The long awaited and hyped Electronic and Gaming Expo organized by WTF eventz kicked off here at the Ayatti Caparo International Convention Centre in Greater Noida. On my way, several friends called me up and told me how despite the 10:00 AM starting time, they had to wait out in the maddening sun for a good number of hours as the things inside were still being setup. This carried on for a couple of hours and eventually, they entered the main hall. Tucked away from the hustle and bustle of the city, the venue was quite nice with a huge front lawn and a nice looking building. Since I was already running late due to some traffic snarls, I simply couldn’t wait to rush past the entrance and set things up. To my surprise, as soon as I entered the main hall thinking it would be a huge relief from the scorching heat outside, the air-conditioning was not working. I looked around and there were people wandering all over the place aimlessly. Some decided to camp on the floor while others took the 1st floor and the stairs leading to the same. On the first floor were some people looking around as if waiting for the golden words that would redeem them. To my right side was the console section where the PS3′s were still being setup – at 2 PM! I saw the busy crew of WTF Eventz scrambling through various tickets and documents. Right behind these guys was the tournament area which had no power! A number of people could be seen carrying around heavy luggage which pointed at the fact that several outstation players from all over India had turned up for the event.
A stroll through the tournament area and I realized what everyone was up against. 15″ LCD Monitors hooked to small-mid tower cabinets laughed at me as if I had just been Rick Rolled. I didn’t move for a few seconds as I was dumbstruck. Counter Strike 1.6 is played on 120 Hz 24-inch monitors worldwide. The first thing I said to myself was “Who brought these sorry pieces of equipment to a tournament with international teams flying in?” Still shocked, I proceeded with a few friends to checkout the rest of the venue. After spending some time exploring the place, we decided to camp on the first floor. Some commotion on the ground floor caught our attention though. The cosplay girls were out and about receiving instructions to take their places. I immediately recognized a face I had seen 2 days in a row at my office a few days back. The girl who was part of the team that had setup a booth to sell the IGC tickets in my office had a costume on! I wondered what happened to actual cosplay enthusiasts and those part-time models who do these gigs for extra cash and fun? I was already quite disappointed by what I had seen but still decided to move along. Seeing how countless people were flocking around the WTF crew to figure out what was going on, another disappointing news hit us. One of the generators that were supposed to solve the power crisis was held by cops. This was definitely not the IGC I had wanted to attend. It was mind boggling to see a venue of such scale with a power crisis at the last minute.
Soon, the WTF guys decided it was time to talk to the people who had been waiting for hours now. Everyone moved outside to the lawn and an announcement was made:
We really apologize for the way things have gone so far. We’re trying our best to solve the problem. However, we regret to inform you that no gaming tournaments will be played today. We’ll be setting up the consoles section to get the console tournaments going.
As expected, the crowd did not like it and surrounded the WTF organizers to bombard them with questions. Another announcement was soon made that Starcraft 2, Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty 4 tournaments would begin soon. To everyone’s dismay, the little power that had been restored went out as well and absolutely no gaming tournaments took place. Moscow 5, the Russian CS 1.6 team looked pretty disappointed, tired and frustrated as a cab was arranged for them to depart from the venue. nxtlvlGaming, the Indonesian CS 1.6 team seemed to be disappointed as well by not just the mismanagement but the rigs, the tables and lack of professionalism as stated in their brief interview. Another announcement was made and the money for the tickets and day passes was refunded.
It was evident now that nothing could be salvaged out of this situation and Day 1 was absolutely gutted due to mismanagement along with tournament and logistical inexperience. When the first day of such a hyped event goes by like this, it leaves little doubts in anyone’s mind that the whole thing had sounded dubious from the onset. Regardless, I hope IGC gets their act together, hosts the tournament with the international teams (now that they’re here) and live upto the expectation of giving away the prize money to the winners. That way, there’s much to learn about how to host a tournament while avoiding the ‘fraud’ label by paying the deserving teams their hard-earned victories. IGC have definitely something to take home from today’s conduct and need to change the way they see an eSports tournament & a Gaming expo under one roof!
Courtesy - - - - @game4nation
http://g4menation.com/
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