neils clark

So, yeah. I visited some more gaming cafés. It was really only going to be the Cineleisure complex, noted by locals as one of the best – but a string of seemingly unfortunate mishaps had me wandering the streets of Singapore until the sun came up.

One caveat: I don’t think that Part 2 here is as entertaining as Part 1. If I edit stuff up, I may change this caveat - but ye be warned.

I’ve also got to explain one minor thing for this story to work properly: the mass transit in Singapore is phenomenal. Not only can you catch long-distance busses and trains to most locations in Malaysia and, if you’ve got the time, Thailand, but there’s an underground/overland train system called the MRT. Not only does it take you near anywhere on the island, but the concentrated form of evil known as durian is strictly forbidden from the MRT. Having one is rightly equated to carrying explosives on your person. The thing is – the MRT only stays open until around 12 midnight.

Cineleisure

Wayfinding is an art, and I’m still learning to paint. If I don’t ask directions, then I’ll tend to saunter off in the absolute wrong direction – usually for at least five or ten minutes. So after I got off at the MRT station near the Cineleisure, then walked through a graffitied skate park, jaywalked twice, and generally walked my requisite five to ten minutes, it was about time to ask directions. Not surprisingly, a couple of European-looking, 12-year-old skateboarders knew exactly what I was talking about, and pointed in the right direction. In fact, the Cineleisure complex was right next to the MRT exit.

There were easily a thousand people outside of this building. My heart raced, and I thought, “could they all be gamers?!”

They weren’t all gamers. This was a 24-hour mall. Like most of the big ones, the top floors were movie theatres. In fact, I took the escalator up the first 6 floors, looking for nonexistent game cafes. When I’d run out of escalators, I found that the elevator was more than happy to tell me where I needed to be. On the 9th floor was an expansive gaming café. The attendants were actually dressed more like Cinema attendants (there was a counter for popcorn and drinks).

Everything was new, flashy, and decorated like it came out of the E3 expo. There were cushy couches – seating two per X-box, about 60 PCs, all arranged for team play, projection screens for movie-watching, benches where men hunched low over their cell phones, and most intriguingly – private PC, console and DVD rooms. Contrasting most of the dark and smoky gaming cafes, this place was bright, and sported not only blue, red and green flashing lights, but also a vast number of black lights.

It was like an underage dance club – but for nerdy gamers.

Most of the people there were young – I would say under 17. Most of the people on the PCs and consoles probably averaged 17, though, the people exiting the DVD rooms seemed very young – probably no older than 13. And this was approaching 11:30.

Again, CSS (counterstrike source) and DotA (defense of the ancients mod) were the most popular games, though thai movies were being watched, a couple people were farming adamantite in WoW, and the consoles sported a pretty diverse range of games. There was only one woman playing on the PC games, and I’m fairly certain (95%) that she was the same skilled Counter-Strike player who I saw at Peace Center the night before. That said, this place had roughly equal levels of boys and girls. Most of the girls, however, were standing around at the fancy, gaily-colored tables, were watching movies with their boyfriends, or were hanging out in large groups in the DVD rooms.

Surprisingly, I’d felt like I had seen everything in about five or ten minutes. I also felt kind of bad about that, because everything seemed so keenly designed in order to buttress gaming culture. I also checked out the prices, since there was a slight chance I’d miss the last MRT, but it was expensive! It would have cost around 20$ US to play through the night, and I couldn’t imagine the poor café WoW players. In any case, this just wasn’t the place for me (despite the fact I’d later learn that it was designed with “20+ working professionals in mind.”). So I made haste to the MRT.

And of course missed the last MRT train by seconds.

Cyberdome: RSVP

The upside about wandering aimlessly, is that you occasionally find something good. As I was just starting the long walk home, and had gone a dozen or so blocks when I decided to walk through a 24-hour foodcourt. Behind that foodcourt, and down a dark road, behind a fancy outdoor pool hall, and around a corner, I found the “alternative to Cineliesure,” according to one gamer: Cyberdome.

Cyberdome had between 90 and 110 gamers, all on PCs. There were many, many more women players than at any other café I’d seen. People were coming or going, but I’d estimate 20%, maybe about 5% of that playing with what appeared to be romantic partners.

To the gamers in general - They played DotA, CS, BF2, and that one puzzle game – which some guys helped me to identify as O2 Gem. Outside the dark, smoky cafe, I met a group of friends who were more than happy to talk to me. They were all Singaporean, and 20 years old. After chatting it up a bit, on gaming, Singapore, and cooky game addiction researchers, they were really kind in letting me quote them on a few things.

Pointing inside of the club, Kenneth noted that “It’s usually not this empty at this time on a Friday night.” That was a little bit hard to believe, considering that this dark cave was by and large the most packed gamer café that I’d encountered thus far. Then another gamer, Michael, told me that you “usually have to call ahead to reserve a space.” Generally you’d only have to call ahead about an hour, but that struck me as impressive. A reservations-only cybercafé.

As I said, these guys struck me as some of the most “real” gamers, by my high standards for hardcoreness. They were friendly players, and they noted that they were here for the social element. When I asked whether they could play at home, one gamer said, “Yeah, but you play alone.” He noted that it was very hard to survive as a gamer once you have family and work, especially in the super-fast-paced Singaporean environment.

When asked what everyone was playing inside, they said “everyone’s playing DotA.” As you might guess, they played DotA. I thought that was a little revealing, though, that at least some people see DotA as huge (which it certainly seems to be).

When the topic of professional gamers came up, one said, “American players have it easy. You guys get enough sponsorship there to focus on playing now.” I wish. Some of us might get free computers – but by and large we still have to work. They said that it was very difficult for Singaporeans to continue pro gaming past high school ages, and that keeping cohesive teams past a certain age killed almost any good team.

So I checked out this café, and eventually wandered on.

Beyond Cyberdome

After a bit more meandering back towards my hostel, and having been harassed by yet more manly-looking prostitutes, I found another late-night shopping mall. This one wasn’t surrounded by thousands of tweens, but I was dragged in by a sign which prompted late night movies. “Cool,” I thought, “let’s have a movie.”

Lo, I found another game café. And I found another gamer. The guy that I met was really very knowledgeable about gaming in Singapore, had the requisite strong opinions on addiction, and actually knew a thing or two about how cafes and gaming is being regulated by the Singaporean gov’t.

“There are very strict rules,” he said. “The most severe is that nobody can be wearing a school uniform.” This surprised me. “When these game cafes first started popping up, we noticed that a lot of the gamers were skipping school in order to play. That’s when the government really started cracking down.”

Apparently the government does random spot checks, where somebody, especially someone who looks like a white tourist, will walk in and ensure that standards are being upheld. That’s when it clicked – the guy with dark sunglasses (from Part 1) was staring at me because he thought that I was an inspector. While it made me a little stressed, he might have been a few shades more concerned. Apparently the café operators do a lot of self-regulation, when it comes to sending home younger kids in the more 24-hour places.

There’s also a bit of a divide on people’s opinions of how a café should look. There are dark, smoky cafes – which have been compared to dark and smoky pubs. There are also the newer postmodern cafes

It’s an interesting scene.

Neils Clark :: Sep.08.2007 :: Games, Research ::

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