Confessions of a professional gamer

Imagine making a living sitting in your underpants, munching on cheesy poofs. These guys are trying to turn it into an Olympic sport.

It's eleven-hundred hours at the Gamerbase boot camp in London, and the Intel Team Dignitas are locked and loaded, headsets on, primed to enter a World in Conflict.

The Dignitas army of five - the enigmatically named Low-Life, Cleric, PuReBaLL, EnergetiC and Moyes - are among the favourites to claim victory in this, the latest Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) tournament on the circuit.

For the last month they have prepared by living online, 6 days a week for five hours at a time, valiantly defending towns and villages from the onslaught of Russian soldiers in the midst of World War III.

Now, together in person, they'll train intensively until midnight to sharpen their WiC strategies. For tomorrow, they go to war on a mission to cash in years of intense training and claim the $9,000 first prize.

We're told, that if we were we covering this story from Korea, we'd be awash with gaming groupies; all clamouring for a face-to-face peek at some of the internet's most illustrious pseudonyms. Here, at the back of HMV in Piccadilly Circus, there is no such frenzy. It's quieter, but the tension is rising. Welcome to the world of the professional gamer.

These particular 'cyberathletes' are in the middle of a boom period. Online gaming is the new football, apparently, and it's getting bigger by the day with more tournaments and bigger rewards for the David Beckhams of the industry.

"The top gamers are like rock stars in South East Asia, but we're not quite there yet," team owner - and all round gaming-genius - Michael O'Dell says. "Over there, they have are dedicated TV channels and people can watch the big tournaments online. If a player has a bad game, journalists and fans are watching and waiting to pounce on their performance." One of the team hoping to avoid such bad press is Sunderland-native PuReBaLL, who has a tournament résumé that would make Tiger Woods blush. The World in Conflict HQ tournament champion, and Intel Masters Silver Medalist, will be calling the strategies throughout this tourney. His leadership is integral to Intel Team Dignitas' success.

Offline, he is mild-mannered Gamestation employee Marty Rome, aged 23. However, when he gets home, PuReBaLL takes over - pretty much every night. Amazingly, his live-in girlfriend is ok with this. "If you really want to compete with the best, then that's the way it has to be," he says. "It feels like I have two full-time jobs. You have to live it and you have to love what you do. I try to squeeze in five minutes on other games as and when I can, otherwise I'd go mad.

During the boot camp Michael O'Dell casts an uneasy eye over at PuReBaLL. He's sneaking in a quick five minutes on World of Warcraft. "We try to discourage that game because it destroys teams," says the coach. "We've lost a lot of good players to WoW because it's just so addictive. I've barely seen one of my best friends in the last 18-months."

But those long hours can be worth it for the rock stars of the gaming world. Dignitas pull in about £100,000 a year in sponsorship from Intel et al, they sell their team shirts to fans on their website, and a win in the world championships next month could land the boys a cool £10,000 each. There are rumblings of a bid to make gaming an Olympic sport (!), and a player named Grubby is getting his little mitts on £10,000 a month for mixing it up with Korea's finest.

According to the UK's first professional gamer it's only going to get bigger. Sujoy Roy gave up a career as an investment banker on Wall Street with J.P Morgan, to go on and become the top ranked Quake (a pioneering online game) player in Europe. The money he made in sponsorship and endorsements during his pro career has helped to fund six Gamerbase stations, like this one where the tournament will be played out.

Outside of competition time, punters can pay a cool £4 an hour to play 15 of the most popular games on the best hardware around (the graphics cards alone cost more than a PS3). It's a pretty swish set-up, akin to military control rooms mimicked in the gaming world.

"It's an absolutely buzz to be here when the big tournaments come along," says Sujoy who is one of the few gamers to keep his real name. Rolls off the tongue quite nicely.

"I don't think anyone can say gaming is a waste of time, no matter how long you spend playing," he adds. "In the modern day world, the skills you develop, like leadership, strategising, planning, communication and hand-eye co-ordination are more useful in life than things we have prized in the past, like playing football."

I'm sure a little fresh air wouldn't hurt, every now and again though chaps.

STOP PRESS: After a gruelling day's competition Team Dignitas scooped the first prize with a stunning victory over American rivals DC in the final. Go team!