The results are out! WCG India officially crowned the National Winners of the WCG 2010 India Championship at EsselWorld in Mumbai. Competing across four extremely popular yet competitive games, eight very dedicated gamers – Rahul Kumar (FIFA), Team ATE (Counter Strike), Naveen Uraon (Asphalt 5) and Gana Sekhar (T20fever) were crowned as the National Winners. The winners of FIFA, Counter Strike and Asphalt 5 will represent India in the Grand Final at Los Angeles (USA), between 29^th September 2010 and 3^rd October 2010.

Counter Strike winners Team ATE from Mumbai

Starting 20th July 2010, WCG organized online as well as offline events traveling across six cities – Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai in search of gamers, who could compete across four games namely – FIFA Soccer 2010 , Counter strike, Asphalt and promotional game for India - Cricket T20fever. Through a series of supreme and unparalleled competition, the winners from each city were brought to the last destination – Mumbai to compete for the title of WCG India 2010 Finalist and a chance to compete at the WCG 2010 Grand Finale at L.A.

The final stages of the tournament saw 6 teams in Counter Strike and 7 finalists for FIFA. The event went online on 14^th August with Hyderabad followed by Bangalore, Delhi, Pune, Chennai and Mumbai. Over 50,000 gamers had registered for WCG this year.

Winner of Asphalt 5 Naveen Uraon

The teams playing CS were on a head to head battle as the gaming was accompanied by a lot of scream, shouting and abusing; Trademark of any gaming tournament involving clans. The matches were quite close and were extremely exciting to watch. FIFA and Asphalt 5 gamers were banging their keyboards and phones as well.

Concluding this mega gaming tournament in search of India’s most deserving gamers, the national finals saw a clash of regional winners from across six cities battling it out for the India title. With astounding and unmatched skills - Rahul Kumar emerged as the undisputed winner for the popular soccer game - FIFA Soccer 2010.  For Counter Strike, the team of 5 that struck the winning gaming chord were Team ATE, comprising of Ritesh Shah, Ben Verges, Poojan Mehta, Mikhel Mehra and Pranay Bhatia. Aspalt 5 saw some intense competition between all the regional finalists but Naveen Uraon walked away with the final title and Gana Sekhar, through his passion for both gaming and cricket won the India promotional game – Cricket T20fever.

Winner of FIFA 10 - Rahul Kumar

For the first time ever the FIFA 10 eliminations were held online which resulted in participation of 20,000+ gamers in the FIFA category alone. The eliminations for CS and asphalt were held in gaming café’s itself. The WCG India team is working on including more games for next year’s tournament as the WCG India only had 3 games whereas WCG worldwide has a lot more games like Trackmania Nations, Tekken, Quake Online, Forza Motorsport and many more. The organizers during the press conference assured the gamers that they are trying their level best to include more games next year.

Speaking to GamingXpress.com Vishal Gondal, Founder and CEO, UTV Indiagames said, “'UTV Indiagames has been the strategic partner to WCG in India since 2002 and with each year, we see a phenomenal participation from young gamers across India and this year certainly has been no different. The response from all six cities has been tremendous and our heartiest congratulations to all the winners. We hope they make India proud at the Grand Finale.”

He further added by saying, “India’s top gamers need more exposure at the highest level to increase their talent. They need to play against people from different countries. Currently they play in gaming café’s amongst their friends. But what they really need is the exposure so that they can be the best at an international level. Sadly that is only possible if gamers have hi speed broadband internet available and sadly this is either not easily accessible in India and hi speed broadband can be really expensive.”

The Counter Strike winners Team ATE in action

India currently ranks 36^th in the overall WCG standing. 80+ countries participate in WCG and considering the fact that gaming is still niche in India compared to North American, European and Asian countries India’s rank is not bad at all and hopefully this years winners will help improve India’s rank.

Razer for the first time has partnered with WCG India and present at the occasion was Shashank Bhandaru, Business Development Executive from Razer as he said, “Organizing a full scale event like this is not a cake walk and I really appreciate the efforts put in by Indiagames in Organizing this event. At this same time I would like to encourage all the gamers to participate in events like these and give vital feedback to the organizers which will help them make the event better.”

Razer gaming gear is extremely popular amongst gamers as most gamers were using Razer Mice, Gaming Surfaces and keyboards.

On Hosting the WCG India Championship, Flt. Anand Lamdhade, Vice President, Operations, EsselWorld said, “EsselWorld is the one stop destination for fun and gaming, hence it is the ideal location to host the National Finals for the one of the world greatest and biggest gaming tournament, we never thought that the games can become a team event and involves so much fun and grace as one play same in rides together. The response has been tremendous and we would like to congratulate all the winners and wish them all the luck for the world finale, bright eyes taking India ahead. It’s been a pleasure to associate with UTV Indiagames for WCG India 2010”

The event got good response this year as the participation had definitely increased a lot this year. Hopefully we can see the event happening in more cites and more games being introduced next year. The winners are really excited about going to LA to represent India and a ready to bring their A Game to the finals in LA.