I attended the Electronic Sports World Cup Masters 2008 in Paris, France, last weekend. That’s right, that’s cool: we had 2 great gaming events in a row in beautiful, and somewhat old, Paris, France! For those who missed the previous episodes, the first one was the very impressive WorldWide Invitational held by Blizzard. But today we'll talk about the latter: ESWC Masters.

I’ve been around ESWC events ever since their first occurrence. I’ve actually been involved in competitive video games long enough to know the people behind ESWC before they created it. At the time I met them, around 2000, they were throwing 400 people big LAN parties and everyone was in awe that they could pull off that kind of “huge” event.

This year, the Paris event was a Masters event because the Final will be held in San Jose, California, at the end of August (and yes, we’ll be there!). In the end, we still had more or less the same pro gamers competing so it didn’t really matter what it was called.

I attended as a caster for staged games. I worked on Counter-Strike, Trackmania, Race07 and some WarCraft 3 games. That was a lot of fun! While I cast Xfire Trophy games weekly on French TV channel Game One, doing it live in front of a crowd of several thousands was even more fun! It was the first time I did it like that and learning how to play with the audience, trying to get them into the event’s craze, was an amazing experience where feelings ranged from the utmost humility to unashamed pride.

Below are some pictures I took at the event:


The stage is empty before the event starts. This huge venue is the biggest sports arena in France: Le Palais Omnisports de Paris Bercy (or just “Bercy” if you want). There are 15,000 seats in there, but not all of them were used for the ESWC Masters.


The stage again, but this time shot from behind the seats gamers will soon sit on to play in front of the crowd. This is really impressive for a gaming event… The only other place in the world where competitive gaming has that kind of venues is South Korea.


The stage once more, pumping during the Quake 3 final. It’s crowded, the sound level is very high, the excitement is in the air.


Fnatic, one of the best and most famous Counter-Strike teams in the world, from Sweden, are coming off stage after an important win in their group. They’re signing autographs while trying to split the crowd. These guys ranked second overall at the Masters, losing to MTW in the final.


Louise “Aurora” Thomsen, from Denmark is the coach/captain/manager of team MYM-Les Seules. She was a player before and now she’s working more behind the scenes. She took the newly formed Seules line up to the top of the ESWC Masters, beating the SK Ladies team in the CS female tournament final.

I will post about ESWC Masters again later, with a focus on what was going behind the scenes this time.

Incolas