India Gaming Carnival presents Dummies Guide to Scamming Indian E-Sports

Indian E-Sports continues to stand the test of time thanks to people from WTF Eventz and others who’ve successfully managed to sabotage the pride of Indian E-Sports and any future of large scale events.

Earlier this year, we reported the Indian Gaming Carnival (earlier called GameCON) as the biggest event in this part of the world. Yea, the event was big and so was the promise. The event was one of it’s kind and many involved directly or indirectly with the professional gaming scene in India had a lot of expectations from the event. However, it turns out that it was actually the biggest fail Indian E-Sports rendezvoused with.

The event touted the following,

-Spanning over 21.8 acres at Ayatti a super premium property in Greater Noida.
-Over 200,000 expected attendees with 20,000 gamers in a period of 3 days.
-Prize money of Rs 1.5 Cr (USD 300,000) in total.
-After Party each day with category ‘A’ performances.
-Various international teams and players participating in the tournaments.
-Gaming across all verticals – PC, Console, Mobile/Tabs.
-Celebrity Visits.
-Exhibit space for over 200 brands.
-Attempt to break Guinness world records.
-Seminars on various aspects of Gaming.
-Dress as a Gaming/Anime character and win prizes (COSPLAY).
-Product launches and various other activities.

Not only has this event failed Indian E-Sports and anything to do with the phrase “large event,” the event also destroyed the sand castle that Indian Professional Gamers have tried to fortify for so long. We’ve got some information to help justify the argument.

The venue, Ayatti convention center in Noida, Greater Delhi, neither had electricity nor internet on Day 1. Apparently, Battlefield 3 and StarCraft 2 gamers were even ticked off by the organizers who were not sure if they were to host or cancel these games. Fortunately, BF3 and SC2 gamers got together at a friends place and organized their events much to the surprise and satisfaction of pro-gamers from these two game communities. Karthik Gopal, StarCraft 2 professional gamer from India had to write, “We went and ran a tournament completely out of a friends place. 14 pc’s linked with the internet and ran the WHOLE SC2 and BF3 Tournament without your help (IGC).”

“Lies, bullshit and more lies. Now what I put down as the story is what I heard. I don’t know how much is true and how much is not, but this seems the popular opinion,” he adds.

WTF Eventz, organizers of the event partnered with Game Orbit and one Mr. Upendra Singh Rana, director of GenNext companies couldn’t get moving parts of the logistics together, failing to provide good performance computers or even tables and chairs to participants who’ve traveled to the venue from all over the country. According to Karthik, some gaming organization was denied a contract following which they lodged a concern with the Tax Department who siezed WTF Eventz assets including computers and other equipment required to run the PC pro-gaming segment of the event.

Considering that the event had no hardware partners like Alienware, nVidia, AMD or platform holders like Sony India or Microsoft India partnering or sponsoring the event, tax inspectors seizing assets was probably the biggest blow that the organizers and pro-gamers on the PC received.

“Since their assets were seized, there was no money. How could they save face? Getting in the shittiest tables (dusty, broken chairs). Those chairs were like someone raped them. You couldn’t sit on them and we ended up taking IGC’s posters to use as table cloth,” Karthik shares his frustration.

Dusty, Broken Tables and Chairs await Professional Gamers

IGC also saw teams from abroad come over to claim gold, players from Hong Kong, Thailand and notably Moscow 5 for Counter Strike from Russia. Very easily, this is one of their first experiences, the worst and probably the last they’ll ever have.

Team Moscow 5 for Counter Strike

Moscow 5 manager dd1ms had to share words about the experience his team had at the event. He was pretty vocal about it but, who wouldn’t be? After reading what he had to write, you’d agree.

“Thanks God my team passed registration at Indian airport, and i can start speaking much louder. Honestly i was really worried about guys health and even their life regarding the latest news from Delhi. Actually i just wanted to WIN the event and make my player wallet more heavy, but yesterday the event was repidly shutted down and organisers ran away. They hoped M5 will leave the tournament before finals. But i have bought new tickets. So they just TURN OFF electricity”

“M5.CS manager recorded all that “Indian Gaming Carnival” and when he met the Kushagra (i cant call this son of a bitch Mr.Kushagra) he showed him the video and also did record the conversation with him. The Kushagra understood what has happened, that video was important for his reputation.”

“While Moscow Five team was waiting taxi on the grass, 4 muscle guys (not gamers looking) was staying and watching at them. When hotel taxi came, those 4 got in the car and followed M5.CS. M5 players went to sleep, but the manager was making video and uploading it. After that he felt asleep too. When guys woke up they understood that cash money was stolen and 8Gb memory stick was ejected from the camera and dissapeared. Nothing else was taken.”

“That stupid Kushgara and his helper Mukesh (the IGC organisers-rippers) really think it may save their ass. It will not. The E-Sport community will know the truth. On Friday 13th i am gonna make the live stream with M5.CS manager Aleksander Ovsyanko.”

The thing is that i dont want you  to take pity of CS players. I want you to realise that INDIA must be closed for E-Sport forever.
Fnatic and NaVi managers told me: Dima its fake! Dont visit ICG 2012. I should listen to them. “

“Now i ask all E-Sport community listen to me. Please dont attent to any events in India. You may be fucked even in airport. The mafia may come to your room and fuck you sleeping. I cannot damage to Kushgara and Mukesh physically because im in Moscow, Russia. But i really want…”

“I hope Indian Pro-Gamers will do that for me.”

While that was pretty vocal, a lot of people now know Moscow 5′s displeasing trip to India. As a matter of fact, they’ve also gotten a video up to show how the organizer, Mr. Kushagra co-operated with the team. Find that below,

Seeing the pathetic state of affairs that Moscow 5 had to experience, they’re finally relieved that they were able to go back home in one piece.

Indian Gaming Carnival turned out to be one of the most pathetic representations of Indian E-Sports. Although, TheGameMinistry exposed the state of events from the Ayatti Convention Center however, some attendees seemed to take no notice to this whatsoever. WTF Eventz and the rest of the organizers have no track record of professional gaming or any involvement with the industry in anyway. The whole architecture of Indian E-Sports has been built by people who’ve worked really hard to change it’s trajectory. Events like Indian Cyber Gaming Championship by Re-Inforcement, GameKshetra by DSK SupInfocom and Xtreme Gaming’s BYOC have proven that organizing a large scale event is easy when you’re trusted and known in the e-sports community.

WTF Eventz has no record of hosting any events of a smaller scale earlier. As a matter of fact, the organization was initiated in February this year. Interestingly, they’ve also got their own Terms of Use that gives them England jurisdiction. Pretty neat eh?

WTF Eventz have never been public about their sponsors following which they revealed that they’ll be funding the event with the help of 8 other unknown investors. People curious to find out what was going on were either flamed at or banned by the administrator on the Facebook page for being defamatory towards an “honest” effort being put by the organizers into growing India’s E-Sports scene.

Since we’re a purely a games website, ikoGamer.com has never really tried to include e-sports a la carte. However, since the website is based out of India, the 3-day IGC fiasco has shocked us beyond belief and we’d like to take this opportunity to thank all teams from abroad for taking time out to visit India. Most importantly, on behalf of every Indian gamer, we offer you our sincere apologies for the pathetic experience you’ve had. Indian Gaming Carnival is a disgusting display of organizing E-Sports and unfortunately, has hit Indian Professional Gaming very hard. It’s a great loss of respect and pride that these hard working professional gamers have  strived to build and is indeed one of the biggest blemishes on the Indian Professional Gaming Timeline.

Please Note: This is a cross post from ikoGamer.com where I write.