SAN FRANCISCO – In a dark corner inside the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, Nice Guy Ed and Darryl Kucmerowski sit hunched over a microphone Thursday, belting out play-by-play and colorful commentary on the Brazil-Italy soccer match being played nearby.
But this is not the World Cup. Nice Guy Ed and Kucmerowski are announcers for Radio iTG, and they are excited. They're bringing the first round of the World Cyber Games 2004 FIFA Soccer 2004 tournament to a worldwide audience.
The WCG, as it's called, is billed as the world's largest video-game tournament. The competition, which runs here from October 6-10, has brought together more than 700 of the world's best gamers from more than 60 countries to battle over games like WarCraft III, Counter-Strike, Unreal Tournament, Halo and, of course, the soccer game Nice Guy Ed and Kucmerowski are announcing.
"It's awesome," said Kucmerowski. "You get to actually get in the game just like it was a real game, and you get to bring it to the people who aren't fortunate enough to be here."
The contestants at WCG are national champions who have won all-expenses-paid trips to compete against the world's best.
"You feel proud," said Twister, a 16-year-old on Team UK, England's representatives at WCG, who has won his way to San Francisco.
Craig Fletcher, Team UK's team leader – a position he described as essentially the same as head coach – proudly explained that one of his charges had just won his first-round WarCraft III match against an Indonesian.
Next up, Fletcher said, is a Venezuelan. After that come the Koreans, who Fletcher said are the ones who intimidate everyone when it comes to WarCraft III.
"It's like their national sport over there," he said. "It's on the news before any of the other real sports, like soccer."
Meanwhile, all throughout the WCG hall, referees watch the gamers closely to make sure nothing untoward happens.
"It means a lot to us because we know that all the dreams of those players are put in our hands," said Albert Zarate, a referee from Mexico. "It's like the Olympics for us, watching the best of the best of the best."
Zarate explained that in strategy games, players can cheat by downloading maphacks that give them a vision of a game's entire map. In shooting games, hacks are available that allow players to auto-aim at other players' heads, making it much easier to kill them. This is illegal during the WCG, and Zarate said he hadn't yet seen any problems.
Even as the hundreds of players leaned into their computers, pounding away at their keyboards and doing their best to uphold the gaming honor of their home countries, a very vocal peanut gallery gathered in the balcony overlooking the auditorium.
Nice Guy Ed shrieked out, "Oh, my goodness! The right post saves a goal!" The crowd above sat quietly for minutes and then, just like any group of fans at a sports bar, they all stood and screamed when their favored team did something worthy of their passion.
ITGTossSpot sat near Nice Guy Ed in the auditorium Thursday doing play-by-play for the WarCraft III tournament. He spoke nonstop, letting the world in on the game's action and making what to some might appear to be no more than a video game come to life.
"I like to talk, talk, talk, talk," said ITGTossSpot. "But it gets pretty hard on the breath."
