YOU know something is wrong when two of Singapore's best cybergamers - Wilson Chia and Mohamed Phirkhan - will have to fund their own way to represent the nation at the World Cyber Games (WCG) finals in Cologne in November.
Especially when 13 other local gamers, most of whom are less known, will have their air tickets and accommodation paid for by the organisers of WCG Singapore.
The short answer to this irony - money politics.
Hailed as the equivalent of the cyber Olympics, WCG has grown from strength to strength. This year, it has 700 gamers from 70 countries. The top three winners of the national WCG rounds earn the right to play for their country in their respective games at the world finals, held in a different city each year.
The problem is, not every winner receives sponsorship from the local organisers of WCG for their trip like Phirkhan, the local Fifa Soccer champion at WCG last year.
The game was not among the list of sponsored games, so it looked like he had to pay his own way until Nanyang Polytechnic stepped in to pay for his trip to Seattle.
Phirkhan went on to become a professional gamer with a monthly stipend of US$3,000 (S$4,080) as part of the Singapore team in another international pro-gaming league called the Championship Gaming Series. At only 19, he clearly has a lot of potential.
Sadly, it's deja vu this year: He was the Fifa Soccer local champion at WCG Singapore last week and, again, has no sponsorship.
Veteran gongfu action gamer Wilson remains the only Singaporean to have ever won a medal at the WCG Finals with his silver in Dead Or Alive in 2005. The problem this year is that WCG has replaced Dead Or Alive 4 with Virtual Fighter 5 - both gongfu titles - and suddenly the organisers are no longer keen to sponsor Wilson's game.
In contrast, new players of new games like Guitar Hero 3 and the Asphalt 4 mobile game are being sponsored by the local WCG organisers, even though they are untested.
WCG Singapore is organised by Rapture Gaming, with Samsung, Intel and Microsoft as the main sponsors. The four decide which titles to support for the world finals.
It's a no-brainer, for commercial motivation is involved.
Microsoft will obviously support the titles it publishes - Halo 3, Project Gotham Racing 4 and Age Of Empires. Dead Or Alive 4 is a Microsoft game too, but not Virtual Fighter 5, which is why the sponsorship ended this year.
Mobile phone maker Samsung wants to be better connected with today's youth. So casual games like Guitar Hero 3 and the Asphalt 4 mobile game would be its cup of sponsorship tea.
That's why even though Singapore's chances in Fifa Soccer is relatively stronger, there are no dollars backing it. Electronic Arts, the game's publisher, is not among the main sponsors here and has no say in the situation.
The crunch is this: As long as the Singapore Sports Council does not elevate cybergames to a national sport, the activity will always be dominated by money politics - never by national aspirations. If behemoth China recognises cybergames as a national sport, I don't see why cybergames cannot be officially sanctioned here.
Wired Singapore can be a world force in this niche. It just badly needs support from the top.
