Mumbai-based Reuben Pereira (19) aka Bbreak17 spends most part of his days on a computer playing the FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football Association or International Federation of Association Football) computer game, which is played by 3.5 million e-gamers everyday worldwide for fun, and competitively for money. A professional e-sports gamer for the past four years, Pereira has won numerous FIFA online and offline competitions nationally and internationally.
Currently, he is the only Indian ranked among top five profes-sional gamers worldwide, a rankings list dominated by Europe-based e-gamers. Ranked numero uno in India, Pereira is currently (March 2009) ranked second in Asia, having won the first ever silver medal for India in an international e-sports event.
After being declared the India winner of the World Cyber Games (WCG) championship (colloquially known as the World Cup of Gaming) for the past three years, Pereira is determined to bag the FIFA gold at WCG 2009, scheduled to be held in October-November at Chengdu, China. “Though there is a dearth of sponsors this year due to the global recession, WCG will nevertheless attract professional gamers who have been training hard for this competition from around the world. I am looking forward to this year’s championship, for which the national team selections start in late August. If I win this time as well, it will be my fourth consecutive India win,” says Pereira.
An alumnus of St. Anne’s High School in Mumbai, Pereira is currently enroled in a correspondence B.Com course of Mumbai University. Having made a promise to his mother that he will not let his formal education suffer, Pereira takes a break whenever an exam looms. “My mother supports me so long as I don’t neglect my formal education. Quite obviously she doesn’t have much faith in gaming as a professional vocation,” says Pereira who won Rs. 400,000 as prize money in 2008.
Such pessimism is unwarranted as he has been financially self-supporting since age 16 when he was appointed brand ambassador of Indiagames — India’s largest online gaming company, following a win in the India WCG of 2006.
With the prelim rounds for WCG scheduled to commence in August, Pereira is determined to strike gold this time. That’s why he is spending more than ten hours everyday kicking the virtual ball with his fingers, and perfecting his winning strategies for WCG 2009.
Debolina Sengupta (Bangalore)