Express-News: Business Virtual Virtuosos: Cyberathletes compete in an electronic world, but don't tell them it's not a sport By Roy Bragg EXPRESS-NEWS TECHNOLOGY WRITER History tells of breakthrough moments that set the world on its ear, such as the day in 1928 when Sir Alexander Fleming discovered that mold could be used as medicine, or in 1492, when Christopher Columbus stumbled upon the Americas. Here's another one — the day in June 1997 when Munoz, Puerto Rican immigrant and retired investment broker, figured out how to make money off computer geeks doing what they do normally. And here's how he did it — treat these computer jockeys, these people of pallor, as athletes. Munoz's creation was the Cyberathlete Professional League, a prize-paying, official-rules-bearing competition. It's got full-time players, such as Roy Sujoy, who plays under the name Sujoy. He's a Cambridge-trained investment banker in his native United Kingdom who now — thanks to tournament winnings and endorsements — plays Quake III for a living. The league includes big-money events, such as the Razer/CPL $100,000 championship, held here on a recent weekend at the Hyatt Regency, where 512 gamers from around the world competed for the top $40,000 prize, won after four days of on-screen fire fights by Fatality, a.k.a. Johnathan Wendel, a 19-year-old from Kansas City and another legend of computer gaming. When Fatality and Victor Cuadra, alias Makaveli, of Livermore, Calif., blazed away at each other with lightning guns and other implements of destruction in the tournament finals, it was a legitimate event. Non-participating spectators, who paid $50 a head to get in, mingled with eliminated players and watched the action from two large, DiamondVision screens in another corner of the ballroom. Spectators in the stands got the same view from the two screens that each player saw. Those who didn't watch could shop at one of the booths set up by event sponsors, who make everything from a high-end gaming mouse to the heavily caffeinated drinks marathon gamers favor. Revenge of the nerds Munoz has a vision for this league, and it goes beyond tournaments in hotels. "Before CPL, all of the media attention went to game developers and the games," Munoz says. "The mission ahead of the CPL is to have our events reviewed in every sports section of every paper in the world," he says. "We want sports reporters and television crews to cover our events. We want to be a mainstream sport." "These players are athletes, just as football or basketball players are athletes," he said. This flies in the face of the long held notion that computer gamers are, for lack of a better word, geeks. If that's true, the CPL could be considered the Ascension of the Geek. "We've been marginalized. We're been pariahs for a long time," says Edward Watson, CPL-Europe commissioner and owner of The Playing Fields, a gaming center in London's West End. "There are a lot of people like us who want to come out and play." Although CPL players aren't necessarily quick of foot or exceptionally strong, Munoz added, most of the best ones are blessed with exceptional hand-eye coordination and quick reflexes. "A sport is all about people competing in organized competition," said Watson, who describes himself as a former soccer fanatic, "with defined rules and organized at a level like this. That's when you have to start thinking about it as a sport." That's evident here. At night, when the tourney is adjourned, contestants gather to blast away at each other in impromptu matches. The wars rage all night. By morning, the empty pizza boxes are stacked as high as a mutant's eye. These are hardcore players. The speed of the action here could induce motion sickness in nonplayers if they watched long enough. Take an early afternoon quarterfinal match between Sujoy and GodfatherX, a.k.a. Justin Trubiana, an Austin teen who, by his own admission, was a long shot to get this far. Playing on a three-dimensional, multi-room and multi-level playing field, the onscreen battle is waged in all directions, from all angles and at eyeball-colliding speed for 15 full throttle minutes. Sujoy, 24, the former Brit banker, polishes off Trubiana 18-12. They shake hands after its over. "I'm really satisfied with how that came out," Trubiana said, in awe of the beating Sujoy handed him. "I was walking around in a fog most of the time." Unexpected turn Running high-stakes online shoot-em-ups wasn't how Munoz envisioned his life. Born in New York City, his parents moved him to their native Puerto Rico when he was 8 years old to make sure he didn't lose touch with his culture, the 40-year-old league owner says. He moved back to the States in 1980 to study finance. His first jobs were in Orlando and Miami. Munoz's career, which involved financing high-tech ventures, took him to Dallas in 1987. He did so well with other people's money that he retired at 35. Then came Doom. Not bad news, but rather the computer game, created by Mesquite-based id software. Considered the Big Kahuna of computer gaming, it revolutionized the genre with its graphics and violence and became a best seller. Called a "first person shooter" in gaming industry jargon, the object of the game is simple: Kill or be killed. Munoz said he got hooked on playing Doom with Jeff Fox, a onetime brokerage client and owner of Multimedia Learning, a Dallas company that developed software package for Fortune 500 companies. Munoz was restless. "When you're in finance, you spend your time financing the dreams of others," he said. "I knew I wanted to create something. I just didn't know what it was." They came up with the Adrenaline Vault (adrenalinevault.com), a site that rates, reviews and runs news about computer games. Some of the news concerned LAN parties, named because computer gamers would hook up makeshift local area networks, or LANs, to play head-to-head games. "I saw the LAN parties," Munoz says. "I saw the competition that was going on. I felt there was something there." And the rest is history He talked to John Romero, a creator of Doom and Quake, it's heir apparent on the gaming scene, and came up with an early idea for the CPL. To compete with another league, the CPL hired star players, a practice that it dropped pretty quickly. Instead, it focused on large events, with the first held in Dallas in 1997. It drew 525 competitors, and the CPL was on its way. It now stages qualifying tournaments all over the world, including some at The Playing Fields, an café/gaming center in London's West End, owner Edward Watson says. And to break the predominantly-male image the sport has, Munoz is staging an all-women's tourney in Dallas in October. Munoz is aware of the link being drawn between games such as Doom and Quake and school violence, and he won't have any of it. "It's a sad society when we, as parents, are looking for scapegoats," says Munoz, father of two young children. Says Sujoy: "Let's face it. This is a fantasy world. No one who plays it thinks it's real. It's like kids playing cowboys and Indians. No one takes this stuff seriously, right?" And parents who were at the Dallas event, accompanying their children, agree. "This, to me, is a godsend," said Lori Winke of Boca Raton, Fla., who accompanied son Matthew Winke, 15, to the Dallas tournament. "I know where he is when he's playing. He's not at the mall. He's not doing drugs. He's not getting into trouble." Minutes later, Matthew Winke's friend Tyler Bentz, also 15 and also a CPL champ, wins his quarterfinal game. He hurries over to borrow his father's cellular phone and calls his mom back in Boca Raton to tell her the good news. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- rbragg@express-news.net Published: Sunday, May 21, 2000 Business Section / Main page Circulation 250,000