Of course, that never went right. Students ditched school for the nearest cybercafes to surf for porn or spend an hour or so chatting through Internet chat rooms with a buddy sitting beside him.
That's not to say the government's 'get-them-on-the-net' scheme failed. Of course there were those who used the Internet for research but how many people were willing to pay five to ten dollars USD an hour to surf over a 33.6kpbs connection? Not me definately.
It wasn't before many home and office owners got associated with their first 28.8 connection and cafe goers were on the decline. Around that time, Quake appeared.

This was perhaps a small revival of the cybercafe scene as you couldn't get as decent a game on the net than a game on LAN. Of course, it was pretty fun looking at your 'Quakedood' jumping up and down in the monitor of the friend sitting beside you.
But Quake was not your typical gamer's kind of game, and First Person Shooter's were not as easy to adapt to than any other genre. Add to the fact that Diablo I had stolen the net gamer's hearts, the cybercafe population died down again.
It was in mid 1998 when the first two catalyst appeared. The first was StarCraft, Blizzard's space strategy gem hit the stores after many months of beta testing. Coming from a history with hit titles like Diablo and Warcraft II, people embraced Starcraft like there was no tomorrow. It's gameplay was easy enough for any particular joe to pickup and intriguing enough to keep them interested. This of course was the first part of it.

Later in November 1998, Half Life was born and FPS fans around the world squealed with delight. With an involving singleplayer storyline that kept the gamer incredibly immersed, Half Life soon stormed into every cybercafe with it's polished graphics(at that time) and interesting arsenal of weapons.
Differing from its Quake predecessors, Half Life had a much much slower gameplay, causing some criticism from the gaming elitists, but gaining a larger crowd of average gamers who found the slower speed easier to adapt to.
Many changes and restructuring took place in the Silicon Valley USA. The cybercafe population shifted from surfers to gamers, and the prospective cybercafe owners were there to take notice. It is here that the first revolution began.

Older machines went to make way for the new. Voodoo and TNT became part of the gamer lingua franca. Teenagers were now associated more and more with cybercafes than arcade centers. Parents and spokesmen alike thought this was a good thing.
In retrospect, 1998 was a great year for the gamers as some of the greatest games of all time were released. Gamers played nothing else but Starcraft and Half Life Deathmatch at cybercafes with zealous frenzy.
Perhaps we could also blame the economic downturn as one of the catalysts as many people were laid off. Seeing cybercafes as a safe and growing investment, many people decided to take the venture and thus cybercafes began to sprout. Times were bad as well on the children and what better place to let off steam than the parent-approved cybercafes.

The older cafes however were ill-equipped as the times changed. Their flow of net surfers were reducing as well as more and more people had net access at home. Unwilling to change, they died out to the new breed of cybercafes.
Now comes the part that most of todays gamers would be familiar with. Sometime in 1999, a new game appeared and simply stormed the world. It had the medium paced gameplay that attracted the simple gamers to Half Life, and the realism that Half Life didn't have. I don't have the exact details where it first appeared in Malaysia but rumour has it that it appeared first in the Silicon Valley. Ladies and gentlemen, the catalyst number 1: Counter-Strike, a Half Life modification.

You either hate it or love it but it's obvious, most of the world loves it, and the gamers at that time simply adored the game. Some critics claim that Counter-Strike's appearance to the scene was merely a stroke of luck as there were no better mods at the time.
Half Life addicts switched over seamlessly as both games had similiar physics and passer-by gamers were intrigued by the game enough to give it a try. They liked it and there a star was born. The cybercafe boom began.
Cybercafe owners who were lucky enough to start up their business shortly before 2000 were the ones who profitted the most as gamers hooked onto Counter-Strike attacked their shops daily to get a good dose of counter counter terrorism. Profits kept pouring and the times were good.

Year 2000 saw the scene growing even bigger and competitions and leagues were held all around the Silicon Valley. More and more players began to have a better grasp of the game and it was time to play it on the next level. Small and big time competitions were held where hordes of players came to play in groups. Meanwhile, teens and children alike continued to flock to cybercafes to find out what this Counter-Strike everyone seemed to be talking about.
Even as games like Unreal Tournament and Quake III arena made their appearances, their presence could not truly be felt as Counter-Strike overshadowed the other FPS. Things turned uglier as newer mods and games alike were passed over for Counter-Strike. Critics claimed that Counter-Strike caused gamers to overlook the better mods out there. Nevertheless, newer players were always abundant and the cybercafes never saw the flow of the money stopping. The craze caught on in other states like California USA and Tokyo Japan.

2001 was perhaps the apex and referred to many of the older generation gamers as the Golden Years of Gaming (along with 2000). There were competitions almost EVERY WEEK! Gamers flocked to the tournament sites to watch their favourite clans duke it out like a football match. That was the same year Malaysia had its first World Cyber Games qualifiers. Coverage websites like Challenge-MY became the most visited site in the world as gamers wanted to keep up to date with the latest competition news and discussions.
By 2002, the cybercafe gaming went on a decline. The various updates to Counter-Strike had stirred some resentment in its hardcore fans. The love for the game too had started to wane as players were starting to bore of the same maps. The older generation of gamers too were leaving the scene as they had to attend to real life matters like work for example.
Many cybercafes too, felt the pinch as the customers declined in numbers. Gone are the days when a horde of students waited outside their doors for them to start business early in the mornings. Life however goes on, and gamers continued to play Counter-Strike, unwilling and unable to switch games. Day in day out, they played only Counter-Strike and cybercafe owners did nothing to change this either. After all, the money continued to flow.

Many of the cybercafe owners who started off just after the first WCG however, met with ill luck. It had been sometime in 2002 when cybercafe owners saw their businesses in trouble as a new organization arose. Claiming themselves as AD Space Media and controlling the sole proprierty rights to distribute original games in Malaysia.
At the same time, the recent Counter-Strike update used higher-resolution graphics and that required better hardware.
As AD Space Media continued to terrorize the outlets in the Silicon Valley using pirated software, many other cybercafes were faced with competition from newer cybercafes with better hardware.

Once again, the cybercafes that were unwilling to change soon lost out. There was a drought for some time and many cybercafes were empty, even during peak hours. But there was hope as high speed internet services were introduced.
Fast forward to 2003 as more and more cybercafes come equipped with original software and fast internet connections. Once more the scene is thriving, as gamers have returned to play MMORPGs and online games like Battlefield 1942 and Warcraft III are popular. Counter-Strike continues to generate a steady flow of gamers to the scene as the computers now give a steady healthy framerate.
A great example of such cybercafes is the Virtua Arena located in the San Francisco area. It's bright and colorful environment is a positive sign for the cybercafe scene. It's concept and crowd show a newer breed of sophisticated gamers and cybercafes. Perhaps this is the future?