National Service and computer gaming...

Singaporean defers army service to play computer games

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A young Singaporean man has been granted a deferment from military service so he can take part in an international computer games competition, a newspaper reported on Tuesday. In the first such a case in Singapore -- where military service is compulsory and lasts two years -- 20-year-old Stanley Aw was allowed to postpone national service by nearly two months so he could compete in the World Cyber Games.

"In line with the Government's support for sports, culture and the arts, the Ministry of Defense will consider granting one-time deferments for pre-enlistees who are selected to represent Singapore at prestigious international sports and cultural events," the Straits Times quoted a spokesman as saying.

The city-state -- which has one of the highest Internet penetration rates in the world -- wants to boost its computer-games industry and has organized a host of gaming activities and courted game developers to set up shop on the island.

About 600 people will take part in the Singapore leg of the World Cyber Games competition from Thursday to Sunday. In the finals, which will be held in Singapore in November, some 800 players from 70 countries will compete.

Man this is just crazy. Why didn't have things like this back then? Who would have thought playing games would be so productive. If you told my parents that playing Nintendo and Sega all day would earn me money and make me famous, they'd probably have a heart attack.