They are a dedicated elite, paid to kill each other on screen. Young professional cyberathletes, who spend eight hours a day sitting in front of a computer honing their skills, are increasingly courted by big business and compete for prizes worth thousands of pounds.
The underground world of gamers will be opened up this week as Britain's top professional team offers teenagers in bedrooms nationwide the chance to compete in the first global gaming tournament.
Four-Kings, a gaming "clan" which sends its team of 12 professionals worldwide, is holding online qualifiers for Painkiller, a one-versus-one shoot 'em up-style game which will form the centrepiece of a £550,000 global tour next year.
Uniquely, Four-Kings has made its qualifiers, which begin tomorrow, open to ordinary gamers over the internet.
"We are the biggest team in the UK, we've got a big fanbase and we wanted to give something back to the community," said Ben Woodward of Four-Kings, which was founded in Swansea seven years ago by Toby Aldridge, who was then 15.
Nearly 150 gamers have entered themselves for the qualifying competition in the race to become members of Four-Kings.
It is an attractive proposition for many. The team, which employs 12 full-time gamers and eight administrative staff, is sponsored by Intel and other hi-tech companies. Five of its gaming professionals are competing in Sweden, while six are in South Korea, the centre of professional gaming where 15 million young people are registered to play online.
"You walk down the street in Korea and get mobbed," said Mr Aldridge, 22. "Kids have posters of their favourite players on the wall. It's one of their biggest sports."
Young, male and paid to play their passion, the top gamers increasingly resemble professional footballers. The elite, aged between 17 and 25, enjoy a glamorous lifestyle and travel the world, but must also dedicate their lives to practice.
While there are barely two dozen professionals in the UK, around 100 South Koreans make their living as gamers. Some claim to earn in excess of $100,000 (£55,000) a year in prizes and sponsorship, helped by three cable TV stations dedicated to showing tournament gaming, and online games such as Lineage, which have millions of subscribers.
For gamers, their adrenaline-fuelled craft is undoubtedly a sport. "You don't need to be a physical athlete but you need excellent hand-eye coordination, reflexes and mental stamina," said Mr Aldridge. "In War Craft 3, the typical tournament players will make 400 actions a minute - more than six moves per second - for 30 minutes. It is as mentally draining as any sport."
The best eight players in Four-Kings' online qualifiers will go forward to its Bloodline Tournament, held in London in December.
Watched by hundreds of enthusiasts, with more spectators following the action over the internet, the two players who get the most "kills" in Painkiller's 15-minute rounds will represent Four-Kings in next year's world tour.
The 10-date tour, organised by the Cyberathlete Professional League, will pit British gamers against the best players in the world. The first tournament will be held in Turkey in February, with $50,000 in prize money. The games will culminate in a grand final, in December next year, where the winner will pocket $150,000.
"We will host 10 main events in nine different cities across the globe," says CPL's founder, Angel Munoz, a former stockbroker who set up the league in 1997.
"We also will host smaller competitions that offer free travel to the main tournaments in another 40 countries. We expect over 10,000 gamers to participate in the world tour's primary stops and qualifiers," he added.
The CPL has made its world tour more spectator-friendly by picking Painkiller as the competition game. Because it is a one-against-one game, it is easy for audiences to follow.
Mr Woodward, 21, said: "A few players are no-nonsense aggressive players. They won't play any mind-games, they just go after the other bloke and try to kill him. The others will try mind-games.
"The best players I've seen are pretty aggressive."
Big business is starting to take notice. Some players and teams have their own agents, while companies including MTV, leading clothes brands, mobile telephone companies and soft drinks manufacturers are in talks with the CPL about potential sponsorship deals.
There is a darker side to professional gaming, however. Some online games have given rise to "factories" where teams of workers play to build up virtual goods - such as in-game currency - which they then sell on to players.
Unlike their competitive equivalents, these professionals earn cash not by winning matches, but by selling in-game bonuses for real-world money. While many traders work legitimately in the "unreal estate" market, less scrupulous operators run what have been described as digital sweatshops.
"There are even rumours of internet cafes in the former Russian republics where you pay for your time on the net by earning money for the cafe owner," says Julian Dibbell, an author and former professional dealer from South Bend, Indiana.
Such trading can be hugely profitable and although sweatshops are a smear on gaming's record, some say that such profitability is further evidence that the hobby is reaching the mainstream.
Competition organisers are convinced that with its burgeoning - and youthful - fanbase, gaming could eventually rival the profile of sports such as motor racing and golf. The World Cyber Games, one of the main events, attracted nearly 600 competitors vying for $400,000 in prize money when it was held in San Francisco last month.
Several thousand fans turned up to watch a recent competition on giant plasma screens, where gamers played Counter Strike, a counter-terrorism contest, which was also watched online by 130,000 spectators from around the world.
