KOCHI: Gaming has come a long way since arcade titles, where the benefits of playing go well beyond entertainment. A complex, challenging yet ambitious living platform has become life for 20-year old Lokesh Kannan, also fondly known as Lokesh ‘Creed’ Kannan in the e-sports circle. He is a champion at Counter Strike (CS) and loves the thrill of every game he plays. “Gaming is exciting for me as it gives me a platform to kill annoying people whenever I want, which I can’t do in real life”, he laughs.
To Lokesh, the joy of gaming began when he was a nine-year-old kid. During his school days, he would battle it out with his friends at the nearby gaming centres. ‘Nothing can be more thrilling than gaming with your friend who is sitting right beside, trying to defeat you’, he exclaims. His all-time favourite game is Assassin’s Creed and unsurprisingly, that is how he got his nickname. He has been playing different games not just for the thrill of playing, but to get better at it. “You can’t always top every game, but you can always get better skill-wise and use those skills for the next time,” he adds.
Believing in his skills to compete among others encouraged him to become a full-time gamer. About his first tournament experience, Lokesh says, “I was more nervous than excited but at the end, winning made me happy naturally,” he chuckles. He believes that there is a strong scope for gaming as a career in the future, since e-sports has dramatically developed through the years and the viewership too equals that of any other sport. Adding to this, he says “Anything that is overloaded with fun and excitement is always advantageous in this field, but what it requires from you is practice and being socially inactive. So, just prepare to battle!”
Lokesh’s achievements are endless in Counter Strike Global Offensive (CSGO), where he won tournaments like LXG Chennai 1on1, IIT Madras CS: GO, Indian LAN Gaming Minor etc. His highest gaming achievement however comes from qualifying for the Taiwan Excellence Gaming Cup 2017, where the top eight teams from all over India faced each other at the Mumbai Infinity mall. However, all his accolades did not come easy; they are the result of sheer hard work. “I usually game for 8-10 hours a day on weekends and holidays, and four to five hours during the weekdays,” he says. He feels that people should take gaming more seriously and be passionate about it instead of playing just for fun. “Parents should support their kids if they want to become professional gamers as many are actually making a career out of it these days,” he adds.
Lokesh, like any other sportsman, has immense respect for the game. He firmly believes that everything that happens within the game should stay within the game and a player should always respect his opponents, both inside and outside the game. So who is his role model in the gaming world? “I look up to Nathan NBK Schmitt, a professional CSGO player from France. I am very impressed with his technique and his personality. I wish to become more like him in the future,” pat comes the reply.
Music and food are the only things that accompany this lone ranger as he keeps shooting his enemies to the ground. He strongly hopes that all the amateur gamers would not stop playing competitively after losing a game initially. “As a gamer, I would advise young amateurs to keep practicing as they will eventually get better with time,” he says. His experience in gaming has made no alteration in his life and he sounds happy about it. “Every day gaming makes me more competitive and fearless because the fear of the apocalypse will always exist but so will we,” he chuckles.