The Hindu Business Line : The game's on

IF you're not familiar with the world of LAN gaming, and you step into it for the first time, you realise that it actually is another world - a world where hasty instructions are passed around, while observers eagerly observe strategy, and twelve-year-old kids utter yowls of despair when losing, while curse words that would curdle your mind emanate from their adolescent lips.

But for the non-gamer, here's a brief on what LAN gaming actually is. Several gamers log on to a game on the same server and compete against one another, or team up with one another, depending on the game.

The advantage being that you have some real-life competition.

After all, no matter how good the gaming programmer, you can never play against a computer and have the same experience.

Over the last few years, no serious gamer could really be satisfied with sitting at home on the computer anymore, and consequently, a large number of gaming centres have popped up all over the country.

Led by Sify and Reliance. The Reliance Web Worlds, 245 in number over 105 cities in India, offer high-quality LAN gaming, and what's more, all the cities are connected through WAN (Wide-Area Network), so technically, you can be a terrorist on Counter Strike 2 in Hyderabad against your friend who's a counter-terrorist in Delhi.

"But people generally prefer to compete within their group of friends," says Bob Dexter, head of the Tamil Nadu operations of the Reliance Web Worlds.

"But it comes in handy when we're organising gaming tournaments between two Reliance Web Worlds in the same city, or a Chennai vs Madurai tournament, for example," he adds.

With an average of 20 machines in each Web World, and with approximately 45 to 60 footfalls a day, it sure looks like LAN gaming has caught on in a big way. "The average gamer spends nothing less than three hours," says Dexter.

He goes on to explain that two hours is conservative, and with wild shoot-em-ups, role-playing games, and the Java Green coffee shop that is a part of each store to satiate the stomach, there's no real reason why anyone would leave anytime soon.

With 25 to 30 revenue streams in each store, it's a little hard to calculate the exact profitability of LAN gaming alone, but Dexter explains that of the lounge business section of the Web Worlds (which includes browsing, gaming, business services such as scanning and photo printouts and so on), 30 per cent of the usage is for gaming. But more than that, the usage for gaming is growing at the rate of 15 per cent every month, according to Dexter.

But before the big players took over, gaming actually originated in all the small, independent Net cafes.

Zap was once a Net café/gaming parlour, but you would now feel a mild sense of surprise if you actually found someone typing an e-mail there.

Started in 1998 in Chennai as a gaming parlour, today Zap has two centres, the first with a capacity of 30 machines, and the second, 15. And it experiences an astounding 100 to 150 footfalls a day, according to Pruthu Chauhan, co-owner.

The marketing for his parlour is mostly through word of mouth, though the Zap Tourneys, held twice every month, couldn't have hurt either.

"We usually get about 8-10 teams for the Counter Strike tournament and about 7-8 teams for the Warcraft 3 tournament," says Chauhan.

This seems to be the marketing norm for LAN gaming. Such was the impact of Zap in Chennai that even the Reliance Web Worlds admit it. "Zap set the benchmark," says Dexter, "And all the early adopters of the gaming trend started off there, there were no other avenues to explore. Now the Web Worlds give them further opportunity for gaming."

And if you're a parent scanning through this article with disapproving eyes, then you should know that gaming isn't just an idle waste of time. It can take you places.

With several gaming tournaments, your son or daughter could be competing at San Francisco if he/she is successful enough. Reliance Web World has held two tournaments so far, in December 2004, and then June this year.

This year's tournament had 13,480 entries countrywide, all players of Counter Strike, in teams of five. Held over a two-week period, the tournament was held at three levels: the circle level, such as individual States, zonal finals, and then the final winners competed in Mumbai.

"It went off very smooth, it was a good experience," says Dexter. He explains that Wide Area Network is basically their own captive bandwidth, and the connection speed can be as high as necessary, and apparently, the infrastructure ran smoothly during the entire two-week period.

"If there were any disruptions, they were in terms of disputes between the participants," he says.

Reliance picked their administrators for the tournaments carefully, selecting them for their flair and ability to handle the kids rather than anything else.

"We wanted a good player, someone who can think like the participants, whom they respect," says Dexter, "You can't have this corporate guy, it just wouldn't make sense."

And apart from furthering the business of big players, LAN gaming has also played the role of the saviour. Several small Internet cafes, which were in despair at the crashing prices of Net usage, have managed to get back to profit-making ways by offering gaming at their parlours.

K. Suresh of Sancheti Internet Services (name changed on request) says, "People were unwilling to browse even for Rs 12.50 per hour, and I had to come up with all sorts of packages to keep my customer base at a reasonable level. But since I introduced gaming six months ago, I am able to charge Rs 25 an hour and people still come."

But even that is destined to go down further as competition increases. Chauhan says, "Undeniably there is pressure on margins. While we charged Rs 45 an hour in 1998, now it is as low as Rs 15 an hour depending on the time. Also, gaming computers need to be replaced annually as they become obsolete very fast."

Picture by A. Roy Chowdhury

abhinav@thehindu.co.in

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