“It’s the tournament of life”, according to Fabien ‘Neo’ Devide, founder of the Vitality club

Thousands of fans fascinated by the spectacle offered by the players, hundreds of ultras from the Vitality club, the Golden Hornets, fervent fans in yellow and black jerseys… Does the Accor HÖtel Arena vibrate? this weekend of May 20? to the rhythm of the action of the professional Counter Strike players who compete for the title in the Blast TV Major, one of the biggest tournaments of the year. Endowed with more than a million dollars? to be divided among the best teams, it is an important appointment on the calendar, which Emmanuel Macron had wanted to announce in person.

“He who doesn’t jump is not Vita!”, “Vitalityyyyyy! Vitalityyyyy! Vita, Vita, Vitalityyyyyy!” English from In to the Breach. We are like in the football stadium, and far from the video game played in his room, or with friends. When the French qualify for the semi-finals, it’s an explosion of joy.

“It’s absolutely a childhood dream. When we laid the bricks for this discipline a few years ago, we wanted to make a living rather than survive. Filling the Accor Hotel Arena today is simply wonderful, it’s the creeps”, explains to franceinfo Fabien Devide, founder of the French team Vitality.

“We often have players who arrive very young, between 17 and 18. We have to prepare them to become athletes, because that’s what we ask them to be today.”

Fabien ‘Neo’ Devide, founder of Vitality

on franceinfo

This weekend, the sports minister, Amélie Oudéa Castéra, and the minister delegate for the digital transition, Jean-Noël Barrot, are expected on the spot to support the eSports sector in France. A government plan was announced in early 2023 and must come to solve very real problems for the industry, according to Fabien Devide:

“We lack amateur and semi-professional supervision. In sport we will have categories of young people, educators. We, the survey is done a little quietly, by eye and we often have players who arrive very young, between 17 and 18 years old”. We need to get them out of their bad habits and prepare them to be at the top level, grow up and become athletes, because that’s what we ask them to be today.”