We know that France is talented in international video game competitions. Team Vitality or Team Emulate has propelled France to the podium several times. This highlighting of the victorious metropolitans, however, overshadows populations overseas, who are far from devoid of ambitions and deeds. This summer, Guadeloupe hosted an event that can be described as historic since it contains in itself something rare, but which already prepares the future of e-sport: the Giga Games Canoc Esport Series.
Giga Games Canoc Esport Series
The Giga Games association carries the Olympic ambition for video games
Double birth in the pelvis
From June 29 to July 3 the very first e-sports competitions took place in association with the Caribbean Olympic Games. It is the association Giga Games, mistress of e-sport in Guadeloupe, who took over the event. The group, chaired by Samuel Jourson, has made itself heard as the main player in the archipelago in this area, uniting the population around major events such as the Giga’Games Caribbean World Cup. Acting this time as an organizer and federation, Giga Games makes it possible to initiate a rapprochement between the physical Olympic Games, their representatives and committees, and the virtual games as well as their teams and audiences. The Caribbean games being held in Guadeloupe this year, it is with deep evidence that the choice then fell on Giga Games, with regard to the virtual component.
Note that, for their part, the Caribbean Games have never existed before and are also blowing out their first candles this year. The establishment of games in the archipelago has been debated and desired for twenty years. Larger organizations, such as the ACSO which covers Central America and the Caribbean, or the PASO which brings together the entire Pan-American territory, were the only entry points for these islands to the games. Under the aegis of the association CANOC (Caribbean Association of National Olympic Committees), the Caribbean now enjoy greater visibility of their talents, as well as preparatory access to more international competitions.
The event therefore marks both the emergence of Olympics in the archipelago, accompanied by official recognition by the committees and the affirmation of a correspondence with the world of e-sport. In 2019, Samuel Jourson was already considering taking the island’s ambitions internationally, expressing his intention to see “a team in each territory of the Caribbean, to compete in the 2023 Pan American Games to be held in Chile”.
Samuel Jourson, President of Giga Games
Compete in an inclusive spirit
For the Giga Games Canoc Esport Series, a very welcome place has been made for women, as well as an important partnership that dates back to colonial history with Kenya. This is how the Kenyan professional player Sylvia Queen Arrow was chosen as the godmother of the game Tekken 7as well as the Guadeloupean player Panda-Chan.
This rapprochement with Africa makes sense, for the representation of unknown talents, but also in the reminder of the importation of populations, from West Africa, reduced to slavery for the exploitation of the resources of Guadeloupe ( sugar cane in particular). Sylvia Queen Arrow and Panda-Chan presided over it an all-female competitionwith the international women’s tournament of Tekken 7. For Samuel Jourson, this dedicated competition was necessary, allowing “highlight Tekken players, but also not to discriminate [financières] between mixed, male and female competitions.”
This discipline took its place among many others; thus, the Giga Games Canoc Esport Series carried out competitions on games like WindJammers, Efootball, Fifa22, Demon Slayer Where just dance.
Sylvia Queen Arrow, professional player on Tekken 7
Kick off for Giga Games
The Giga Games association is not left out of such ambitious projects, with the holding of e-sports competitions in December on the occasion of the Rum Route. These will be done in partnership with the competition giant NiceCactus, which will provide the Guadeloupean association with its ergonomic online environment. Moreover, Giga Games has been rewarded for its efforts, with the validation by international e-sport bodies of its status as a federation. This will allow it to be able to send its champions to major world competitions.
This measure is particularly important since it correlates with the results obtained during the Giga Games Canoc Esport Series. Guadeloupe has thus propelled itself to podiumpositioning athletes in all the e-sport disciplines represented, making it the big winner of these Olympic Games (Martinique coming second with the Rising Opossum team and Puerto Rico in 3ᵉ place).
This demonstrates its ability to compete with the greatest, managing to gather and train the champions of its archipelago. Its validation as a federation, as well as its victories, therefore guaranteed it a place for the next World Cup. This in fact stands at Bali in December 2022 and will see the most deserving international e-sports teams compete. If Giga Games continues in this way, it is also guaranteed a place in the cup in 2023, which will be held this time in Europe.
A small step for video game recognition
This kind of initiative may not seem like much, but in the video game world, accession to the Olympics is an important form of recognition. She would come to sign and finish the difficult quest for legitimization video game, which has been taking place since the 1990s in front of academic and intellectual bodies. This time, it would be a question of recognising, by official international bodies, the positive values of video games, with regard to their social benefits, surpassing oneself or sometimes physical.
However, this is not the first time that such a fight has been waged and timid attempts do not always have the expected results. In 2021, the Tokyo Games had thus hosted, under very official license, the Olympic Virtual Seriesfinally shunned by the spectators, preferring a much less official neighbor: Intel World Open. Focusing more on so-called “classic” video game competitions (Rocket League and street fighter), the Intel World Open had been regretted not to appear alongside the Olympics (appearing only as an associated competition), while the sports simulations of the OVS (baseball, cycling, rowing, etc.) rather gave an impression of basically virtual redundancy. This is a debate that remains extremely divisive in the industry, since even if the act of playing in competition is a sporting gesture in itselfhe does not always share the same values in his ways of doing or being.
The mercantile aspect of video games, an object of cultural consumption above all, is an example of one of the main obstacles to the inclusion of games in the Olympics, which are based on human values. Commercial competition in the industry does not always allow players to agree on which games to promote, or the choice of organizers, or even sponsors. Finally, there is the question of certain competitive dynamics which sometimes encourage more the crushing of the other than to compete at his side, which in fact excludes certain licenses.
The Giga Games Canoc Esport Series: harbinger of the integration of games by the authorities
The archipelago situation of the Guadeloupe territory, at the same time as the geographical fragmentation of the Caribbean, does not, a priori, allow to hope for international investments. Nevertheless, this region of the world is increasingly showing its determination to participate in the global digital race, which is conducted daily on the technological and video game levels. From the point of view of e-sport, it brings out real talents, that is to say champions and competitors who have their place in more continental competitions.
With the absence of official bodies, they are also ambitious and warm actors who raise the desires of their territory at their own level, like Samuel Jourson in Guadeloupe, or even Renaud Saint-Cyr in Martinique (president of Rising Opposum), who carry out e-sports projects. We must see in this first correspondence between the Olympic Games and e-sports games an interest of the community and the authorities for this model of competition. It remains to reflect on the basics of healthy competitions, in correlation with the fraternal and peaceful values of the Olympic Games. But, it is clear that such a rapprochement is becoming more and more significant in the years to come.
This, it seems, is obvious for the Caribbean, which takes seriously the urgent need to think about the form of these connections right now. With the integration, at the next e-sports world cup 2022 in Bali, of Guadeloupe, this will certainly be an opportunity to testify to the growth of the region, as well as the importance of metropolitan governments to support its development.
