What a wonderful world it would be if we could all sit at home and play games for a living, right?
That’s exactly the type of world Sheraaz Nunnian hopes to open up to the East London community through his new appointment as the Eastern Cape regional director of Mind Sports South Africa, a body which oversees the country’s professional computer gamers.
The International Dota 2 Championships is the largest international tournament, where the winning team will walk away with about $19.2-million this year (R265-million).
“I’m going to start by doing presentations at local schools then will head out from there.
“I also want to get more females in on the action. There are some who play currently but you find that when there are 50 guys playing online, there are only six girls.”
While the South African gaming community is smaller than that in the US and Europe, according to Wikipedia, it is larger than any other country in Africa, with cities such as Johannesburg and Durban said to have the biggest number of gamers due to the sufficient internet infrastructure to support them.
South Africa also has numerous gaming expos such as the rAge Expo held in Johannesburg annually.
Last year a record 33000 people attended.
In a study released by PricewaterhouseCoopers last year, it was predicted that the national gaming industry would be worth a whopping R3.6-billion by 2019.
MSSA president, Colin Webster, said South Africa currently had about 6000 registered gamers, who were made up of 53 high school players and 36 clubs, which included university players and private individuals.
Gamers register by filling out a form so they can be entered into the MSSA database. From there, they will be informed of tournaments and will receive assistance to enter.
Nunnian said because those figures increased almost daily, and the gaming industry was becoming so big, it was now possible for it to become a career choice.
“When a gamer reaches international level and plays against the world’s best they can win millions in prize money.
“There are so many gamers who have actually given up their day jobs and now game for a living around the world.
“Our vision is to get South Africa to that level,” he said, adding that daily practice was a necessity.
“You have to train, just like with any other sport, if you have any hopes of being good.
“I know there is an attitude against gaming right now because of the misconception that gamers spend a lot of time indoors not socialising but that’s not true.
“When you play online you get to interact with your teammates.
“We also meet up on weekends and go out together so it’s not like we sit in these dark rooms staring at computer screens all day.”
And, according to Nunnian, gaming actually makes people smarter.
This was echoed by Webster, who said studies have shown that gamers use up to 25% more of their brain power than non-gamers.
“It’s a no-brainer really. Don’t just look at the figures, look at the proof.
“Many high school gamers go on to university and of those, most end up studying engineering or software development, generally any kind of course where there are numbers or problem solving of some kind.
“For people who don’t understand gaming, when they see children spending hours in front of a computer screen playing games, they don’t understand these children are learning invaluable skills,” he said.
Webster added that in many of the schools they visited, an accompanying physical sport was usually a pre-requisite before the children were allowed to take up gaming.
He said: “Not every child is made to run or to play soccer or rugby.
“Some children are better at gaming then they are at catching a ball so they should be allowed to just do that if that’s what they want.”
Nunnian said players had to start from as young as possible if they had any chance of making it in the competitive gaming world.
“It’s up to us to get the younger generation ready. I’ve already started in my home. My son and my daughter play when I’m playing.
“I want my daughter to get as good as I am then I’ll know that if she wants, she has a gaming career ahead of her which will leave her set for life money-wise.”
He explained that by using software called teamspeak, only those who had registered their IP addresses and were know to him would get to play on his team – which prevents unknown people engaging with his children.
Webster said there were no professional gamers in South Africa because there were no tournaments with winning purses that were large enough. — zisandan@dispatch.co.za
Chance for EL gamers to battle big
That’s exactly the type of world Sheraaz Nunnian hopes to open up to the East London community through his new appointment as the Eastern Cape regional director of Mind Sports South Africa, a body which oversees the country’s professional computer gamers.
The International Dota 2 Championships is the largest international tournament, where the winning team will walk away with about $19.2-million this year (R265-million).
“I’m going to start by doing presentations at local schools then will head out from there.
“I also want to get more females in on the action. There are some who play currently but you find that when there are 50 guys playing online, there are only six girls.”
While the South African gaming community is smaller than that in the US and Europe, according to Wikipedia, it is larger than any other country in Africa, with cities such as Johannesburg and Durban said to have the biggest number of gamers due to the sufficient internet infrastructure to support them.
South Africa also has numerous gaming expos such as the rAge Expo held in Johannesburg annually.
Last year a record 33000 people attended.
In a study released by PricewaterhouseCoopers last year, it was predicted that the national gaming industry would be worth a whopping R3.6-billion by 2019.
MSSA president, Colin Webster, said South Africa currently had about 6000 registered gamers, who were made up of 53 high school players and 36 clubs, which included university players and private individuals.
Gamers register by filling out a form so they can be entered into the MSSA database. From there, they will be informed of tournaments and will receive assistance to enter.
Nunnian said because those figures increased almost daily, and the gaming industry was becoming so big, it was now possible for it to become a career choice.
“When a gamer reaches international level and plays against the world’s best they can win millions in prize money.
“There are so many gamers who have actually given up their day jobs and now game for a living around the world.
“Our vision is to get South Africa to that level,” he said, adding that daily practice was a necessity.
“You have to train, just like with any other sport, if you have any hopes of being good.
“I know there is an attitude against gaming right now because of the misconception that gamers spend a lot of time indoors not socialising but that’s not true.
“When you play online you get to interact with your teammates.
“We also meet up on weekends and go out together so it’s not like we sit in these dark rooms staring at computer screens all day.”
And, according to Nunnian, gaming actually makes people smarter.
This was echoed by Webster, who said studies have shown that gamers use up to 25% more of their brain power than non-gamers.
“It’s a no-brainer really. Don’t just look at the figures, look at the proof.
“Many high school gamers go on to university and of those, most end up studying engineering or software development, generally any kind of course where there are numbers or problem solving of some kind.
“For people who don’t understand gaming, when they see children spending hours in front of a computer screen playing games, they don’t understand these children are learning invaluable skills,” he said.
Webster added that in many of the schools they visited, an accompanying physical sport was usually a pre-requisite before the children were allowed to take up gaming.
He said: “Not every child is made to run or to play soccer or rugby.
“Some children are better at gaming then they are at catching a ball so they should be allowed to just do that if that’s what they want.”
Nunnian said players had to start from as young as possible if they had any chance of making it in the competitive gaming world.
“It’s up to us to get the younger generation ready. I’ve already started in my home. My son and my daughter play when I’m playing.
“I want my daughter to get as good as I am then I’ll know that if she wants, she has a gaming career ahead of her which will leave her set for life money-wise.”
He explained that by using software called teamspeak, only those who had registered their IP addresses and were know to him would get to play on his team – which prevents unknown people engaging with his children.
Webster said there were no professional gamers in South Africa because there were no tournaments with winning purses that were large enough. — zisandan@dispatch.co.za
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