Competitive Gaming In Singapore needs Help?

[Kang Kim Sheng AKA HuaHero]

After the recent controversy at the qualifiers of CGS Singapore at Suntec City about SGGA's president giving a sponsorship proposal to the winners who if signed up with SGGA, they will be choosen to represent Singapore to KL.

This of course lead to the Gamers crying foul.

So what can be done to not cause unhappiness from the gamers?

Sponsors and Organisers need to set the rules, qualifying standards, sponsorship etc in a very clear and transparent way and be sure not to hide any details from the gamers. Gamers do know that running an event is not cheap and it costs amounting in Ten Thousands of dollars and of course Sponsors and Organisers will need to cover back their costs.

But in my opinion what SGGA did was wrong. Why?

SGGA called in established pro-gamers in Singapore with an offer to pay for travel and lodging expense they need for any subsequent offshore tournaments. The only catch? Players have to sign a contract that states they will give 50% of their player earnings back to the SGGA for this investment. (Extracted from GameAxis)

Pro teams like Team Titans fought long and hard to get all the sponsors they have now under their belt using just their own effort and since they already have sponsors backing them up why would they still need a sponsorship from SGGA?

SGGA's sponsorship should be targeted towards Teams/Clans who are starting to go competitive instead. Let's say i have a CS:S team and my team has won a few mini tournaments in Singapore and we are ready to go on bigger scale tourneys like WCG, CPL, CGS etc. But how does a team improve to be able to take on the big guys? They need what SGGA is offering cause as a new team i don't mind putting back 50% of my winnings to SGGA cause most new teams don't have anything to lose and they need the overseas exposure to improve on their skills. This what i call promoting gaming and helping the newer competitive teams in Singapore and not trying to leech from the current pro teams.

There's also been pass cases where other companies tried similar ways to squeeze money out of gamers. Running an event even thou it costs a lot of money but companies should also know that events are more of promoting/branding rather than money making especially gaming events. Most gamers are just kids or teens who are still schooling and not even enlisted into NS yet. These gamers do not have any money on them and forking out a $75 fee per team to join a competition is already hard for them, so what kind of money can the organisers take out from them?

Event organisers and gamers should work hand in hand with organisers bringing in more sponsors with very good deals in gaming hardware for gamers, side events like Cosplays, Dancing Competitions etc. When gamers feel that this is a good event, word of mouth will start spreading and next turnout will be even better.

So let's work together and bring Singapore Gaming up to the next stage shall we?

HuaHero