CHENNAI : As his fingers dance over the keyboard, the characters on the PC screen leap and fire at each other. The playback on the screen is quickly absorbed by the gamer and used to his advantage, navigating the heroes from Overwatch for the win.The 2016 release from Blizzard Entertainment is back in the news again, with the Overwatch World Cup set to take place in the United States on November 1. Nineteen-year-old Girish VJ will be representing his country at the World Cup, akin to the gamers’ version of a football of cricket World cup.
“Like most children, I also started with Mario and other eight-pixel games. The first game I was addicted to was the first-person shooter Call of Duty, which I played when I was in class 5. I would play it alone for hours, and once my neighbours began playing with me, the journey took off,” said Girish.
The second-year engineering student at Loyola College in Chennai broke into the competitive gaming scene three years back. “I used to play DOTA at Playerz Gaming Cafe in Nungambakkam. The cafe recruited me for NVDIA cup for Overwatch. After playing a few tournaments, Mumbai-based Global E-sports picked me up and I signed with them,” he said.
As Girish had always been glued to gaming right from childhood, his family has been supportive. Currently, he has taken a break from college to practice for the World Cup. “Only seven out of 260 people get selected to participate, so it is a very big deal. I practice for about eight hours a day, and my goal is to make it to The Overwatch League,” he said.
When asked about the gaming scene in Chennai, he replied that it is consistently getting better. “Representations by Indian teams in bigger leagues will spread awareness among the public on how lucrative E-sports is as a career. Gamers sacrifice a lot — you have absolutely no social life, you have to get proper sleep and practice for hours daily. The hard work must be recognised,” he said.