Interview with Michael Woods

PALGN Interview | From Anything Interactive.

The Ballarat GIG is on next week and after the success of last year's event, we cannot wait. The event seems even bigger than last year and will include the regional qualifiers for the World Cyber Games. We spoke to Michael Woods, who is behind Anything Interactive, on exactly what gamers should expect from the World Cyber Games qualifiers and what to expect from the Anything Interactive Public Play Zone.

PALGN: Firstly, would you be able to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your role with the Ballarat GIG?

MW: Hi, I'm Michael Woods from Anything Interactive and we are running the Anything Interactive Public Play Zone at Ballarat GiG 2008! The play zone is going to be an interactive gaming arena where the audience is going to get a chance to play the best and latest games on the best PCs and peripherals the market has to offer!

One of the games that will part of the qualifiers.

PALGN: The Ballarat GIG will host the WCG qualifiers for Victoria, can you tell us a little bit about the WCG's themselves?

MW: The World Cyber Games is one of the largest electronic sports tournaments in the world. With this years world finals in Germany and Australian finals in Sydney its fantastic to give developing gamers in regional Victoria the chance to compete in this fantastic event. Furthermore its great to see local Ballarat LAN cafe GUF www.guf.com.au step up to put together this amazing tournament.

PALGN: What games will be used for the qualifiers?

MW:
For Ballarat there is:

PC Tournament
Call of Duty 4 (5v5)
DotA (5v5)
Warcraft (1v1)

Xbox 360 Tournament
Halo3 (4v4)
Project Gotham Racing 4 (1v1)
Guitar Hero 3 (1v1)
Virtual Fighter 5 (1v1)

PALGN: For those that want to participate in the regionals what should they do?

MW: Ah that's easy, simply get a team together, get some transport and get registered at http://au.worldcybergames.com/register.php. It only takes a few minutes though and could be well worth your while!

Another one of the games that will be used for the qualifiers.

PALGN: What happens to the winners of the event?

MW: Well thanks to Ballarat council, all winners will receive a trip up to Sydney for the grand finals later in the year. There's a total of $5,500 in flights to give away so its well worth the short trip to Ballarat to qualify.

PALGN: Do you think that competitive gaming is becoming more popular in Australia?

MW: Competitive gaming, professional gaming & social gaming are really starting to take shape in Australia right now. With the major tournaments like Gamerthon reaching thousands of competitors and tens of thousands of spectators we can really see that this is going to become one of the dominating sections of the electronic games market over the next few years.

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