Play Games for a Living
Can you play games for a living? Pay to play at Tournament.com and turn your frags into money.
By Tom Chick
“This is a news I stumbled upon on Yahoo today. I find this sort of news interesting. Why? I am not much of a gaming person but I play online games now and then. It is because my seven year old boy cannot live without playing games either on my personal computer, laptop or on my mobile phone, whenever he can get his hands on any of these devices. The beauty is, my child is able to use my mobile phone to go and search for new game downloads. When our PS2 player wasn’t malfunction then, I used to play on it also. Is this a good thing to play for money?”
Are you ready to put your money where your mouse is? UK-based Tournament.com plans to launch a service this month that will let gamers pony up an entrance fee, play a first person shooter match, and then divide the money among the winners. After the house gets its cut, of course.
“Playing games for a living. This is truly the age for the game developers as well as online game players. When I enter into any cybercafes, I find all these young adults, teenagers and even some younger children, engrossed into their online games, so much so that they were not even aware of what’s going on around them. I also know for a fact that some of the online gamers even sell their ranking position for a price, for the next person to enter that game level to continue the game. My teenage daughter tells me that.”
At launch, you’ll only be able to play Counter-Strike and Half-Life 2 death matches. Tournament.com founder Marcus Pearcey wouldn’t comment about any publishers who might have declined to participate, much less any upcoming deals. “We look forward to signing new companies in the very new future,” he said, stressing that this isn’t gambling and therefore shouldn’t be objectionable to any of the larger publishers. “Gambling rewards a player based purely on luck, while Tournament.com is a service that rewards players based on their skill. They’re two very different models.”
“I have not played the above games before but I am sure what Tournament.com offers begs to be different. Well! It remains to be seen, played and experienced. Perhaps I would give it a try.”
Nevertheless, 14 states in the US ban this sort of gaming for money, so people from those states won’t be able to participate. Also, Tournament.com requires players to fax or email proof-of-age ID, which will then be verified to ensure that no one under 18 participates. Otherwise, it’s easy to sign up and use your credit card or PayPal to set up an account. You install a fairly simple and sleek 10MB front end, and from there, you’ll be able to jump into games with variable entry fees. With enough skill, you can take your place among top winners with names like Ars- and l33tboy.
“I think placement of a minimum age limit is good as I would not want any of my own children to be able to get access to this easily. Some sort of control has to be in place. In Asia, no such ban has been in effect yet as far as I know.”
A ranking system is supposed to match you against players of a similar skill level. An anti-cheating system will presumably keep things honest. But it’s a bit disconcerting to log on and see the home page proclaiming the number of cheaters banned as if it were an accomplishment (currently at 338). “We’re confident that [our anti-cheating software] is some of the best out there and we use a combination of different anti-cheating software developed by third parties in conjunction with our internally developed Tournament Anti-Cheat, also known as TAC,” said Pearcey. “To supplement our security, we also have admins who continuously monitor in-game play, making sure that everyone is playing fair.”
“Fair enough. If I play games for a living, there is always a tendency to try out all kinds of strategy to make more money.”
Based on the beta of the program, the entrance fees range from free-to-play (i.e. practice games with no rewards) to $10. “There’s no real concrete amount that’s consistent across all of the tournaments. Winnings are also dictated by a number of factors, including whether or not the tournament has a set reward amount or instead rewards based on the number of players participating.” It’s worth noting that in beta testing, many players complained about being unable to accumulate winnings in excess of $25, which was the requirement to withdraw money during the beta. So even if you’ve got seriously 733t gaming skillz, don’t quit your day job just yet.
“So even if I try hard enough to play these games, I may not be able to make money as a living or go into it full time.”
Pearcey is aware that other companies have tried this model and failed. But he remains optimistic. “Other services, in our opinion, failed to consider the big picture about a service such as this. While it’s mainly about winning money and playing well, it’s also about fostering an environment that’s open to all players, regardless of whether they’ve been playing games for 20 years or just two days. Gaming is still about having fun and Tournament.com is completely dedicated to that idea.”
“I went onto the site. My first impression was it sounded good, exciting, new and interesting. I may find time to go and try some of the games there to see if I have the ability to make some money by playing games for a living or at least for a day or not. So hear from me soon for some updates, ok?”
Tags: make a living, online game, play games, tournament
Funny Asia News
A friend of mine, Eddy Cheong who resides in Sydney, Australia has shared with me his collection of some funny Asia News pictures you may been interested in.
Environmentally Friendly Taxi
Mirror, Mirror on the wall,
Who’s the Dumbnest of them all?
Thailand
Welcome to Bangkok Hilton!
Wordpress Blogging Seminar at Crystal Crown Hotel
Actually I have not been posting much here recently. I have been busy preparing my Wordpress Blogging Seminar on Saturday 4 August 2007 at the Crystal Crown Hotel, Petaling Jaya, Selangor.
We have had a number of blogging seminars in July 2007 at a training center but we decided to try it out at a hotel this month. And so we did.
The turn out was rather unexpected. I made arrangements for 25 seats but we had more than 30 callers who registered via SMS. Steven presented on this day and I took the role of Registration. Majority of the attendees were over 30 years above but we had a few younger ones too.
Check out these pictures. And by the way, I will be having 2 blogging seminars per month and we advertise them in The Star Metro or The Sun papers. So look out for them now and then, if you want to attend.
Tags: , malaysia, petaling jaya, wordpress blogging seminar
