Battling it out, in a virtual world

Hundreds of young men sitting in neat rows keenly look at the desktops infront of them. Their eyes are not moving and ears are covered with large headphones. It seems as if they are together cracking some kind of a code or tracking criminals from a war room. All you want is to peep into their systems. Well, the imagination cannot be allowed to run riot as these chaps are only busy with their gaming sessions!

As part of the 18th edition of the BYOC 2013 or Bring Your Own Computer - India’s most popular gaming festival, thousands of gaming buffs participated in the summer edition held at Pacific Mall, Tagore Garden. Hosted by Xtreme Gaming, it was a 60-hour gaming festival with 1000 LAN. Gamers need to get in their own computers for gaming. They either participate in the tournament or just enjoy the LAN party by playing games.

For three days, participants live every minute with their games. One among them was Mukuk Sadani, who has been participating in this event since 2007 and has never missed any tournament conducted anywhere in India.

 “It is a serious zone of gamers where we talk, eat and breathe games. Pay the fee to register online, show up with your computers, connect to the LAN provided to you and let the games begin,” says Mukul.

“For three days we stay at the event site because tournament happens after every few hours and you don’t want to miss that. Then we have a LAN party where we connect to the LAN provided to us and then the casual gaming begins,” says Mukul who has always participated in the ‘Caller Duty’ tournament.

More than 5000 gamers participated in the event this year. They set to battle it out on hugely popular titles such as Counter Strike 1.6 (Pro), Counter Strike 1.6 (Semi-Pro), Call of Duty 4, League of Legends, Counter Strike Global offensive and DOTA 2, amongst others.

Vishal Dhupar, Managing Director, NVIDIA South Asia says, “This year, BYOC has received such an overwhelming response from gamers all across the country, including gaming fans from tier-2 and smaller towns. It is also exciting to see the improved quality and caliber of gamers participating at BYOC 2013.”