The GM's story

Posted by: bsl

- A string of coinccidences

Norwegian newspaper paint a «bsl» portrait

GM Jonas Alsaker Vikan during the photoshoot for the feature interview. Photo: Jonas Alsaker Vikan

Online from Brussels, Belgium

Name:
Jonas Alsaker Vikan

Position:
General Manager

About the author
Jonas Alsaker Vikan is the General Manager of Berlin Allianz. He led the team to a European championship and a third to fourth placing at the first CGS World Final. The twenty six year old Norwegian is also a journalist.

26. April, Brussels, Belgium

In the Championship Gaming Series there are a number of extremely experienced individuals trusted with the role as General Manager for one of the teams. The people that occupy this job are as diverse as their teams but they all have that in common that they spent years to get into the position.

Recently a Norwegian newspaper decided to take a look «under the skin» of Berlin Allianz' Jonas Alsaker Vikan - and present the story to 300 000 readers.

Coming of age

Gaming took me by chance as I had always enjoyed playing football during my younger years. When I was 19 and serving my country in the Navy (it is mandatory in Norway) I fell ill and could not move around much for six months. It put an effective end to something I had loved doing for so long.

A couple of months later a friend showed me Counter-Strike and I was instantly attracted to the competitive nature, the strategy and the team aspect of it all - as I came across pictures from international tournaments I decided - I was going to become a professional gamer and started working towards that goal - every day.

The end result of the photoshoot - and a damn cool one.
Photo: Glen Musk (Adresseavisen)

A BIG part of life

As it would happen I succeeded in my «quest» and made it to those international tournaments. It is not for everybody so there will always be the disappointed players that do not make it but for me the entire career served as a learning experience that has made me a more complete person at 26 than I would have been.

It has been seven years filled with contrasts - from the glamorous life globe-trotting about from tournament to tournament to working two jobs and studying to make ends meet. These contrasts provide the backdrop for the feature interview that was published on Friday April 25th in Adresseavisen.

The story details the years from 2002 to present day as the Championship Gaming Series is about to hit European television on Eurosport 2 and I am, however embarrasingly, presented as a big shot in one of the biggest entertainement industries in the world.

Coming of age

From what you can see the idea behind these types of interviews is also to give a fresh outlook through both the text and the pictures. The photoshoot we did for the interview was really special as I was perched onto a number of old TV's - in a new suit - as to indicate how gaming has grown from subculture to mainstream.

During the process, these types of media opportunities take some time, the idea was for the journalist to get to know me and thus tell the story as I would.

A scan of the article. Photo: Jonas Alsaker Vikan

I'm sorry there is not space enough to translate it all here but you can at least have a look at the pretty cool pictures - and I expect we will see more of the General Managers and CGS players doing these types of stories in the future.