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an esports tournament in favor of the League against cancer

It is almost unsuspected, this school of a particular kind. Were it not for the sign attached to the entrance and the prints fluttering in the cool breeze for a few weeks, the neophyte would miss it without realizing it. And yet, at 23 rue des Trois-Rois hides a pioneer in the field: PowerHouseGaming, a training center entirely dedicated to e-sports.

A professional stream

Quèsaco? Electronic sports, which some categorize as simple video games, although in this area, the field is immense and borrows from cinema, music, literature, comics and opera. However, for several years now, tournaments on a national or international scale have been developing in which recognized champions participate and real teams whose players have made it their profession. Not so anecdotal as that, since the edition of the Southeast Asian Games (SEA) 2019 included a part of e-sport and the discipline, if it has been excluded for the moment, is the subject a reflection on the part of the International Olympic Committee.

At this level, the amateur may find himself on one of the keys of his keyboard in front of players trained and, for the most part, sponsored to the point of making a profession. It is to respond to this demand for a new kind that PowerHouseGaming (or PHG) was born in Mulhouse, imagined and directed by Terence Figueiredo, whose career as a player inspired this training center.

Open at the start of the 2016 academic year, this academy is not virtual: it welcomes 30 to 48 young people per year, mainly boys from general or vocational courses, who have over 1,500 m² of training courses in even to help them build a career. “In appetite, they are selected on their motivation, their level and their project”, summarizes Maxime Sengelen, manager of the club born in the wake of the Mulhouse training center, which was the first of its kind in France. And thus intends, if others have since emerged, to establish its expertise since nine branches are to open next year with the approval of Ionis , the leading private training group in France.

In fact, “if students learn at home how to build a professional project in video games as a player, they can, if they do not succeed, reorient themselves towards related professions thanks to the XP School , also associated with Ionis, ”continues Maxime Sengelen (see elsewhere).

Concretely, students take courses in Mulhouse on communication, behavior, business creation, management or even “gamification” to increase their videoludic skills. “This translates into a need to calculate and take decisions very quickly or other special skills, such as geometry in space,” notes Maxime Sengelen.

Specific skills

As in “classic” sport, do we need coaches for the games, the physical but also the mental, in order to learn to be “efficient and productive, manage stress, sleep and diet”? In fine perhaps, a sesame to the elitist milieu of professional players where “Neymar” (from the name of the Brazilian football star) rub shoulders as well as “smicards”. The concept is pushed to the point that PHG Mulhouse has a weight room, kitchenettes and relaxation areas and even a boarding school, where around thirty students are currently staying.

“Either they come from far or even very far away, like a Haitian who had studied with us, or they do not have at home a connection and sufficient equipment”, explains Maxime Sengelen, recalling that the discipline requires throughput and resources. But learns as a corollary concentration and reactivity.

This is starting to interest the National Education since an option has existed for three years, within the Lycée Louis-Armand in Mulhouse, led by PHG. “The students thus obtain a grade in e-sport, this is a first in France! », Welcomes Maxime Sengelen, who is behind it.

CONTACT PHG, 23 rue des Trois-Rois in Mulhouse, more information on the centre’s website.

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