Over the last year, “pay per kill” video games have sprung up on the Internet and this has caught the imagination of the national press, as it is the subject of an article by Alistair Harper in The Guardian.
These shoot’em up games pay a player for every kill they make, while putting a price on every virtual death.
Winning money on video games is a new concept which makes online poker look old-fashioned and could be the next big thing in online gambling.
The games have attracted players from across the globe, although most of the servers are based in Britain where they are exempt from the 2005 Gambling Act, as the games are categorised as skill-based as opposed to chance.
Although free from regulation, which might be a good thing, it has also given the firms who have developed the games a problem with trust. Hardcore gamers don’t trust each other. The closest you can get to being complimented on your skills in an online game is being accused of “hax”, or hacking.
A gamer who played on one of the sites, Tournament.com for a few months, said the reason he stopped playing was because he suspected other players were installing third party programs.
He said, “It would take more than a month before they actually caught a cheater who ended up raking thousands of dollars from other gamblers.”
With the volatility of this industry, the employees of Norwich-based Tournament.com have recently been made redundant. The elite players have switched on their guns’ safety and wandered off into pastures new.
Kwari.com, which is based in London, have developed a first person shooter. The company claim that by developing the software they are in a better position to prevent cheating, however the company isn’t keen in attracting professional gamers.
Kwari.com are going for the market of casual players who use online poker sites. It wants its players to play no more than an hour twice a week. Kwari.com have also put a limit on the amount a player can spend a month with the exception being if they have been vetted for their high-stakes tournament.
Players don’t know who they are up against and games are generated at random to prevent elite teams having an advantage. Community manager Sam Bennet was keen to point out that this means anyone can have a big win, regardless of their skill.
Time will tell if Kwari.com proves to be a success or becomes another Tournament.com. What is likely to happen though if it does succeed is that big gaming companies, for example EA, will enter into the online gaming market and with their big budgets will cash in and change the shape of online gaming.
