If you follow a little the evolution of video games in the world and more particularly on the side of the professional sector, you must have realized that it has been booming in recent years. Even better: we are even talking about its integration into the Olympics, which sets up Leagues that are being created around the world, including at home in Belgium. We all remember, if we were born before the 90s, that time when we were passionate about early video games and when we projected that we wanted to get paid to play video games. We all threw this sentence to our parents or to an entourage who saw this ambition with an amused glance, projecting its array of smirks or glances thrown at the ceiling in the most absolute disdain.
Video games have evolved
We are in 2018 and we can easily say now that the situation has evolved and changed terribly. Nowadays, we can certainly say that a professional video game player, it really exists … and it is not going to disappear …
Indeed, better known under the name of eSport (or e-Sport), we are dealing here with a discipline which has in fact been booming for a few years. We are faced with a massive and rather impressive audience of hundreds of millions of people, who remain mainly present on the Interwebs. It is a sport in its own right which requires demanding training and which brings in sponsors, agents and brews astronomical salaries. This universe is endowed with competitions and even with an entire economy which revolves around it; to the point of seeing the term eSport enter the Larousse dictionary for the 2018 edition.
An esports specialist explains
We can find many testimonials on the net of professional players. For example, we have chosen that of a 28-year-old specialist and journalist on the issue. Philippe Rodier, who already has a career of nearly 10 years in eSport behind him and who finds himself a former French team champion of Counter Strike. He explains on the web: “Esport is a virtual passion, which looks a lot like sport in its mechanics. Esport was not born yesterday. 15-20 years ago, the term eSport did not exist, but the principle, the fact of playing in LAN, was already there.
Carrying 5 CRT screens of 10 kilos in the 206 to compete, I did! What has changed, besides technology and games, is undoubtedly the rise of the participatory web, of streaming, which has increased the audience and the community. The release of the League of Legends title at the end of 2009 also contributed immensely to the growth of the movement. By its graphics, its accessibility, its popularity. In a few years, we have gone from gymnasiums or neighborhood youth centers, to stadiums of 40,000 people completely sold-out. Until considering the arrival of eSport in the Olympic Games in its own right… ”.
Belgium launches into eSport
We will try to get to the heart of the matter through a short immersion in the first Belgian ePlayers of our football championship which allows us to see that Belgium is finally getting up to speed. It is indeed organizing the very first major e-Sport tournament, to the displeasure of the many detractors who try to exist through their criticism on this subject. The e-Sport will really settle in Belgium and no one will be able to change anything. It is on the side of the specialist in entertainment and casinos Circus that we must then turn today to find the organizer of this huge long-term tournament which has already started since mid-March. If it is particularly late compared to its neighbors, Belgium is finally developing this very lucrative activity and is therefore starting to take full advantage of electronic sport, which is therefore gradually developing on the territory, and more particularly thanks to the establishment of the Football ePro League, in parallel with our championship classic. We certainly still have some catching up to do, especially if we compare ourselves to our French neighbors, to name a few, who organize dozens of tournaments each year like the famous and very recent Lyon e-Sport.
Circus innovates with the 1st Belgian tournament
The news of this launch on the market in our country is therefore a very good thing for our Belgium, which does not yet really know this kind of competition, at least on a large scale. But not for long since, as we indicated to you just above, the specialist in entertainment and casinos Circus is going to organize the first real big tournament of electronic sport. Named the “Circus e-Sport Tour”, we are witnessing here a long-term tournament spanning several months, currently underway and scheduled to end in 2019. A real ideal competition to finally determine who is the best player in the world. Belgium.
This tournament is a 100% Belgian tournament, which therefore takes place all over the country, but which opposes players of different nationalities. In terms of participation, gamers have the choice between 4 major video games: League of Legends, Hearthstone, Overwatch and Counter Strike: GO.