Furious Gaming celebrates 10 years of experience in the esports scene

“I keep doing it for the love of this, don't stop doing it for the love of esports. I don't think about it on the silver side but about development, that the company grows, being able to do more work in an industry that was always criticized but that I love and that I enjoy working in it every day,” says Gonzalo García, CEO of Furious Gaming. Despite the years that passed and the growth, Gonzalo continues to maintain the view he had since he joined esports.

The story of Gonzo is repeated through different stories of the main pioneers of esports in Latin America and they all have several sides in common: rowing, passion, loneliness, they were launched in a historical moment that laid the foundations of what we know today as electronic sports.

In 2011, Dota 2 celebrated the first The International, breaking the award schemes with 1,600,000 USD distributed, the grand champion was Natus Vincere. In 2012 League of Legends came out of Dreamhack Summer to make their world championship for themselves, outside of any video game fair. They surpassed the Dota 2 prize, with two million dollars, and the champion was Taipei Assassins, who had not come up with a chance to pass groups, and ended up surprising.

Also in 2012, Counter-Strike left the Source and 1.6 competitions to focus on the new edition: Global Offensive, where Ninjas In Pyjamas dominated the first two years of the game in a sweeping way.

In this context, between 2011 and 2012, Isurus Gaming and Furious Gaming were born, two pillars of the industry that shared a passion for a game that is not widely named today, but which is the mother of what we know as modern esports: Starcraft. Around that time, Blizzard had released the second edition of RTS, which came from reaping an immense triumph with StarCraft: Brood War, and both Facundo “KaLa” Calabró, founder of Isurus, and Gonzalo “SCR” Garcia, founder of Furious, played and competed in this game, but both quickly left the player position to assume the role of “Managers” as well as tournament organizers.

Today it is common to talk about tournaments with international travel, or a league system that allows you to compete for several weeks, but by 2012 and 2013, the chances of traveling were slim. All through a WCG (World Cyber Games, the esports “Olympics”), ESWC or any tournament that had a trip to Brazil. In addition, it was common currency not to receive the prize money. Despite this, the teams continued to compete and follow the growth that the industry was showing year after year, but two important moments allowed Latino esports to lay the foundation for growth: Riot's arrival in Latin America with League of Legends, and Argentina's 2016 trip to the World Cup of Counter-Strike.

“At the time when I was playing Starcraft 2, before assuming the role of manager, there were trips, international tournaments were always there. The thing is that today there are better tournaments, more frequent and, in addition, the Latin American scene - as it starts to grow and show itself internationally - generates or forces the main tournaments to consider the region as spots in their tournaments. It was progressive, it wasn't overnight, but as we became more relevant, that opened doors to new tournaments,” Gonzalo García reviewed.

The growth of the industry meant that several brands saw esports as a place from which to reach an audience they couldn't through traditional means. This is how Furious Gaming decided to turn its strategy around and be able to order itself as a company to be up to the competitive level that the scene would demand in the future.

“In 2017, 2018, we had Lenovo's income, that's when we managed to start generating revenue that allowed us to support the company operationally. For me, the most important achievement we have in the organization is to have an orderly organization, with numbers up to date, with payments up to date, in full growth, and improving our processes and the way we work every day to be a 100% professional company”, Marca.

Despite the growth that the scene began to show, it is still not normal to find a 100% ordered organization, even in the most important ones, but the entry of major brands and investment groups means that this direction can be addressed.

Nowadays, esports have become a topic of debate at several family tables, many boys and girls see their streamers or players and decide to make that activity their way of life, and - boosted by quarantine and the pandemic - not only did the number of people who decided to turn to that increase, so did the number of people who decided to turn to it, so did the number of people who decided to turn to it. people who decide to consume digital content related to gaming or on Twitch per se.

The case of Furious Gaming is different from the rest of the region and is what usually happens in other countries, athletes decide to join a team that is already working and provide investment and business knowledge. This is how “La Joya”, Paulo Dybala, joined the “board” of La Calavera: “Adding Dybala was a whole process, he comes from the hand of a business group. In January 2020 we started talking to them, they introduced us to Paulo and showed him the project. He liked that and we started preparing to join the company. It was a year of work to be able to come to fruition.”

“The reality is that in the beginning I had no experience, I never led a company, I went a little more to the tumbles, to trial and error. I think that the Gonzo of 2012, 2013, would be happy that all his work over the years - which he did it at his heart and practically alone - paid off, he would be happy, as I am now,” says the CEO of Furious.

Today, Latin American esports are at their best. New teams led by athletes make their entry, posing a challenge to the endemic teams of the region. At the same time, new international opportunities arise to demonstrate all the talent we have and that our players can grow and be true sports professionals.

Latin America has a lot to prove, we are in the right time and in the right place, just as our pioneers took the leap of faith and built this path. It's time to rise to the occasion.

Here you can see the video that Furious Gaming made for its tenth anniversary

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