Blood money comes to first-person shooters cash-for-kills

Imagine playing Halo 3 with a lot more at stakethan losing a virtual life. What if, every time you were injured by anopponent, your bank account took a hit aswell?
That's the idea behind Kwari, a "first-person shooter skill-based cash-for-kills" online game, set to debut in the New Year.
Players of Kwari will suffer automatic deductionsfrom their bank accounts when they are hit in a game, as well asdeposits when they strike their opponents. The amounts can be anythingfrom one cent to one dollar per hit depending on the stakes for thegame.
There is also a fractional cost if they pick up additional weapons or health packs, with the money being pooled into a jackpot.
In 16 to 64 player match-ups, jackpots are sharedbetween the gamer in possession of a smoking sphere called the Pill atthe end of the game and the player who had held it the longest.
Kwari is the idea of Eddie Gill, a former gamesproducer for Activision and Konami, and the company of around 20employees is based in London.
It is a more sophisticated take on cash-for-gaming than winner-takes-all services such as Tournament.com, which went offline last month, and SkillGround.
"We have engineered the game around the exchange of cash from the ground up," says Clive Hibberd, chief executive.
He says the challenge has been to record the millions ofmini-transactions in the game in a huge database and carry outdouble-entry book-keeping as money is transferred.
Kwari will be released in Europe first, due to uncertainty about howit will be viewed by the authorities in the US, where internet gamblingis banned. Kwari argues it should be classified as a skill-based gameas opposed to gambling, where luck is more involved.
Kwari will make money by selling ammunition to players. Mr Hibberdanticipates 5,000 bullets costing $5 and lasting a player for one ortwo hours.
Hard-core gamers are the target audience and 12,000 have signed up for a closed beta of the game.
"There'll be weekly, monthly and annual jackpotprizes and we expect to have our first gamer millionaire by 2009," saysMr Hibberd.

Kwari is a planned first-person shooter multiplayer online game, the first game of its kind with participants competing against each other for money. Produced by Eddi Gill's company Kwari Limited of London and Leeds, it was announced in August 2007 to be available by the end of the year.

Players fund their accounts up front, buy "ammunition" from KwariLimited, and are matched against other players of similar strength ingroups of 16 to 64. A player who is hit pays to the hitter an amountthat was arranged in advance (between 1 eurocent and 1 euro).Players can also earn money by collecting and holding various objects;"The Pill" is the most lucrative one and renders its holder visible toother players through walls. Players pay into a jackpotto be paid out regularly to the pill holder. Strict anonymity of theparticipants is ensured to avoid the possibility of real-worldretaliation. Beta-testing started in August 2007. The servers will initially allow 5000 players to play simultaneously.
Company officials were quoted as saying "money changes everything"and "once played at a professional level or where money is involved,it’s unappealing to return to an amateur status".

The online shooting game that offers ‘cash for kills’