With the rise of esports came the rise of the gaming house. Esports has seen a meteoric rise in the number of teams living and practicing their craft together. That said, there is a new type of facility on the rise that allows teams to work and practice in an office-like environment. The gaming house trend continues to die as esports becomes a more acceptable career, and with some pro players now making salaries in hundreds of thousands of dollars, more and more are looking to move on to their own homes.

This shift necessitates a new type of facility, one that blends office and comfort to accommodate these teams. While Alienware opened their Training Facility last year in conjunction with Team Liquid, more organizations are looking for spaces that provide both workspaces and amenities for their teams. Enter facilities like the Kinguin Esports Performance Center (EPC). The EPC is mainly targeted at teams that are bootcamping away from home before major tournaments but is also available to local teams as well.

Gaming Houses

In the past few years, we’ve seen the rise and fall of the gaming house. The gaming house’s origins are clearly rooted in gaming culture. Get a team together, put them all inside a house, and let them live and game together! It creates community! Unfortunately, gaming houses have all the traditional problems of a fraternity house, and while they may create bonds between teammates, they’re not conducive to an adult environment. Players grow up, get pets, enter into relationships, and eventually want to live on their own.

This is why the esports scene is seeing a rise in facilities like the EPC. Players can live on their own and travel to work just like a traditional job. For example, Team Liquid and Alienware opened the Alienware Training Facility in May of last year, creating an office environment for teams to play and train in. Just like the EPC, Team Liquid’s facility is outfitted with the latest technology to help TL succeed.

Bootcamping Facilities

First off, a word on bootcamping. “Bootcamping” is not new to the esports scene. The process usually involves an intense regimen of practice before large, important tournaments. Additionally, it most often happens in the country in which the tournament takes place. This move allows players to devote entire days or weeks to practice and helps teams adjust to different time zones and cities. A squad certainly doesn’t want to fly halfway around the globe and play a tournament match the day after they land.

While the term bootcamping is new, the idea behind it is not. For example, NFL teams often arrive several days early when they play on a different coast to allow the team time to acclimate to the new environment. While the adoption of bootcamping into the esports scene is not new, in the past several years there has been a rise of training facilities tailored to the concept as it applies to esports specifically.

Welcome to the EPC

Enter Kinguin’s Esports Performance Center, affectionately referred to the EPC. The training facility is located in Warsaw, Poland. It is completely decked out with everything an esports team would need to adjust, acclimate, and practice prior to a large tournament. Let’s look at some of the stats, shall we?

The EPC is an esports training facility that clocks in at over 21,500 square feet. It features 8 conference rooms, a bar, onsite physio- and psychotherapists, a dietician, and 21 bedrooms. That’s right, no longer will teams waste valuable playing time traveling from their hotel to their facility. Teams both live and work inside the EPC for days at a time, honing their craft in preparation for major tournaments.

Most recently, Renegades, a CounterStrike: Global Offensive team, utilized the EPC to its fullest extent prior to the IEM Katowice Major in Poland.

Renegades manager Chris Orfanellis clearly though the team's time at the EPC made a difference in their Major run in Katowice:

“The Esports Performance center sets a precedent for how professional teams operate by replicating a competitive environment where players can focus entirely on their game without any of the distractions a traditional bootcamp would have,” said Orfanellis. “Our time at the training facility paid off immensely as Renegades went on to make the legends stage for the first time in the organization’s history.”

The EPC is a Full-Service Training Center

Practice Rooms

The EPC has four separate practice rooms, each one with an appropriately gamified name: Forge of Fire, Heart of the Abyss, Masters of Shadows, and Moving Mountains. Kinguin has spared no expense in these rooms, either. Two of the practice spaces have touchscreens available for analysts and coaches. The practice computers are top of the line, with fancy on-brand gaming chairs throughout.

Bedrooms

The whole point of a bootcamp is to reside in a relatively distraction-free environment. It sounds crazy, but the easiest way to do that is to provide a place to live and work for the entirety of the bootcamp. That’s why the EPC has bedrooms, but they’re more akin to a hotel room than anything you would find at a gaming house. Teams can choose from single, double, or deluxe rooms for their players and staff. The double rooms feature two beds and a closet, but the singles and deluxe rooms have their own TVs and a PS4.

On-Site Staff

Following the trend of limiting distractions, the EPC also has several ancillary staff available for teams to utilize. Mental training has become more widespread in the esports scene. In fact, many teams have opted to add sports psychologists to their rosters. The EPC is clearly aware of the trend, offering an on-site psychotherapist to teams that bootcamp there. Kinguin hasn’t stopped there, however. Esports, and gaming in general, has always had a food stigma, conjuring images of rooms cluttered with McDonald's wrappers and Mountain Dew bottles. In reality, professional teams have recognized that healthy eating makes for well-functioning players. To this end, Kinguin also has a registered dietician and a professional chef on staff.

With the rise of repetitive stress injuries like carpal tunnel syndrome on the rise in professional gamers, Kinguin and the EPC also provides a physiotherapist in order to help keep teams at tip-top shape.

R&R

As much as teams like Astralis would have you believe, it’s not all work and no play for professional esports squads. Research has shown that players of all competitive sports benefit from time off to decompress, so Kinguin has outfitted the EPC with both a bar and a full-service media room for players to use in their off time. As any aspiring player will tell you, getting swole is important. Coincidentally, the EPC also has a full-service gym.

The Death of the Gaming House

In the past few years, we’ve seen the rise and fall of the gaming house. Gaming culture clearly influences the gaming house’s origins. Get a team together, put them all inside a house, and let them live and game together! It creates community! Unfortunately, gaming houses have all the traditional problems of a fraternity house, and while they may create bonds between teammates, they’re not conducive to an adult environment. Players grow up, get pets, enter into relationships, and eventually want to live on their own.

This is why the esports scene is seeing a rise in facilities like the EPC. Players can live on their own and travel to work just like a traditional job. For example, Team Liquid and Alienware opened the Alienware Training Facility in May of last year. They succeeded in creating an office environment for teams to play and train in.

Overall, these types of training facilities are set to supplant traditional gaming houses. As our sport grows up, so too should the way esports players train and live.

Images VIA: Kinguin and The Story Mob