The largest e-sports event, Geeks Gone Wild, takes place this weekend in the Gigantium in Aalborg.
More than 1000 motivated and aspiring e-sports enthusiasts – including the happy amateurs and the e-sports elite in the discretion of the association – invaded Friday the big sports arena of computer gear, flat panel displays and topnotch office chairs ready to compete for big cash prizes.
Extra Leaf was present on Saturday in the Gigantium in order to take the temperature of the spilleglade gamers.
Here was bl.a. duelleret in CS:GO, Fortnite and FIFA with their hefty prizes up for grabs. And in the morning they had focused gamers taken their seats in front of the screen – though most of them had only been barely three to four hours of sleep during the night.
We caught three 13-year-olds and tense GGW-novices and Fortnite-combatants who were ready for Saturday’s grand finale in Fortnite:
– It is incredibly cozy to be together with friends! And it’s really cool that you can also get close to the pros, says Laurits K. Thomadsen.
We went out yesterday (Friday, ed.), and we come enough to spend many, many hours in front of the screen. We played only two o’clock yesterday night, so we can be further up in the day, adds Frederik Lauenburg Hammild.
– at Home, say parents: ‘Hold just a break!’ But conversely, they are also happy, that we have the opportunity to make new friends here at GGW, ending Malthe Groth Jensen.
In the big sports arena has more than 1000 computer-happy gamers made up to several different competitions in the bl.a. CS:GO, Fortnite and FIFA 19. Most of the søvnunderskud and high on caffeine is tucked away from the snow, sleet and daylight. Photo: René Schütze
Morten Kielskov of 38 was his fourth GGW-lan party – this time with his 9-year-old kid, Frederik Kielskov.
And even though Morten has introduced skærmtid in private for his son, so he is still positive about the e-sport development:
– I wish it had been there since I was a child. I’m even a reasonable grip of technology. And when I was young, it was strange, if you sat at a computer, but today ask all wondering: ‘Have you not a computer?’.
– How large is the gaming so otherwise in the everyday life of Frederik?
– I have him every other week, and that he plays in the morning in about half an hour, when he stands up, and when he comes home from school, so he sits around four to five hours in front of the computer … But I have introduced skærmtid – though it’s not for his great enthusiasm. He gets thrown in bed by half eight in the morning, and away off it all also – both the Ipad and the computer, says Morten Kielskov.
But this weekend there is still free play at GGW-the festival in the Gigantium.
Together they brought morten’s home-made and special-desginede turbo-computer, which lights up in all sorts of neon colors and has a total value of over 17,000 crowns – there are no narrow places!
this is The e-sports elite and the happy amateurs in unison in the Gigantium in Aalborg. Photo: René Schütze
the 25-year-old Kathrine Jensen has also turned up in the Gigantium with his two girlfriends. On the day she works in an insurance company from 8 to 16, but when she comes home, does she always CS:GO on the online channel Twitch.
Kathrine is also turned up to the GGW in Gigantium for the community’s sake – otherwise she namely the most social online at your computer at home.
– It is a very special atmosphere. You end up with warranty in søvnunderskud, eat unhealthy and are enjoying extremely much! And kampgejsten here is just the best, ” she stresses.
– How is it otherwise to be a part of a universe filled with boys?
– It’s quite interesting, I must say … I get damn some crazy comments on the road: ‘Shall we fuck?’ or ‘Sut min diller!’. I will not be offended by it, I just take the piss out of it.
– At one point I wrote back: ‘Only if your penis is 24 cm long …’ So now the people with dildos for me to lan parties, laughing at Kathrine.
Meetings you would otherwise prejudice, when you are gamer?
– It is not as bad as it gets screamed up to, ” says Kathrine.
But I always get the comment: ‘Out in the kitchen with you! And make me a sandwich!’. But then the laugh I just and says promptly: ‘Low however, your own?’.
Together with his two girlfriends was Kathrine knocked out before the major CS:GO-final for the semi-professional gamers – a tournament with the 25,000 up for grabs for the winner.
– they Just don’t hit the energy drink-the wall
Extra Blade also met the Team Ambush-the player Peter Kragelund of 25 years and the e-sport-the organisation’s CEO, 39-year-old Zouheir Chreih.
Zouheir Chreih own Ambush e-sport and has created a larger team consisting of a team leader, and marketing employees, a coach and, of course, a SoMe-manager, then Ambush players instead only to concentrate on one specific thing: namely, to win the CS:GO matches!
And then keep Chreih of course, also right eye with his Counter Strike players do not hit the ‘energy drink-the wall’, as he so poetically call it.
– We are here first and foremost to play CS:GO and the chance to win! But it is also important to support up around the map which just Geeks Gone Wild, ” says Peter Kragelund.
– It requires training five times a week by the side of a full-time job and many hours in front of the screen. I live and breathe e-sports and hope to be able to live of it at a time. I will do everything for it, he stresses.
Behind about the festival
E-sportsfestivalen took place in the Gigantium in Aalborg with approximately 1300 participants and with a capacity for 2500 spectators.
There was bl.a. duelleret in FIFA 19, CS:GO (Counter Strike) and the popular Fortnite.
the first Prize to the winner of the big CS:GO tournament was 100.00 dollars. Dkk 15,000 was up for grabs in the bl.a. FIFA 19 – and Fortnite-the tournament.
In total there was over 250,000 dollars on games over the weekend in Aalborg in all six tournaments.
the Festival had participants from over 15 countries, and the matches were live-streamed and bl.a. commented on even chinese and Russian.
Dennis Larsen, who is a board member of the Lan Team to the North, the organizers behind the annual e-sports festival, tells about the idea and the idea behind the 23. version of Geeks Gone Wild:
– The point is to get people out from their teenageværelser! In order to create a fun competition and some awareness around that it is perfectly okay to cultivate e-sports and playing computer. At the time I was young, so one down on gamers, but today there are many who earn millions on it, says Lan Team Nord member.
– the Parents think it is cool that their children meet others with the same interest and chatting with them, so they not only sit at home in the room. It comes to creating a great community.
– There is no prejudice, when you are sitting behind the screen, whether you are 12 or 40 years. You will be judged on what you can in the game and nothing else. And some players meetings even each other for the first time to GGW, even if they have the game against each other in over a year. It also has its charm … They have never met each other before and neither said hello or given each other a hug, but it comes the to here, said Dennis Larsen, who is one of the over 100 employees, there get the whole event to run around without the major technical difficulties.
