Nordic Esports Academy is organized by the students of Kajaani University of Applied Sciences, and will last from June 11 until July 8.
Video games are becoming an increasingly important aspect of modern culture, while playing as a pastime hobby is becoming more popular in all age groups. However, the video game scene itself constitutes of a wide variety of fields and people interested in them. One important field, which has been present since the 1990’s, but has seen explosive growth during the past decade, is esports.
So what is esports, exactly? In a nutshell, esports means playing video games competitively. Two or more players or teams choose a common multiplayer game and compete for the first place. The winner is awarded with money or prestige – or in a big competition, both. Typically, esports takes the form of an organized video game tournament with a live or an online audience – especially among professional players.
The rapid growth of esports, and the potential it may hold in the future, has not been left unnoticed. Some countries are preparing for this by integrating esports into their education systems. One good example of this is Finland, where Kajaani University of Applied Sciences, already renowned for its game development degree, will implement a new Esports Business degree this year.
The students of KAMK also organize Nordic Esports Academy, which is the country’s second largest annual CS:GO tournament with a prize money of 10 000 EUR. The summer of 2017 saw the first NESA event, which proved to be a huge success and a positive experience for both the participants and the organizers. This has encouraged the organizers to make NeSA an annual event.
The esports tournament, held at KAMK campus in the beginning of July, will be preceded by a four-week esports-themed summer school. The bootcamp participants will receive workshops and lectures from the top esports experts in Finland. The lectures are given in English, and cover a wide variety of subjects, including psychological coaching, physical coaching and the eSports business world.
Providing esports education will open new doors for people, who may not necessarily have the skills to make it to the professional level as players, but who still have the interest and motivation to work in the rapidly growing esports industry. Nordic Esports Academy seeks to contribute to this process by spreading the knowledge about esports and by giving the participants good and rewarding experiences to remember.