Coming soon…

indie youth fest 2009 - digital delirium poster

Despite the changes to the Electronic Sports World Cup 2009 as announced by Games Services France, i.e. the sad demise of the world revered e-sport tournament due to lack of sponsorship funding, Go International Group is still keen to support the electronic sports fraternity by organising an e-sport tournament at its annual INDEPENDENT YOUTH FESTIVAL at 1 Utama from 29 July – 2 August, 2009 kickstarting with the Selangor Road Show on 1 & 2 August at 1 Utama Shopping Centre (High Street & Rainforest), followed by a series of Road Shows nationwide in September, and returning to 1 Utama Shopping Centre again from 14-18 October 2009 for the 5-day festival of digital mayhem! Get ready, gamers for another challenge of your lifetime!

INDIE YOUTH FEST 09 will provide a platform for * indie musicians * dancers * entrepreneurs * fashionistas * gen Y greenies * video gamers * casual gamers * social entrepreneurs * multimedia design artists * and more!

Want to know more? Email us today KL@gointernationalgroup.com

What happened at Indie Youth Fest 2008 …

Media Release

Media inquiries:
Jasmine Low
National Director – ESWC 2009 MALAYSIA www.eswc.com/malaysia
Managing Director – GO INTERNATIONAL GROUP SDN BHD . the marketing solutions company .
Incorporating NOVApr – integrated communication consultancy

Master Licensees
DIGITAL WEEK –  INDIE YOUTH FEST // ELECTRONIC SPORTS WORLD CUP
24-26 APRIL 2009, THE SPRING KUCHING
27-31 MAY 2009, 1 UTAMA SHOPPING CENTRE KL

Suite 12B, Jln SS20/10 Damansara Kim
Petaling Jaya 47400 Selangor DE Malaysia
Tel: (603) 7727 0093 | Fax: (603) 7727 3093

Call me +6017 623 0288
Email me  jasminelow@gointernationalgroup.com
This is us @ www.gointernationalgroup.com

Hello there! Welcome to the ESWC 2009 Malaysia official blog!

The 2009 season has begun and we’ll be announcing details by March 2009. Gamers, are you ready for another round of the world’s most exciting e-sports championship? This year, we’ll be bringing a delegation of pro-gamers to compete against the rest of the world at the World Finals in Bercy Paris, France. For more info on the World Finals, visit www.eswc.com.

Competition rules and Games Settings Overview

Counter-Strike – 5vs5

* Game version: Counter-Strike 1.6
* Map pool: de_dust2, de_inferno, de_nuke, de_train, de_tuscan
* Games settings: max round 15, round time 1 minutes 45, start money 800
* Complete Rules

Warcraft III The Frozen Throne – 1vs1

* Game version: latest available version
* Map pool: Echo Isles, Secret Valley, Melting Valley, Turtle Rock, Twisted Meadows
* Games settings: gameplay «Fast»
* Complete Rules

Trackmania – 1vs1vs1vs1

* Game version: TMN Forever (or latest available version)
* Tracks: official pack of tracks released each two months files.eswc.com/regulations/2009/files/trackmania
* Match format: Cup mod, point limit 100, round limit 5, number of winner 2
* Complete Rules

Unofficial Games:

DOTA
PES / FIFA

ESWC 2009 General Regulations Overview

* Players and clubs must be duly registered on www.eswc.com and must have subscribed to a 2009 season’s license.
* Players must have the nationality of the preliminary’s country they will represent. If the preliminary covers more than one country, players must have the nationality of one country represented in the preliminary.
* For a player with more than one nationality, the nationality will be defined by the country of the first preliminary tournament the player attends. After the choice, players cannot change the country they represent during the season.
* Teams have to determine their nationalities and, in consequence, play the preliminaries of the country they represent. A team’s nationality is determined by the majority of all players’ nationalities. In the case of teams of 5 players, the majority is three or more players of the same nationality. Accepted nationality compositions: 5/0, 4/1, 3/2 or 3/1/1. A team of 5, without at least 3 players of the same nationality will not be eligible for ESWC Grand Final.
* Players must be at least 16 years old on the first day of the ESWC 2009 Grand Final.
* Complete Regulations

Creation of the “Defending Champion” rule

* For individual games, selected as ESWC official disciplines, winners of ESWC Grand Finals are granted of an autoberth to attend to the succeeding edition. This autoberth is granted to the natural person only and will not be transferable in any case.

* For games played in team, selected as ESWC official disciplines, winning teams of ESWC Grand Finals are granted of an autoberth to attend to the succeeding edition. This autoberth is granted to the club officially registered to the Grand Final and will not be transferable. To apply to the defending champion autoberth, the club will have to include in its team’s line-up, for the Grand Final, a majority of players who have won the previous edition. In the case of teams of 5 players, the majority is three or more players.
o If the granted club cannot confirm its team’s line-up, 60 days before the ESWC Grand Final, with a majority of players that have won the previous edition, the Defending Champion autoberth is definitely canceled.
o If the winning team’s club doesn’t exist anymore 60 days before the ESWC Grand Final, and if ALL the players who have won the previous edition are registered in another team’s club on www.eswc.com, then the Defending Champion autoberth is granted to this club. (This rule is not applicable if the original club still has a team playing competitions).

Defending Champions for ESWC Grand Final 2009 will be, in consequence, confirmed early May.

By IAN YEE

The Sendi Mutiara Multimedia Grand National DotA tournament was a huge success.

COMPUTER games have long been the bane of many a parent, and one of the biggest culprits would have to be the Warcraft custom scenario Defense of the Ancients, better known as DotA.

The highly addictive RPG (role-playing game) has had youngsters flooding cyber cafes over the last four or five years where they’d spend hours building up their characters, called Heroes, and battling each other in a strategy game-like map.

Of course, that would sound like trouble to most parents. But as of last weekend, it could also sound like a nice, melodious “ka-ching”.

We’re talking money. Lots and lots of money. The Sendi Mutiara Multimedia Grand National DotA Tournament (SGNDT) held last weekend at Berjaya Times Square gave away a whopping RM120,000 in prize money, a Malaysian record for a pro-gaming competition, to some of the best DotA teams in Asia.

Team Ehome from China emerged as champions of the SMM Grand National DotA Tournament, pocketing RM36,000 in cash along with other prizes.

Over 50 teams representing seven countries from as far as China and Russia, signed up to play for the huge payout, though the latter had to withdraw due to unsuccessful visa application.

A testament to how big a cash cow this tournament was is that internationally renowned names like China’s Ehome, global electronic sports organisation Fnatic as well as the famed PMS clan flew in for it.

With over 60 foreign individual players, the tournament also set another Malaysian record for the ‘Most International Participants in a Single Gaming Event’, as verified by the Malaysia Book of Records.

Records aside, the tournament was a huge step forward for the local pro-gaming community. Not only did it raise the bar in terms of how much teams can earn , it also provided a much needed boost, that our gamers are now of such a high standard, foreign teams are coming to our shores to take us on.

That makes it two Malaysia Book of Record entries, and two steps forward for local gamers. Now, that’s what we’d call a Double Kill.

Malaysia’s own DotA Hero

Dr Ricky Lim, president and CEO of Sendi Mutiara Multimedia, insisted that Malaysians had what it takes to be at the top of the international DotA community.

“Over the years, I’ve come to realise that the standard of Malaysian DotA teams isn’t very good. It’s extremely good! Team Kingsurf ( silver medallists at the worldwide Electronic Sports World Cup [ESWC] grand finals in California three months ago) proved that.

“So, we thought, instead of always going to other countries to play, why not we get players from the other countries to come to us?” he said.

And according to Ricky, local players were responding well to the challenge of playing against top class gaming teams.

“They haven’t been complaining at all! They’ve been saying ‘bring it on!’ and that’s the spirit we need. They’re not kiasu at all.”

In fact, Ricky believes the next step is to attract even more top teams to the annual competition, particularly by making it clear that gamers can make a healthy profit by playing in Malaysia.

“We want to make this a calendar event. We’ll try to increase the prize money each year, so that gamers in the region who are trying to earn money will come here,” he said.

“Next, we want to have American and European teams coming. They say they’re the best, so we want them to come here and prove it.”

Johor Baru-based Team Kingsurf, featuring players absorbed from ESWC gold medallists Team Zenith of Singapore, were one of the early favourites. Unfortunately, they lost to three foreign teams to claim fourth place.

Best of the best

But in terms of the best at the tournament, Team Kingsurf from Johor Baru were widely tipped as the pre-tournament favourites, particularly after they absorbed members from Team Zenith of Singapore, the team who beat them for the gold medal at ESWC.

Fnatic’s Indonesian DotA team was one of the favourites if only because of them being part of Fnatic, the Australia-based professional e-Sports organisation whose gamers have won numerous honours.

The two PMS (which stands for Pandora’s Mighty Soldiers) teams also attracted plenty of attention, for obvious reasons.

But in the end, it was Ehome, one of the best teams in China, who made the grand final along with Team Evo-xtc of Singapore.

And with plenty of DotA fans watching the match intently on large screens, the atmosphere was pretty intense. But in the end, it was Ehome who managed to deal Evo-xtc a killer blow, earning themselves RM36,000 in the process.

Even though the best Malaysian team, Kingsurf, only managed fourth place, Ehome’s captain Dong Can, aka Ehome DC, had some encouraging words for our boys.

“The Malaysian teams definitely have the ability, and they put us under a lot of pressure.

But we were really hoping to play Kingsurf in the final. We’d met them before and they’re a very good team. We even prepared special strategies on how to beat them before coming here!” said Dong.

Lee Vei Xiang, aka PapaXiong from Kingsurf, believes they had no one else but themselves to blame for the loss.

“I threw the game away. I shouldn’t have lost so early on but these things happen,” said the 18-year-old.

Bright future

The silver lining for our local gamers however, is that the quality of the competition, in terms of opponents, prize money and quality, are all improving.

“The event was very well-organised. There were many teams, and even then they managed to work out the schedules. It was a bit tight at times, but all in all, I think gaming competitions in China have a lot to learn from this. We don’t normally have as many participants, and we compete online most of the time. There are also very few competitions that give out more than US$10,000 (like SGNDT),” said Dong.

With teams up to 16th place winning at least RM100 in consolation prizes, and even the eighth placed team pocketing RM1,000 along with five Edifier iPod Speakers and five Warcraft Battlechests, the SGNDT is one of the most lucrative competitions in the region.

Fourth placed Kingsurf bagged RM5,000, five Seagate 120GB external hard drives and Silverstone Mouses, while the second and third placed teams got RM18,000 and RM10,000 respectively along with external hard drives and other gaming gear.

And still, Ricky promised during the closing ceremony to make the competition even more lucrative next year by bringing in more sponsors, inviting more foreign teams and spreading the gospel of DotA to even more young gamers.

Now that would be a Monster Kill.

THEY might look like the cute, young groupies of some big team at the SMM Grand National Final DotA Tournament (SGNDT). But beneath all that sugar, spice and everything nice, these five girls are actually part of one of the most famous gaming clans in the world.

Pandora’s Mighty Soldiers (PMS) is a professional female gaming group that has teams all over the world, on various types of consoles as well as computers, and PMS Nyx of Singapore is one of the latest additions to their stable of deadly ladies.

Cynthia Sta Maria, the team’s most senior player, explained how their team was selected to play DotA under the PMS banner.

“We were playing an online competition, and they noticed us. They asked if we were interested in joining them, and now we’re their first Asian DotA team,” she said.

(From left) Kimberlyn See, Cassandra Chan, Nema Nair, Cynthia Sta Maria and Lim Jia Yi of Singapore-based Team PMS Nyx, one of two all-girl teams at the SMM Grand National DotA Tournament.

Though they won their first match, an exhibition game against another all-girl team, the five students didn’t fare too well in the group stages of the tournament proper and were eliminated.

Cynthia, for one, won’t deny that the guys have a natural advantage when it comes to gaming.

“The guys are obviously better, because they have nothing else to do but play! They can just eat, sleep and play for as long as they want. But we can’t! We have to go shopping!” said Cynthia.

Her teammate Cassandra added: “But that’s pretty much all we do as well – we eat, sleep, study, play and shop. And oh yeah, we have our boyfriends.”

However, Kimberlyn See, 17, has an ex-boyfriend to thank for introducing her to the game, though she did feel like the guys constantly underestimated her.

“I started playing because I found it interesting watching him play. But the guys do tend to look down on girls. We were once playing a WCG (World Cyber Games) match against a male team, and they drafted four carriers and one catcher. It felt like they were being complacent because carriers only grow stronger later in the game. But we ended up beating them,” said Kimberlyn.

As for the attention that comes with being an all-girls group at a gaming competition, they prefer to just ignore it.

“I don’t think I get any guys interested in me anyway,” said Kimberlyn. “It’s a good thing too, because we’re not here for the popularity. We’re here to play.”

“Except for (teammate Lim) Jia Yi maybe,” added Cassandra. “She’s still single and available!”

Go International Group arranged for Neha Nair (USA) and also Cynthia (SG) of Team PMS Nyx and Vivien (MAS) of Team PMS Asterisk to appear on 8TV Quickie’s Tech Talk. They did very well. Good work, galz! Hosts: Belinda and Henry.

As part of The Star’s Merdeka special, The Star In.Tech interviewed Damien Law of WarMart Sdn Bhd on his very interesting job. View it here:

By IAN YEE

FROM playing computer games together as teenagers to meeting the Prime Minister and receiving his personal endorsement, the four youngsters who make up the core of Team Kingsurf have sure come a long way.

Though it hasn’t always been a smooth ride, Kingsurf have established themselves as one of the best professional gaming teams in the country, a fact nailed home when they won a silver medal in the Warcraft DotA category at the Electric Sports World Cup (ESWC) international gaming tournament in San Jose, California, less than two months ago.

But it all started out with four computer games fans in Johor Baru who played together in cyber cafes, just like hundreds of thousands of teenagers out there.

“We were just having fun playing games together,” said Lee Vei Siang, who goes by the monicker PapaXiong.

“It’s not like it was our ambition or plan to do any of this.”

But even though they have had to struggle at times with problems ranging from their parents’ disapproval to inadequate broadband connection, things still managed to click together for Papaxiong and his friends Mar Yung Chia (XIaOmAa), Lee Wen Chek (Xiaogui), and Ng Wei Poong (Yamateh).

Back in the early days of their gaming career, the guys were getting so good at DotA (one of the most popular games these days), that the Kingsurf cyber café where they played decided to sign them up. They were assigned a manager who would register them up for competitions and they have not looked back since then.

Team Kingsurf (from left) Ng Kim Jen, Ng Wei Poong, Mar Yung Chia, Lee Wen Chek and Lee Vei Siang with the ESWC head referee

Moving to the top

“Since last September or October, we’ve played about fifteen local competitions, and we’ve not lost a single one,” said PapaXiong.

“We’ve lost some games, but we’ve always ended up first place at the end of those competitions. The last time we’ve lost a tournament was the Asian Cyber Games in Singapore in August, where we came in third.”

And while the local professional gaming scene might not be as lucrative compared to in other countries, it was still pretty good money considering their young age.

“We’d win a couple of thousand ringgit at smaller competitions, but the bigger ones would give out several thousand more,” added PapaXiong, who is just 18 this year.

The ironic thing though, is that the one competition that they had lost in the last year was the one that bagged them the jackpot.

Although they lost to Team Zenith from Singapore at the ESWC finals, the five-man team (having added Ng Kim Jen, or Sakura, from Malacca) still ended up pocketing US$8,000 (RM28,000).

But even before the competition, it was already evident that Kingsurf were going to the next level in their gaming careers.

Having won the local ESWC competition out of 1,027 individual participants and along with it the chance to represent Malaysia at San Jose, Kingsurf were granted an audience with Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi who was kind enough to give the team his vote of confidence.

“It was really nice to get that kind of recognition,” said Yamateh, also 18.

“I thought he’d be really serious, but he was actually very warm and friendly with us.”

And since their landmark win, Team Kingsurf seem to have been getting their 15 minutes in the spotlight. With a few media interviews under their belt, some articles already out in the papers and even an appearance on 8TV’s Quickie, Kingsurf could well be on their way to being Malaysia’s first high-profile pro-gaming team.

Proud moment: Team Kingsurf manager Eryc Wei Zhen greets Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi as the team members look on.

Trouble at the top

However, being at the top of their game comes with a huge downside as well.

“We’ve already been banned from a lot of competitions,” said XIaOmAa. “Especially the smaller ones where we can win a couple of thousand ringgit.”

The team’s honest analysis of the situation is, that they are just too good for their own good.

“The other teams that go for these smaller competitions know that if we take part, we’ll win,” said Sakura matter-of-factly.

PapaXiong added: “They say we should give a chance to other Malaysian teams, because we already have a lot of experience (in competitions). I think a lot of other teams have been complaining about us taking away opportunities from them.”

Because of the ban imposed on them by many local competition organisers, they are often left struggling for funds.

“We’d really like to make this (pro-gaming) our careers, but there’s just not enough money in it now. The amount of money we earn a month depends on how many tournaments we win,” said Yamateh.

And since they’re already banned from many competitions, the team is forced to look for overseas tournaments, but that comes with its own set of problems.

“We were supposed to play in a tournament in China next month, but I think we won’t be able to go because we can’t find enough sponsors,” PapaXiong explained.

“There aren’t many sponsors in Malaysia, and we often have to look for funding from Singapore.”

It’s not just the funding that sometimes limits the development of gaming in Malaysia. According to the guys, the local broadband connection plays a significant role too.

“In terms of skills, we’ve proved at ESWC that we’re on the same level as the rest of the world. Every team was the champion in their respective countries after all,” said Sakura.

“But we could’ve been better because we’ve always had a disadvantage with our net connection – it’s lagging compared to other countries, and so we don’t get to practise with different teams online.”

Best buddies: One of the most crucial things Kingsurf members work on in training sessions like this one, is to come up with new strategies and tactics together.

Secret to success

But take nothing away from these five youngsters, as according to PapaXiong, becoming pro-gamers isn’t as easy as just playing computer games.

“There’s a big difference between playing and training,” he says. “When we first started out, we were just playing around. But now we have to be serious when we practise, because it’s important for the whole team.”

According to Yamateh, their training schedule is quite simple.

“I’m either training or sleeping. I work as a shampoo boy now because I’m training to be a hairstylist. But apart from that, as long as I’m awake, I’ll be training,” he said.

They train an average of six hours a day, or at least three hours. They work on new tactics and strategies, communication, and teamwork; and it’s all on just one game €“ DotA.

Naturally, it can be quite a chore.

“It does feel like a job sometimes,” said XIaOmAa. “Imagine having to play eight hours of the same game every day! It can get boring sometimes.

“What I do when I get bored is turn on MSN and chat with some girls,” he added cheekily.

But it’s their work ethic that makes them such a strong team, says PapaXiong.

“I’m not sure if you can call this a secret to success, but we just work as hard as we can. That’s why we weren’t surprised when we did so well at ESWC. We had put in a lot of effort, and I believe success will come naturally when you do that,” he said.

“And we’re all still pretty good friends now. We have good relationships with each other, and we make it a point to talk things out after games.”

Still, with that amount of dedication to a computer game, in a society where it is considered a worthless pastime for maladjusted youths, it was almost certain that the guys would meet some resistance from their families.

“Of course my parents were quite unhappy about it at first. But then they started to notice that I was getting somewhere with it. And you have to prove that you can manage your time as well,” said PapaXiong.

“And it’s not like they can really do anything about it any more!” XIaOmAa added jokingly.

Their family support at the moment is very important for the team, because most of the top players are usually around 18, and the lifespan of a professional gamer isn’t long.

“A lot depends on which game is popular. We only play DotA now, but unfortunately it’s not as spectator-friendly as Counter Strike. So in the future we might have to change to other games,” said Sakura.

“We might also lose a bit of sharpness after a while,” added PapaXiong.

“It’s common knowledge that those around 18 are the best, because once you get past that age your reactions and instincts will slow down.

“So, we’ll just have to make the most of it now.”

On Monday, 8TV Quickie team hosted three members from Kingsurf on set at their Bandar Utama studios. Sadly, as Kingsurf are proficient in Mandarin and not English, they were not able to express themselves as they usually are a very vivacious bunch. Yes, they are! Anyhow, good job to Yamateh, Sakura and XiaOmA!

Visit www.8tv.com.my and click on The Quickie Show, 22 September 2008.

Hey peeps! While we were in San Jose 3 weeks ago, it wasn’t just about e-sports this time at ESWC. There were halls dedicated to Women Gamers titled “Girl Gamer Zone”, the successful attempt for the longest LAN party (over 3 days. it was initially planned for the largest but we guessed the numbers didn’t make it so creatively, the organisers decided to just extend it), and then there were loads of presentations and keynote speeches which our Malaysian team had unfortunately missed as we were involved in the competition. Well, here’s something which we did manage to check out at the closing ceremony. The Mythbusters’ Jamie and Adam conducting and extraordinary act to demonstrate how GPU works in parallel with CPU.

Jamie & Adam – the mythbusters @ NVISION08

NVISION08 Guinness World Record at a glance

NVISION08 Video Games Live feat. Super Mario Bros

DEMOSCENE – this is super cool!