Fariya and their plans: The organizers are not going to stop with KGL, next in line is the Pakistan Gaming League (PGL) which will include teams from Karachi, Lahore, Quetta, Hyderabad and all the other major cities in Pakistan.

Kamran, head of Fariya, said that the main goal is to provide a platform for serious gaming, as the demand for gaming increases in Karachi. The company wants to provide young and growing teams with the opportunity to compete nation-wide.

Teams will be able to participate in zonal qualifiers after which, if they are successful, they will be bumped up to higher-stage matches. Any team can participate, he said.

The gaming news agency? Green Frag is a new and upcoming company that has its stakes in the game playing market as well. At the event on Sunday, their personnel were all over the place making videos and gathering performance data, as well as making sure that all went smoothly. Their website is currently in the beta phase and a full release is expected by November 30.

Green Frag CEO Akbar Shah Khan told Daily Times that they have a lot of plans for the future, the most important of which is introducing gaming regulations in Pakistan and staying at the forefront of the market.

“All the homework has been done and we are just waiting for the site to be launched,” he said. The rules and regulations are expected within the next six months. These rules and regulations are necessary to create a standard for the gaming market in Pakistan. It will prevent cheating in gaming cafes and favouritism when it comes to serious matches.

Green Frag also plans to provide training to “gaming referees.” For example in CS, when you are playing a multiplayer game, you are not allowed to crouch with the middle mouse button. Due to a bug in the software, using the middle mouse button makes it hard for other players to shoot you, which gives you an unfair advantage. Green Frag would train the people that watch over these matches to catch things like this.

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