IRVINE, Calif. - About two dozen mostly twenty-something men sat in a tent at the Irvine Spectrum mesmerized by a man playing computer games.
All eyes were on the 19-inch monitor of a man called Fatal1ty, a celebrity who inspires them to ask for autographs. Fatal1ty, aka Johnathan Wendel, arguably the best-known professional computer gamer in the United States, joined 200 finalists in Irvine on Tuesday and Wednesday for a chance to represent the United States this fall at the World Cyber Games in Seoul, Korea.
That's right. It's a video game Olympics.
Video gaming is on its way to becoming a bona fide sport. It's already a cultural phenomenon in countries such as Korea, where professional gamers are treated like rock stars and fans flock to tournaments to watch their favorite players duke it out on PCs. In the United States, the video game industry has attracted sponsors, raised some gamers to celebrity status and supports a professional league, the Cyberathlete Professional League.
"We have salaries, practice daily. We have a manager," said David "Moto" Geffon, 21, the leader of Team 3D, one of the best teams worldwide in the shooter game Half-Life: Counter-Strike. Team 3D's sponsors include nVidia Corp. and CompUSA.
Geffon won't divulge his income, except to say, "It's enough to live off of."
The 200 finalists were chosen from 300 mini-tournaments nationwide in six events - six computer games and the Xbox console game Halo. Seventeen finalists were picked as members of Team USA for the international event in October. U.S. organizers estimate the activities cost about $3 million.
But few players here are professionals, said Joe Moss, executive director of the United Cyber Games Association, the U.S. arm of the international organization.
"In the U.S., the majority of the top gamers look to break even or exceed their costs," he said. "We've certainly not reached the level of Korea."
Ahh, Korea. That's where the World Cyber Games originated three years ago.
In Korea, gamers can make more than $1 million a year. One game, StarCraft by Irvine-based Blizzard Entertainment, even inspired a book called "Starconomics," which analyzes how the Korean economy was jump-started by the StarCraft phenomenon.
"The game community in Korea is light-years ahead of" us, Moss said. "Gamers are considered celebrities. I like to joke that it's the only country you can pick up woman by saying you're a gamer."
That fanaticism has begun to creep into American culture, believes Douglas Lowenstein, president of the Entertainment Software Association.
"The fact that you have a formation of professional-league gamers is a reflection of the fact that games have come out of the living room. They are an increasingly central part of the culture, particularly for people who have grown up with technology," he said.
According to ESA research, the average gamer is 29 years old - a person who was introduced to Atari as a toddler and got into Nintendo and Sega as a teenager.
U.S. consumers continue to buy more games each year, shelling out $6.9 billion last year, about 10 percent more than in 2001, according to The NPD Group, a market research firm.
Supporters of this year's World Cyber Games include computer companies D-Link Systems in Irvine and Brea-based eVGA.com Corp. A big reason for their support is that gamers are a target audience, because they tend to spend money on the best technology, said Bradley Morse, D-Link's vice president of marketing.
"If you throw a gigabit Ethernet switch to a gamer, he maximizes the use of it," Morse said. "It's the gamers who run (technology) through the paces."
Technology was a big draw. Finalists received a computer.
That was enough to convince 20-year-old Zach Brown to pay for his airfare and hotel. He came from Rochester, N.Y., to compete in Half-Life: Counter-Strike competition, though he doesn't think his team has much of a chance.
"It was a good incentive to get us to come to (Irvine) to play a video game," Brown said. "When people see that Team 3D is here it's like, 'Why bother coming?' But if they don't get the gamers to come, they lose sponsors."
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