St. Louis LAN Gaming – Warfactory LAN 2008

Gaming is still alive

The Warfactory LAN had 51 computers in the BYOC during the seven hours that we were on hand on Saturday. This was a little smaller than we expected as past local events had 112 people in 2004 and 72 people in 2005. Warfactory still had a strong sponsorship of the event with Ranken Technical College, CPU Magazine, BAWLS, Computer Geeks, ET Gameserver Hosting, Thermaltake, BFG Tech, BenQ, FSP Group and Dust Off. With sponsors like this the tournament prize list and door raffle prizes were fairly impressive:

• 1 – BFG Tech GeForce GTX 260 Graphics Card
• 2 – BFG Tech LS-680W Power Supplies
• 1 – BenQ E2400HD 24″ LCD Monitor
• 1 – BenQ E2200HD 22″ LCD Monitor
• 1 – iMedia 100 802.11g Internet Radio and Media Player
• 5 – Lasonic 2GB MP4/MP3/FM Players with 1.8 LCD
• 1 – FSP KINGCRAFT 1000 Power Supply
• 2 – FSP Booster X3 – 300 Watt Power Supply Booster
• 4 – FSP Blue Storm 400W Power Supplies
• 2 – FSP Group 460W Power Supplies
• 1 – Thermaltake GeForce Video Card Cooler
• 1 – Thermaltake Tough Power 550W Power Supply
• Various Thermaltake fans and swag
• Shirts & hats
• $3,000 Counter-Strike 1.6 Tournament
• $500 Quake 3 Tournament
• Dust-Off Dusters and Monitor Wipes

With 22 big ticket prizes, nearly half of those that went to the Warfactory LAN walked away with something! Not bad for a LAN that costs just $30 in advance!

The game of the day was hands down Counter-Strike 1.6 and with a $3,000 tournament taking place who could blame everyone.

A couple people were spotted playing Spore and World of Warcraft, but it was clear that the main draw for the LAN was the Counter-Strike payout.

The War Factory LAN was at a location with plenty of space for this kind of an event and planned on having roughly 200 gamers come. The final showing was 51 systems in the BYOC area (not counting us or the servers). I guess one could blame the economic crisis or the rise of console gaming as the event seemed to go well. Parking was free and very close and sodas were only 50 cents, so it’s not like it was tough to get to or had expensive beverages. Oh well, maybe next time more people will come out with such a great prize list on top of the $3500 that was given away in tournament prizes.