Community Spotlight: Jakarta’s competitive-gaming cavalry, Advance Guard

Advance Guard, abbreviated as AdvG, is an Indonesian competitive gaming community founded just a year and a half ago by Adipati ‘Garlic’ Rahmat and Joshua ‘Joz’ Pamintori. It is currently ensconced in the Jakarta Game Show, where it is executing 2013’s Fight Fest, which includes discussion panels and a variety of tournaments for trading card games and fighting games.

But just who – or what – is Advance Guard?

“I think Advance Guard is a community that wants to make the competitive gaming community in Indonesia bigger and better,” said 22 year old Akhmad ‘Disc-Co’ Hidayat, speaking on behalf of the group. There is no fixed roster in AdvG, because they have a bigger picture in mind.

“As long as we see someone who wants to help grow his community, he can surely join Advance Guard,” said Hidayat.

Hidayat went on to explain how the competitive gaming landscape in Indonesia is like. The country’s geography has played a huge part in its development.

“The competitive gaming scene in Indonesia is kind of scattered, unless you’re talking about [monetized] eSports like Dota or League of Legends. There are a lot of small communities playing the same game, who don’t know each other.”

So what Advance Guard has been trying to do is to bring all of these communities together. Their participation in the Jakarta Game Show is just way. The Fight Fest at JGS is a big sub event already in its second year. With a big tournament, bigger venue, and the biggest prize – who wouldn’t want to crawl out of their hidey holes and play for glory (and cash)? In the process, these players get to meet new people, who might also be playing the same games.

“There are also some people who want to go to the competitive levels of play, but who don’t know how to learn or where to start,” Hidayat added. AdvG sometimes holds coaching clinics, just like the one happening at the Jakarta Game Show today.

AdvG is not just active during large events, though. Together with their main sponsor, Indonesia’s largest video game retail chain GS Shop (Pssst, it sells mostly original games) and media partner Video Games Indonesia (a subsidiary of GS Shop), they organize regular fighting game tournaments in one or another GS Shop outlet. From time to time, the group also participates in high school festivals to introduce the competitive gaming scene to high school students. Parents might shriek at this – but they’ve actually managed to build up a competitive gaming club in one of Jakarta’s largest Catholic schools, the Regina Pacis institute.

It’s only recently that AdvG has started including other competitive games. Fighting games have long been in its blood; it’s only natural when the first few who started it are fans of beat-em-ups. Even the name of their group is a fighting game term: advance guard is another term for an offensive guard move.

Nonetheless AdvG opened up well to the rest of the communities. At JGS 2013, they’re holding tournaments for the trading card games Vanguard and Weiss Schwarz, as well as for FIFA and Bemani.

“We’re planning on holding small rhythm game tournaments,” Hidayat said, of their plans post-JGS. “Mainly for BEMANI rhythm games such as Beatmania and Sound Voltex.”

In the meantime, though, they’ll still be doing what they do best – gaming on!