CHENNAI: Sitting in front of the screen, clearing one level after another, and defeating the opponents — the life of a video gamer has not changed much after the lockdown was announced. But to their advantage, they now have a lot more time to plan strategies.
Tapping on this excitement, gaming platforms and forums are conducting online competitions to keep videogame aficionados engaged. From PubG and Call Of Duty to World Of Warcraft, Naaz Ghani compiles a list of four video gaming tournaments for those who want to take their gaming expertise online.
PubG with the team
Pro Scrims, an online gaming community in Pakistan, is hosting ‘Pro League’, an international PubG tournament, which started on May 20. Teams from around the world are welcome to participate. "We are an online mobile league. Normally we host an annual gaming event on a large scale. We invite PubG experts to attend the convention. This year the coronavirus has locked us in our homes, but we still game together online. We have over 346 teams gaming with us from all around the world this year. That’s more than what we normally host at our convention," says Bilal Jani, Coordinator at Pro Scrims. Teams of five players can register at https://inviteparadise.com/index.php?/forms/1-pro-league-pakistan-ft-pro-scrims Registrations open. Fees: PKR 1,000. Cash prices ranging from PKR 1,000 to PKR 1,20,000 will be handed out to 16 winning teams.
The Gamers Company
This gaming community in India is also hosting a PubG tournament, but only for Indian teams. They take daily registrations and the tournaments will continue till May 26. "PubG has a massive following here in India. We have been hosting weekly tournaments since the beginning of the lockdown. After receiving a positive response and multiple requests, we are hosting ‘Playerunknowns Battleground’, a PubG league," says Rajeev Agarwal, admin of The Gamers Company Facebook page.
Registrations are priced at Rs 100 per player. The player with the highest kills will receive a cash price and an iPhone 11 Pro. To register, contact your city’s representative: Pimpri Chinchwad MC: Kalpesh - 9922919293, Rest of Pune: Rizwan - 9850654949, Bengaluru: Sinan - 8904444928, Kolkata: Sahin - 9831507912, Lonavala: ADI - 8605600586, Rest of India: Sameer - 8007333266
Gamers' paradise
Strategicon, a group of online as well as offline gamers, founded in 1977, California, has been a host to one of the largest gaming conventions, Gamex, in the United States. They have raffles, video game tournaments, role-playing games and board games. This year due to the lockdown, they have gone virtual and set up Virtual Gamex till today, from 10 am to 4 pm where people can participate in these games from their homes — even those from India!
"Because of COVID-19 we had to cancel the physical convention of Gamex, but we came through with Virtual Gamex for everyone sitting idle at home. We have people of all ages enrolling in our games this year. Even some of our senior crowd has taken to internet games," says Paul Gouther, coordinator and PR at Strategicon.
The event is playing host to games like Minecraft, Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator and the World of Warcraft Classic: The running of the classic Gnomes. For details, visit: strategicon.net. Registrations are free.
Attend the call
Call of Duty has been around since 2003. With a major fanbase in India and all around the world, multiple communities have formed to act as unions for different clans. One such community called 'Call of duty gaming' in collaboration with another forum is hosting a mobile league for Call Of Duty.
"Call of duty gaming, our page will be doing daily, weekly and/or monthly tournaments for people to have fun on Battle Royale and possibly multiplayer, all on a private server. The games will be screen-recorded from a PC monitor that will be spectating each player so no one gets missed out on the video upload," says Vishal Bhardwaj, admin of Call of Duty Facebook page.
They have organised a tournament on June 1 from 12 noon onwards. "Players will have to search for the username — ‘call of duty gaming tournament’ on the online search bar in the game to enter the tournament. No password/passcode will be required," Vishal says.