Alexander Villafania
INQUIRER.net

MAKATI CITY – Even if it is has the word “world” in its title, the World GameMaster Tournament (WGT) will not send the top winners of the Philippine competitions to any international contests.

Organized by Taiwanese computer manufacturer Asustek, the company announced the Philippine competition and is preparing for the two months-long contest.
However, Asus Philippines Marketing Manager Jason Teh said this would be the first time that the company is starting its contest in the Philippines and considers this event as a testbed for the continuation of the project in the future.

“For now, winners will only play in the Philippines. They won’t be going anywhere yet,” Teh said.

Other countries like India, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia and Thailand have already conducted their own WGT competitions.

Just this June, the WGT was the official tournament at the DreamHack Summer 2008, a major computer festival in Sweden. However, the WGT in Sweden was not an official WGT contest but was a special event.

The chosen games for the Philippines WGT are the one-on-one game racing game Need for Speed Prostreet, and the team-based Counterstrike, and Defense of the Ancients (DoTA), a mod game of Warcraft III: Frozen Throne.

Teh also announced official tournament grounds for the preliminaries. For Cebu, Mango Square will hold the tournament. The Davao leg will be held at the Voyztrek Internet shop, while the Metro Manila leg will be in SM Megamall.

For the team based competitions (DoTA, CS), the top prize is P75,000. The second place team will go home with P50,000 while the third place team will win P25,000.

The individual competition (Need for Speed), the top winner will get P15,000. The second and third placers will get P10,000 and P5,000, respectively.

The company has also put up a website for the local competitions.