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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Season 3 World Championship Finals!
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Coming to you live from the Staples Center here in Los Angeles, California.
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I studied journalism and history
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After my studies, I took up gaming again, played League of Legends a lot.
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I discovered there was a big competitive scene built around it.
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I thought: why don't I just try implementing the things I've learnt
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about traditional sports into this world of eSports?
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That's how I got here.
This is Eefje. Working at the World Championship in Los Angeles. She is the host of the most popular videogame in the world: League of Legends.
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Last year just flew by, with LA as a final stop.
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I've been to Moscow, Sweden, Korea...everywhere.
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It all goes by so fast.
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And there is also a Flemish guy on the stage of League of Legends. Mitch Voorspoels, known as Krepo, is a top player.
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We went to the World Finals and ended up third,
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we tied with another European team.
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So we were a top level team, almost made it to the finals.
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The prize money was a million dollars. We were very close.
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Mitch is a professional gamer, he gets paid to play League of Legends.
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People wonder if gaming is all I do.
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Yes, for the most part.
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I train eight hours a day. Sometimes 10, sometimes 6.
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Training isn't just about playing, it's watching others play,
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analyzing the game. We don't have a 9 to 5 job,
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we were lucky to make a living out of our hobby. That's amazing.
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League of Legends is a strategic game, where two teams of five compete against one another. Simply put, it's a game where it's intended to destroy the other team's base.
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Every member of the team has a different task.
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Perhaps your main goal is to help your teammates
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by healing them or making them run faster.
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You can be a tank, taking all the hits for the team.
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The five different components all have to work together.
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The goal of the game is to destroy the other team's base.
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If you succeed, you win the game.
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At top level, it isn't that simple. Then it's all about strategy.
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The game is insanely popular worldwide. Every day more than 12 million people play it, and every second ten new games start.
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You just log in, you play, and then boom, you are having fun also.
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I met so many new people and got so many friends for the game all over the world. It's just amazing.
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It's free to play and it's so easy to learn, so there's not such a high border to get into it.
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Welcome to Masters Cologne!
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Welcome, my name's Borad.
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And I'm Eefje, and I'm so excited for this weekend - an entire weekend full of top-notch League of Legends action.
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Cologne last weekend. We're at the last European tournament of the season, and again, Eefje hosts the show. Games that are viewed on the internet by hundreds of thousands of fans. It's hard to believe and certainly a big achievement for a girl of 26 from Bruges.
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It's hard to convince your family
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that this is smart career move.
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For them, it's still just playing games on a computer.
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When they came over, I showed them this is serious business,
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these people take their job very seriously.
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They were quite impressed with the cameras and the studio.
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I enjoyed the fact that they started to realize that this is serious business.
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In another studio, we meet Mich. He is not playing today, but is asked as an expert in this tournament. He's commentating the games life during the contest.
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Why not give their utmost best, possibly pick up a tournament victory, momentum carrying you on...
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I think I'm the only Belgian who's made gaming his full-time job
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and is able to do nothing else. That certainly makes me feel proud.
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So I'm so glad that people are showing interest,
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wonder what it is I do. 'Cause to be honest, it is unique.
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And it may seem like a small tournament but the viewing figures worldwide via the live stream are enormous.
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So right now we are watched by about 270,000 people. Over the weekend I guess we will have about 2 million people tuning in...
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This is not the largest production we would ever have.
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For a European or a World Championship views can count up to 32 million. That is an absolute record in the gaming world.
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If you'd said to me ten years ago, twelve years ago, when I sat in my bedroom doing this for a laugh, having a drink too many and saying things I shouldn't have said on a radio station,
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and that it would become this kind of prime-time, you know, greater viewers than most sports care to have, I'd have thought you were crazy. So, yeah, it's an amazing journey.
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It's almost time to shut the show down, and tomorrow both semifinals, both finals coming your way live and exclusive, only from the Intel Extreme Masters.
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For myself and all the people in Cologne, it's good night.
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It was a good day. I've still got a lot to learn,
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but tomorrow will be even better.
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The first day of the tournament is over for Eefje. It was a long day, hosting for twelve hours straight. Tomorrow, when the finals are played, it's even more important. She gets back to her studio in Cologne, where she's already living for a year. And this, because Cologne is the gaming capital of Europe.
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It controls your life, but at the same time
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you have a lot of friends who are doing the same thing.
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That doesn't mean I don't miss my friends in Belgium,
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but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
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I'll be really happy to see them this Christmas.
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I try to go home every few months.
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Back in Herenthout I'm nobody.
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I go out for a drink, even end up paying the bill because of my stories.
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It's really nice, you can be a celebrity in this niche scene
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and back home I get to be a nobody again.
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You just have to make sure you keep both feet on the ground.
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Ah, okay.
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It's the top floor. Way high, right?
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There's no doorbell?
- Yes, there is.
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Mitch and Eefje both live in Cologne and like to spend time together. As successful game celebrities they sometimes check who of them both is the most popular in the gaming world.
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But my name's not on it. Come in.
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Come on, Twitter.
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How many've you got?
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74.300 and then some.
- Peanuts.
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And how about Facebook? Since the world finals...
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Yeah, it really took a flight.
- You had 40 or 50,000 then.
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I went straight from 50,000 to 124,000.
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Then I'd rather you didn't check mine.
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Am I winning?
- Just a little. 2000 more.
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I've got 122.000.
- Yeah, 122.000.
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But I don't sell myself like you do.
- Oh no? 'Look at me...'
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With my tiny moustache.
- 'Check this video', 'I'm streaming.'
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Okay, you win.
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But I beat you on Twitter.
- Yes.
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Almost 100,000.
- Almost 100,000?
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I often get messages, going from: 'Will you marry me?'
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to 'Shall we go for drinks some time?'
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But it 's all very chill and...
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Our fans are mostly youngsters, so for them this is just...
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I'm practically the only girl on television.
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Judging by our followers on Facebook or Twitter,
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it's getting quite big.
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I've got 120,000 followers on
Facebook, 100, 000 on Twitter,
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so I guess that's more than
the average Belgian would expect
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from someone who gets paid to play videogames.
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Just to give you a thought, Mitch Voorspoels has as many followers on Twitter as the prime minister of Belgium.
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Yesterday amazing games, but today we've got some good stuff lined up.
During day two of the tournament in Cologne, we see that the popularity of Eefje and Mitch is not only existing online. Fans are asking them for a signature or a photograph non-stop.
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Could we take a picture? We didn't want to disturb you back there...
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At big events like the European playoffs, in a hall packed with people,
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I know everyone knows me.
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Just walking through I might spend three hours posing for pictures,
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signing autographs.
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We really make time for that,
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because people really want that picture.
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I still don't know why, but it's really nice.
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He's a bit of an icon for me when it comes down to support.
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I love watching his support plays, and learnt a lot from it.
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She's my role model.
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Aww, that's very nice to hear. Thank you.
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She's really cute, and I love her.
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It's really weird for me, I don't think I'm that important.
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But I tend to underestimate.
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If you host a show for hundreds
of thousands of people,
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people start looking at you differently.
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But you can't let it get to your head, you should just enjoy it while it lasts.
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These kids nowadays are the film stars of the '40s when we first started having film. They're the pop stars from the '80s when we started having music videos on TV. They're the modern equivalent, just a different form of media, and these are the stars of tomorrow.
Obviously big companies smell the huge attention, viewers and fans the game gets. Gaming is big business and especially gamers earn big money.
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We actually have three incomes: we get sponsored by our team,
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by the owners of the game who want to finance their competitive circuit
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and on top of that there is the prize money.
11.12. There is a lot of money around, and I think anyone from 16 to 18 right now could easily earn six figures in a year, just from playing League of Legends. And that's a scary amount of money for a person who is 16 or 17.
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I can't tell you how much I make,
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but I can tell you it's definitely worth it.
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I've seen the world by now, I've been to so many countries,
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I've met so many people.
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My flights get paid, my hotels get paid, my house gets paid,
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so I don't have to spend a lot.
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I can't say how much I earn,
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but I can surely live comfortably.
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It's a different story for Eefje. She gets paid by the company that organizes the tournament.
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I make a good living, I think it's a normal living.
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This is still my first job and I'm new in the business,
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but we'll see where it goes from here.
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For me, the most important thing is still that I'm part of this community,
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because I love this game, I love eSports and I love gaming.
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Beautiful zone in Game 1. He just went in, pushed them back, they come a little closer, Eddie jumps in...
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Gaming is not for nerds only. That's what Eefje and Mitch showed us this weekend. A world unknown for us but apparently a very big one. Where more and more companies want to connect their name to. And as long as League of Legends stays this popular, Eefje and Mitch will also be able to benefit from this all.
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It's the end of the tournament. And while Mitch analyses the finals, Eefje hands over the main prize to the Russian team.
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I'm heading home now for a couple of days
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and then maybe I'm heading out to the USA.
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Sometimes you cannot plan anything,
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but I think I'm heading for the USA, and we'll see from there.
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A day of rest. Then I head to Singapore and it starts all over again.