eSports elite hone their skills inside a Berlin ‘gaming house’

Germany’s capital, which is hosting the European championships of ‘League of Legends’ until the end of March, 2019, is a hotbed of eSports talent, with several teams making their base here for the event.

Published : Feb 07, 2019 14:55 IST , Berlin

LONDON, ENGLAND - MARCH 01:  Team Vitality from France takes part in a qualifying match at the 2015 Call of Duty European Championships at The Royal Opera House on March 1, 2015 in London, England.  The event sees 28 teams from across Europe and the Middle East compete in order to qualify for the 2015 Call of Duty world finals in Los Angeles on 27 March, 2015. Electronic sports (eSports) are increasing in popularity with over 70 million people regularly streaming eSports tournaments online last year. (Photo by Rob Stothard/Getty Images)
LONDON, ENGLAND - MARCH 01: Team Vitality from France takes part in a qualifying match at the 2015 Call of Duty European Championships at The Royal Opera House on March 1, 2015 in London, England. The event sees 28 teams from across Europe and the Middle East compete in order to qualify for the 2015 Call of Duty world finals in Los Angeles on 27 March, 2015. Electronic sports (eSports) are increasing in popularity with over 70 million people regularly streaming eSports tournaments online last year. (Photo by Rob Stothard/Getty Images)
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LONDON, ENGLAND - MARCH 01: Team Vitality from France takes part in a qualifying match at the 2015 Call of Duty European Championships at The Royal Opera House on March 1, 2015 in London, England. The event sees 28 teams from across Europe and the Middle East compete in order to qualify for the 2015 Call of Duty world finals in Los Angeles on 27 March, 2015. Electronic sports (eSports) are increasing in popularity with over 70 million people regularly streaming eSports tournaments online last year. (Photo by Rob Stothard/Getty Images)

Living on site with colleagues for months on end sounds like a nightmare for many, but Berlin is becoming home to a growing number of ‘gaming houses’ within the eSports community.

Germany’s capital, which is hosting the European championships of the world’s most popular online video game ‘League of Legends’ until the end of March, is a hotbed of eSports talent with several teams making their base in Berlin for the championships. The idea of a gaming house allows team-mates to live and play together under one roof, with hours dedicated to improving performances.

In western suburb Halensee, a popular district for bankers and diplomats, the eSports outfit Team Vitality — one of the best in Europe, sponsored by a major soft drink company and a carmaker — has made its base in a huge 350-square-metre (3,700 square foot) apartment.

It is here the team will be based for 24 hours in a day for the nine weeks while the European championships are held.

“No professional team can do without their gaming house, the days when five players from the same team were training simultaneously, each with his own apartment, scattered across a country or continent, are over,” Dennis Hennersdorf, manager of Team Vitality, told AFP .

His job is to ensure the five gamers — all males, aged 20-23 — need nothing while they practise, earning salaries “comparable to football players,” according to Gabor Fenyvesi, Team Vitality’s chief gaming officer. Their meals are prepared, washing is done and they have a coach and video analyst on hand to review and improve their play.

The apartment’s central training room is packed with a dozen computers, supported by a high-speed internet connection — a hive of activity for around eight hours each day when the team gets to work. Each gamer has his own bedroom — featuring a door adorned with his own cartoon image, manga-style, and photographs of the team’s victories decorate the walls.

‘It can be stifling’

While many of their neighbours would have already been at their work desks since 9 am, the gamers rise at 11 am, eat breakfast together, then have various individual and team training sessions online, punctuated with tactical briefings, often running until as late as 3 am.

Invictus-Gamingjpg
Team Invictus, a Chinese outfit, was the 2018 world finals champion. Photo: Getty Images
 

In addition, they receive regular visits from a physiotherapist and three fitness sessions a week to avoid neck, back and finger injuries after so many hours in the ergonomic chairs, each one adorned with a bee, the team logo. The quasi-family environment allows the team to “anticipate and solve problems on the spot,” said Hennersdorf.

However, hours of gaming with team-mates, cooped up under the same roof, with visits from family, friends and girlfriends forbidden, can lead to claustrophobia. “We do not control what they are doing all the time, but we ask them to be fully focused during the nine weeks, we suggest that they put their feelings aside,” said Fenyvesi.

It’s a complicated situation to manage, according to the team’s French star Lucas Simon-Meslet, who competes under the pseudonym ‘Cabochard’. “During these months in Berlin, it’s great to be able to live with my team-mates, but it can sometimes be stifling, to be 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for months, without having a separate private area,” said the 21-year-old.

The traditional model of a gaming house appeared in Seoul nearly two decades ago. Former world ‘League of Legends’ champion Fnatic prefers a hybrid solution. “Our League of Legends team plays and trains in an office in Berlin, but all live in separate apartments nearby,” said Fnatic’s manager Jan Hoffmann.

Team Vitality and Fnatic are just two of the 10 teams battling for the European crown. The 2019 world finals take place this November in Paris after last year’s event, hosted by four South Korean cities, attracted 100 million spectators online when Fnatic lost to Chinese team Invictus Gaming over three rounds.

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