with corporate backing gamers are going pro and making big bucks doing what they love to do a tube of painrelief ointment a bottle of vicks vaporub and two chilled cola cans rest on a table in a bungalow in mumbais upscale andheri soon five young men who wake up at noon and eat noodles for breakfast enter the room a monosyllabic commerce dropout from kolkata a chatty commerce graduate from mumbai a cheerful mechanical engineer from pune a sleepy management undergrad from the philippines and a coldbattling australian management undergraduate of filipino descent an assortment of sideburns bleached hair spectacles hoodies and hipster beards they collapse into tall 400worth swivel chairs put on headphones and prepare to spend the next ten hours indulging the purest form of male bonding the kind that does not require eye contactdoes the monkey have pms asks punes balaji ramnarayan 23 looking at the pixelated forest on the large computer screen no answers his bespectacled kolkatabased friend moin ejaz clicking away on his lightup mouse and just like that begins a regular workday for signify indias only iplstyle professional international team for the multiplayer lan game called dota 2 defense of the ancient 2 which is less a game and more an obsessive male subculture in which pms only refers to a curious weapon called poor mans shieldfor three months now signify a motley group of top cyber athletes whose autographs identify them by their famous online aliases crowley nochanc3 owa xrag and blizzard have been living together in a bungalow along with their team mom marcela lala from new zealand a manager who sets their daily match schedule and resolves technical issues this communal setup is part of their bootcamp sponsored by cobx gaming ventures an esports company they must not only commit ten hours each day on scrimming practice matches and tournaments but also work out together at an allnight gym for an hour to cement their bondan offline ritual theyve reluctantly warmed up to at the end of the month these fulltime gamers end up making more than their techie friends in software mncsinternationally such bootcamps are a rite of passage for players that compete in the highoctane corporatebacked world of competitive gaming which not only boasts its own stadiums and commentators but also a crowdfunded prize pool that could run up to millions of dollars at the annual dota 2 tournament the international hosted by valve entertainment for instance the prize pool could cross us 50 million rs 5 crore which is bigger than that of wimbledon points out mojo aka mujahid rupani of cobx gaming set in a mythical world of ogres magicians and creeps it requires two teams of five heroes to battle to take over the opposing teams ancient a fountain with rejuvenating power the most popular players can make around 1000 rs 65000 just by streaming a game directly to their fans pakistani teen sumail hassan made nearly 200000 after spending