Fnatic - A profesional gaming team

Simon 'Crofteh' Belfield with the help of Lee 'Dewy' Dewhurst and Rakinur 'rakin'Alam had a chance to speak with Danijel 'StreeT' Remus about the upcoming PLAY events:

Today is the announcement of the 're-invention of FnaticMSI PLAY' with the backing of MSi, can you give us a run down on what exactly PLAY is?

The whole idea of PLAY came after we had already hosted a few huge tournaments. We started with the King of Kings tournaments in Warcraft III and Counter Strike 1.6 aim_map and we actually saw those tournaments went really well and were very well organised. After that, we launched Fnatic Game Idol, of which the purpose was to find a Counter-Strike: Source team. We had sixteen groups, almost every group with six or seven teams and without a single problem we made it work and it was logical for us to think about hosting tournaments more often.

That's how the idea of PLAY was born and then we all worked hard to make a good platform for it and run tournaments on that website instead of fnatic.com. To be honest, I was doing my military service during the summer, so I jumped back on my position when I finished it.

What is your role in FnaticPLAY?

I've been working as head admin and PLAY Assistant Operations Manager since its beginnings. To explain a bit better, I have to take care of the content on the PLAY website and organise it properly and make sure the tournaments run smoothly along with some other tasks. Nothing of this would be possible without hard working and dedicated admins who are the core of everything. We are all very well organised and connected. That's the key to our success, great communication and the will to constantly improve and help eachother in any situation.

Now we know MSI have been the head sponsor of FnaticMSI for a long time now, but you mention a 'revised partnership' with them for PLAY, what does this entail?

Our title sponsor is yet again showing great interest in gaming, but also that they are eager to grow even more, to expand their sights to new horizons, be one step in front of the competition and combined with our knowledge of gaming, running tournaments and the help of our professionals teams it can produce only the best.

Their partnership on the BEAT IT campaign will enable many gamers to take part in high quality tournaments and win great prizes. For Quake Live duelers and Counter-Strike 1.6 teams, it can be a trip to Beijing, so we will definitely make big things happen during the summer.

PLAY has been a successful one-day tournament site prior to this re-invention, what made you want to take it to the next level?

Even before we stepped into this new 'adventure', we were trying to improve the quality of our tournaments. Some of you might remember that we had PLAY shows, for example on Quake Live TV with Cypher and madix playing some show matches, then talking to them about the games and the competitions whilst people were listening.

The point is we are constantly improving and this partnership with MSi on the BEAT IT campaign came as the cherry on top of the cake, but we are not going to stop here, quite the contrary, we will be aiming higher with every tournament we host.

In the press release of the PLAY and MSI partnership it is said that the winners of certain tournaments will be eligable to compete in a tournament in Asia, how did that come about and can you give any more information on that at the moment?

For now, all I can say is that the winners of the Quake Live and Counter-Srike 1.6 tournament will travel to Beijing for an event that will take place on the 4th of September, and that will be our top prize for QL and CS1.6 tournaments.

What are your hopes and aspirations for this upcoming tournament and if it is successful will this become a mainstay in the eSports scene?

I can not speculate about it now. At this current point in time, we will do our best to produce a series of great tournaments, please the gamers across Europe and gather more and more experience after everything we do. After the BEAT IT campaign comes to an end, we will see where we go from there.

Which games can you announce at the moment that you will you be doing tournaments for and do you think you will be able to entice the créme-de-la créme of eSports teams into these tournaments?

Under the BEAT IT campaign we will have Call of Duty 4, Quake Live, Counter-Strike 1.6 and Heroes of Newerth. We are pretty sure our tournaments will attract the best of Europe in all these games. High prizes and the reputation of FnaticMSI PLAY should be enough to get the best to play.

What can we, as fans, expect to see during the run up to the first tournament?

Something that makes PLAY different from any other online tournament site is that we bring in a lot of writing coverage. Pre-tournament interviews, previews of groups, matches, analysis, give aways for our fans and content have been an integral part of almost every tournament we have ran so far. This time, nothing will change except we will have more to offer our fans and extent our coverage thanks to our coverage partners and sponsors.

When will the first tournament be and what game will you be choosing?

The first tournament and the opener of the BEAT IT campaign will be Call of Duty 4 which will feature 64 teams in battle for a $1,800 prize purse.

PLAY is usually known for one-day tournaments, will all the competitions in the PLAY season be one-day tournaments?

No, you will see the COD4 tournament ran across a span of three days. We are not going to make leagues or anything like that, but for high profile tournaments that are upon us, one day is not enough and it is much fairer to the fans if we spread them across a few days.

Insist On The Best

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About MSI

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