Organizers of China's top computer gaming championship say they hope to replace the South Korean-based World Cyber Games as the most important competition for keyboard warriors in the next few years.

The ambitious plan was announced at the final of the second China Internet Gaming competition in Shanghai yesterday.

About 200 individual players and 32 professional teams from all over the country attended the competition to do battle in such games as FIFA2003, a soccer game, Counter Strike and WarCraft 3 as well as traditional chess and card games.

Winners walked away with cash prizes ranging up to 30,000 yuan (US$3,614), organizers said.

"We host the event to develop the domestic cyber game industry. We hope to build it into the world's largest computer gaming competition in three to five years," said Feng Hong, director of the China Internet Gaming Department yesterday.

According to Feng, China now has more than 100 million computer game players, far more than South Korea's several million gamers.

Feng also says competition organizers are considering renaming the CIG to Cyber World Gaming to enhance its international influence, despite the fact it currently isn't open to foreign players. They are playing to invite top overseas players to future competitions.

CIG is a non-profitable organization supported by the Ministry of Information Industry, the Internet Society of China, the Ministry of Culture and the State General Administration of Sport.

The development of CIG is good news for professional game players.

"After more people care about computer game events, we can have fixed income from such big competitions," said Jiang Ke, a professional player from Sichuan Province.

He won 5,000 yuan at yesterday's final.

(eastday.com   December 16, 2003)