More than a game for team with eye on US prize
● Forget semester tests and assignments, they’re already semi-pros at recon and artillery.
Young members of the Bravado Gaming team are putting months of training to work this weekend at one of Comic Con Africa’s gaming tournaments.
The tournaments are hosted at Comic Con Africa at the Kyalami Convention Centre in Johannesburg. They involve some of SA’s top players across a variety of games competing for a combined prize pool of R1.85m, the richest for gaming in SA.
They will be followed next month by SA’s biggest annual gaming expo, Rage, which attracts tens of thousands of gaming, technology and gadget fans.
Taking part in this weekend’s event are the four members of the Bravado Gaming team who play Call of Duty, a first-person shooter video game franchise. The team, aged between 18 and 21, have one common dream — getting to the US to play professionally, full-time.
There, gamers can pocket anything from R350,000 to R5m if they win e-sport tournaments.
With South African organised gaming still in its infancy, Bravado founder Andreas Hadjipaschali, 31, says their best prospect of success is relocating to the US.
“E-sports in South Africa is about five to six years behind what’s happening on the international scene. We’re seeing a shift in the entertainment industry — the new sport is gaming. A kid today doesn’t know what a jumping castle is, but they can set up an Xbox,” said Hadjipaschali.
While they aren’t yet able to earn salaries for being pro gamers, they make a living from prize money.
Bravado Gaming also has a team of pro gamers in the US, who specialise in Counter Strike: Global Offensive, or CS:GO. They’ve been living together and competing in tournaments since the beginning of the year.
Among them is team manager Tiaan Coertzen, 26, who graduated from the University of Pretoria in 2016 and worked as a medical doctor for a year before trading his stethoscope for a gaming console.
“I am very passionate about medicine, but towards the end I kind of studied medicine because I applied and I got in and couldn’t really see myself doing anything else, until
A kid today doesn’t know what a jumping castle is, but they can set up an Xbox Andreas Hadjipaschali
Bravado Gaming founder
e-sports became a viable career option.”
Coertzen shares a house in Phoenix, Arizona, with five South African team members. Although he is still deeply passionate about medicine, Coertzen wants to focus all his energy on his first love, gaming, which he started playing at age six.
“E-sports has always been a passion for me. I used to play hockey and cricket in high school, but when I found out I could play games against anyone in the world it awoke a different kind of competitiveness in me.
“I have always been a competitive person, so naturally when I discovered there were millions of people playing across the world and there were competitions on a regular basis, I wanted to prove I could be the best.”
Since relocating in February, the team have won $40,000 [R600,000] just from tournaments. “We made the move to the States in February in search of higher-tier opposition to practise and compete against. One of the tournament organisers in America, ESEA [the E-Sports Entertainment Association] gave us a chance by inviting us to compete in the Season 27 ESEA main league, which we managed to win without losing a game,” said Coertzen.
Team member Rhys Armstrong, 20, started playing professionally in 2015 while at school. “Competing in the US has been a huge opportunity. It’s so competitive, it keeps us striving to improve,” he said.
Internationally, CS:GO players can earn between $500 and $40,000 a month, excluding tournament winnings and personal income from Twitch, a live-streaming video platform.