The addiction called gaming

“Enemy spotted. I am fagged out. Need backup,” shouts Pyrex into his microphone.

“Affirmative. I am in position. Stick together,” replies Soil who is the team leader of the Evolution Clan.

The Evolution Clan has waged a war against ‘Fragnation Clan’ that is a terrorist squad in a computer game of Counter Strike. Communication between the clan-mates seems frantic and their activities action-packed. All this is happening inside a video game parlour that can accommodate twenty gamers. 

The members of each team call each other by fancy names such as Luca, Cosmo, Jaku, Tantan, etc., and many of them  do not know the real names of their mates though they are playing with them for several months in a same cafe.

Welcome to the world of online and LAN gamers. Online and LAN (Local Area Network) gaming is as popular as Google among youth. LAN gaming is catching up fast among the youngsters of Bhubaneswar. 

There are many gamers who spend more than six hours every day and over fourteen hours on holidays playing games such as Counter Strike, Defence of the Ancients, Team Fortress 2, Unreal Tournament, etc. They play these games over LAN in gaming parlours and on the Internet in their homes.

Explaining the craze of gaming among youngsters in Bhubaneswar, Surya Narayan Sahoo, a cafe owner, says, “Gamers are a crazy lot. A group of gamers played a video game incessantly for seven days in my cafe. They were eating, drinking and playing. When one player went for a few hours’ nap another  took charge on his seat,” said  Sahoo who is among a few cafe owners who brought LAN gaming culture in the capital city.

There are many gaming teams in Bhubaneswar such as D Famers, Psychopaths, The Evolution, and Fragnation that have participated in gaming tournaments organized by engineering colleges in the State and outside. Smarjeet Mohanty is a B. Tech. student and known as Luca in gaming circles. His team D, Famers, have participated in over ten gaming tournaments.

“My team has won the gaming tournament organised at KIIT, Bhubaneswar and one organised by The Zephyr in which teams from Cuttack and Bhubaneswar participated,” he said. His team stood third in the gaming tournament organised during Spring Fest at IIT Kharagpur and were runner-ups in God of Gaming tournament held at Kolkata in 2011.

“Gaming gadgets cost money and winning these tournaments fetch us enough money to buy the gear to play these games efficiently. A gaming mouse costs up to Rs. 12,000 and a headphone up to Rs. 6,000 he added. Playing games in a cafe costs Rs. 10 to Rs. 15 an hour.

Do these gamers get scolded by their parents for spending too much time and money on gaming? “Most of us began playing games after finishing our day-to-day work. I don’t like going out with friends in the evenings and prefer staying at home and game till midnight. 

We lock ourselves in our rooms, switch off the lights and play games online quietly without letting our parents know about what is happening inside the room,” said Siddhant Mishra, a student of class 10+2 of Sai International School. Mishra said, “Sometimes my parents come to know about our late night gaming activity but I know how to convince them.”

Gamers say that it is always a thrilling, exciting and fun-filled experience because they explore new things because these games are updated almost every day to provide a rich gaming experience to users.  They believe that these games help them learn how to work in a team.

Siddhant Mahapatra, an avid video game player, says, “Gaming has helped me to learn how to work in a team. We play strategy games such as Counter Strike (CS) over Local Area Connection (LAN) in cafes. We have to co-ordinate with other team players to perform better than the opponent team.”