(Australia-NewsWire.Com, November 14, 2012 ) Victoria, Australia- An Australian video gamer has his sights set on playing for his country.
Derek Trang, 19, is ranked as one of Australia’s top League of Legends players.
When he is online, Trang and five others make up Team Immunity, one of Australia’s few groups that compete globally in online gaming.
“In the Australian context, I guess I’m more of a professional gamer than anyone else,” Trang told the Sydney Morning Herald.
Trang also is a commerce and law student. He says there are not many online gamers in Australia. “There’s going to be a lot of pressure on our shoulders, to show the world what we can do,” he said.
Team Immunity was set to battle in the Intel Extreme Masters. The October contest in Guangzhou, however, was canceled. Trang and his comrades in virtual arms are headed to the Asian finals on the fifteenth of November. If they win, they could go to Singapore for a Nov. 25 tournament.
“That’s quite a burden we have to carry,” Trang said. “We have to show other teams, other countries and continents that Australia is actually really good.”
The rewards can be high. Cash prizes for next year’s world championship could be worth as much as $1 million.
The past few years have seen rapid growth and professionalization of “e-sports.” A branch of the Electronic Sports League (ESL) in Australia was organized last July and now counts 1,500 members.
Trang’s group is the first ESL team in Australia to take part in an international competition for League of Legends.
The game has over 30 million players. In terms of hours, it is the most-played PC game in the world, Forbes has reported.
An ESL official said Australia has been slow to engage in professional e-sports.
“Everything takes longer to evolve and adapt in Australia,” Reagan Koryozo, ESL managing director, told the Sydney Morning Herald. “The problem we have when we go overseas is that we have the skills but not the competitive environment.”
The organization has plans to begin building a professional circuit with a competitive series in 2013.