Netopia re-ignites Cyberleague

Four years since it started a gaming competition, Internet cafe chain giant Netopia has revived its Cyberleague activities in an effort to spur their target market to use their branches for gaming events.

This time, however, Netopia isn't alone and it has gathered three of the major online game publishers, Level Up!, E-Games and Eagle Games who will provide the titles that will be included in the Cyberleague. This year's tournament is dubbed “Champions meet Champions”

This will also be the first time that Netoipia would replace previous LAN games from the original Cyberleague roster with a new set. The original Cyberleague games were Need for Speed Underground, StarCraft: Brood War, Counterstrike Source, and NBA Live 2004.

Essentially, the Netopia Cyberleague is similar to the tournaments held by these game publishers wherein they have regional elimination contests for specific games until they top gamer or gamers reach the finals, which is usually the annual gaming conventions of each of the publishers.

Unfortunately, the company has not yet identified what games from each of the publishers will be included in the tournament. There might also be the inclusion of the widely popular Defense of the Ancients (DotA), a heavily modded LAN game of WarCrarft III.

George Tan, the president of Netopia, said the bulk of Netopia's market is still Internet users and they want to revive their gaming segment. While Netopia remains popular for gamers, there is also growing competition from small, mom-and-pop Internet shops that are open nearly 24x7.

Six or seven years ago, Netopia was enjoying a deluge of LAN gamers, particularly for Counterstrike. That eventually changed when gamers started playing more online games in these smaller Internet cafes, which also offered less pricier hourly rates.

Nevertheless, Tan stressed that Netopia still wants to retain its core business of providing Internet use, though they do want to grow their revenue pie for the gaming segment.

For those interested in participating, they can register to play on games they like starting May 1 to 30 at all Netopia branches. Elimination rounds go from June 20 to August 22. Semi-finals will be from September 22 to 26 and the finals will be on October 23 to 24.

Posted by: The Mysterious GameOPS Ninja