Monday, Oct. 20, 2003 | 9:54 a.m.
DALLAS -- Think you're the best gamer in town? These days, you'll need more than the high score to prove it.
Two companies are betting video game fans will put their money where their mouse is -- YouPlayGames and Ultimate Arena.
Both let gamers 18 years and older wager real money while fighting friends and strangers in first-person-shooter games such as "Return to Castle Wolfenstein," "Counter-Strike" and "Unreal Tournament."
In either case you'll need to own the game you want to bet on, and the services only work on Internet-connected personal computers.
Dennis "Thresh" Fong dropped out of college in the mid-'90s to pursue a career as a professional gamer, winning thousands of dollars in rounds of "Quake." He co-founded Menlo Park, Calif.-based Ultimate Arena last year after deciding gamers would be willing to risk money.
"Back when I was competing professionally, I had always wished that I could just say 'OK, if you want to take out 20 minutes of your time to play me, why don't you put your money where your mouth is?' " said Fong, the company's chief gaming officer.
YouPlayGames, based off the coast of Venezuela on the island of Curacao, began offering matches of the WWII-themed "Return to Castle Wolfenstein" this spring, creator Chris Grove said.
"It's a much more adult way of playing the game. It takes things to a whole new level when there is something at stake," he said.
Money is made, or lost, in several ways.
With YouPlayGames, gamers agree to wager a predetermined amount, from as little as five cents to however much they are willing to risk, Grove said.
Players win money each time they successfully kill an enemy and lose cash each time they die. Additional money can be won by ranking high on the company's leader boards.
Before a game starts in Ultimate Arena, the players in a match agree upon an entry fee, from $1 to $20. If five players wager $5 apiece, for example, the winner gets $25, minus a 15 percent fee that goes to Ultimate Arena.
"It really gets your heart pumping," Fong said.
Grove and Fong said what they do isn't gambling because they offer games of skill, not chance.
Tom W. Bell, associate professor at Chapman University School of Law in Orange, Calif., agrees.
"Does chance predominate? I would think not. These are tough games," Bell said. "It's no different from having a tennis tournament where people get a prize when they win."
Ultimate Arena is legal in every state except Arizona, Iowa, Louisiana and Vermont. YouPlayGames, meanwhile, is considered fee-based online gaming, making it illegal in Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Nevada, Tennessee and Vermont.
Players in these states can still play, but won't be able to wager.
After years of playing $1 holes of golf with his buddies, John Gengarella jumped into the online gaming world a few months ago. He was immediately hooked.
Using the game name "Cobra," he regularly wagers a dollar or two playing "America's Army," "Unreal Tournament" or "Counter-Strike" on Ultimate Arena with as many as five other gamers.
"It's a couple of bucks here and there," the 40-year-old executive from San Jose, Calif., said. "It puts a little added excitement into the game. It's neat."
Cheating is rampant on the interconnected world of online video games, but Fong and Grove said they've got several ways to thwart ne'er-do-wells.
Ultimate Arena has a user-feedback system similar to the one popularized with eBay's buyer and seller ratings.
And during games on either system, anti-cheat software runs in the background to prevent players from winning with cheats or hacks that let them see through walls or have perfect aim.
YouPlayGames, for example, worked with Houston-based Even Balance to implement its "PunkBuster" software, which blocks cheaters from game servers.
If there's still a dispute, administrators can review a recording of the game, much like a football referee on a contested play.
Thousands of gamers, including Gengarella, seem to be enjoying the benefits.
Ultimate Arena claims to have had 20,000 active players in the past month; YouPlayGames, which opened in April, had 18,000 subscribers join in its first four months.
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