BENGALURU: Gaming is like an escape from reality for me, just like sleep,” says Suhaas Kumbhajadala, who has been playing games since he was seven years old. “The first game I played was Midtown Madness. I liked cars a lot back then and when I found a car game in which you could do whatever you wanted to, I started playing immediately,” says the 19-year-old.
He played a variety of browser games in his early teens. In 2011, he began playing competitive games like League of Legends on his PC. “The graphics are better and PC games offer higher FPS (frames per second) which provide the user with smoother gameplay.”
His forte, however, is the game Counter-Strike : Global Offensive. Considered to be one of the hardest games to master on PC, Suhaas has played 1,360 hours of it in just a year on his laptop. “My heart beats extremely hard during intense situations in the game. It is very competitive and I get so triggered due to lag,” he adds.
In 2018, Suhaas was placed second along with three other participants in a game developing competition called Game Jam held at PES University, in which 22 teams participated. They were awarded with a cash prize of `10,000. “I felt my friends and I had a chance of success if we worked really hard,” he said.
However, he feels competitive gaming cannot be pursued in India as players do not receive familial and financial support. “Recently, the Prime Minister of Denmark visited the headquarters of ‘Astralis’ – one of the best CS:GO teams in the world, and launched a National ESports Strategy in Denmark. That kind of support will not be given here,” he adds.