In what appears to be yet another blow to the India gaming industry, the India Gaming Week sponsored by Lenovo has been taking tremendous flak over shabby organization and biased handling of LAN tournaments held at the event, finally topped off by cheating the winners of the money promised to them.
This is what one of the participants who also happens to be the manager of a popular Indian esports team had to say about this Lenovo tournament-
“Just got back from the India Gaming Week event! This was probably the most poorly organized lan event I have ever been to and also felt like a scam.
Please read below and share this so more people know about it.
- They made us play on laptops. While this is completely understandable since they were promoting their product, it is unacceptable if you have fps issues in the middle of the game. The game was laggy almost all the time and sometimes the screen just froze and we had to pause the game.
- There were 2 setups for the gamers. The setup on the stage was absolute shit as there was barely any place between the laptops and thus moving our mice was extremely difficult. Also 2 of the chairs were right at the edge of the table. A couple of other guys including me had a nice tumble there.
- League of legends was given only about 4 hrs on day 1 despite league being one of the 3 major games of the event. BO3 matches were changed into BO1’s and this sudden change in plans were shared with us AFTER the first(and final) matches were played. A team that had flew in from Chennai to play this event were expected to be content with the one damn game they got to play.
- The organizers made retarded comments like ‘At some point in time you guys are going to have to realize that you will earn more money making games and not playing them’.
During the final of the league of legends match the tournament director picks up the mic and says ‘Dont worry guys Team A has an extremely huge advantage over Team B so this match should be over soon. Please dont leave.’ Do they not realize how demoralizing this is for team B?
- The great Indian prize pool drama. Until the event ended nobody really knew for sure how much the actual prize pool split between the 3 games was because the organizers never bothered to announce it. That being said, everyone believed it was 100k,50k and 10k each for 3rd and 4th.
Turns out there is a big catch for the first place prize. Basically they gave the winners 2 options:
- Take 50k now and be done with it.
- Sign a contract with their company and get that 1 lakh split over a course of 12 months which is about 2k per player per month. It does not end here though. If he choose this option then he gets to be in some mentorship program where he will have to attend various seminars and might have to travel to other cities bearing the cost of travel HIMSELF. Apparently this program will help these players become better players over a course of 12 months. Bear in mind this program was designed by the guy who went on record to say ‘At some point in time you guys are going to have to realize that you will earn more money making games and not playing them’.
So you either let go off half your prize money (Which might go into someones pockets? Im not sure) OR you drag it for 12 months and do everything Lenovo India tells you to do.
Probably not going to get my 3rd place prize money for posting this but oh well. People needed to know about this shitfest.”
It was declared that this tournament will have a prize pool of 10 Lakh INR. Lenovo has later responded saying, “We as Lenovo, simply sponsored the program and played no part in the event’s organization. Lenovo has no role in its execution (format, terms & conditions or selection of winners), and people named in the Reddit thread are not Lenovo employees.”
Regardless of the blame being passed around, it’s sad to see the gamers and the video game market being exploited by cheats and scammers. Being an industry just on the rise with a huge potential to grow exponentially, we as Indian Gamers need to call out such individuals and organizers, so as to ensure a smooth path for the growth of Gaming in India.
Sources: Reddit Thread & Lenovo’s Response on Tumblr.
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