About LAN Games
LAN Games has been around for over 10 years, and has recently publicised its desire to unify and grow the South African competitive gaming community.
With strong ties to companies such as Sapphire and AMD, LAN Games’ biggest goal right now is to provide the local competitive gaming community with a central national ranking hub for teams and individuals, and improve the general standard of LANing in SA.
One of the biggest problems within the competitive gaming arena in SA right now is that it is fragmented. Most competitive gamers will agree that there is an air of confusion, and that without some sort of unifying force, and clarity, it will be a long time before we see big sponsors getting involved in a meaningful way.
LAN games aims to incorporate all the main events in SA, and will be working with core LAN organisers, competitive gamers, sponsors and even the MSSA to provide a system that benefits the greater good for our gamers.
The first step towards achieving this goal is creating a unified ranking system. Once this is up and running, LAN Game’s partners such as Sapphire, AMD, as well as other companies can start getting more involved with sponsorships. This system is being facilitated by the LAN Games website, so make sure that if you’re involved in the competitive gaming scene, you register a profile at LANGames.co.za.
Getting a ball as big as this rolling is difficult, but once it gains momentum, it looks as though LAN Games will be able to provide a platform for all gamers, organisations and companies to be involved.
The LAN Games LAN
LAN Games aims to consolidate the LANing community in SA by having all LAN organisers register and use them as a platform to coordinate their events, as well as gain national ranking approval for their competitions. They will also host their own LANs every so often, and this weekend marked the first such event.
The LAN took place at the four star Kopanong hotel, in a large conference room, with fully functional air conditioning, a gigabyte LAN, and admins courtesy of Frag LAN. There was a 24 hour restaurant and bar, and LANers were given preferential rates for staying over in the hotel.
There was also a 4Mb ADSL line so LANers could access the internet to download patches and so on.
The Waiters, LANers
There was a CoD 4 competition open to all LANers, and the final came down to two of SA’s best teams; Pantheon and BFB. Pantheon won in the end, taking home an assortment of hardware prizes courtesy of AMD.
Pantheon vs. BFB
Pantheon emerged victorious
MyGaming was there on Saturday, and we took part in a range of games, from Call of Duty 4 to StarCraft to Red Alert 3. The fellow LANers and admins were extremely friendly and accommodating, helping the less experienced LANers with network configurations etc. AMD’s regional head Jaco Laubscher spent the whole of Saturday night LANing and mingling with the gamers at the event.
The MyGaming corner, sponsored by AMD, left to right: Sycogrim, Tinman, Desolation Jake and Dr Manhattan
Although attendance was lower than we have come to expect from more established LANs, the infrastructure was truly excellent. Triple screen Eyefinity rigs were set up for gamers to try out, and there was a Guitar Hero stand set up with a massive projector.
The Eyefinity rig in action
Quickshot trying his hand at Guitar Hero
Some comments from the Pantheon team:
PoOks: “Was an awesome venue with excellent network and power! Big thank you to Arena 77 for putting it together! Thanks to Jaco and Len from AMD and Sapphire for sponsoring it! Looking forward to the next one. I think next month if more teams come through Extreme LAN could be one of the best if not the best LANs in the country in terms of venue and competition.”
Evax: “Ye, the aircon and internet was sick! With a bunch of top teams attending this is going to be one of the best LANs to date in my opinion. It could even best Rage , if the top teams put in the effort and make sure they are there! Awesome Prizes, Awesome LAN, Awesome Venue. All we need now is LANers and top teams.”
MyGaming was thoroughly impressed by the professionalism of the LAN, and we look forward to watching it grow over the coming months.
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