 Welcome to the wide world of eSports, a show devoted to all things eSports. I'm your host, Catherine Norr. Today we're discussing eSports around the world, exploring the international ecosystem. Joining us from Lisbon, Portugal is Rui Alexandre Jesus, the VP Europe of Westco. Welcome Rui. Welcome and well thank you a lot for having me here. It's great to be in the almost in the other part of the world and talking with you about eSports and I hope I am sure that we'll have a great conversation. Thanks a lot. All right, fantastic. So you work for Westco. Tell us about Westco. Well, Westco stands for World eSports Consortium. So it's almost a gathering of a lot of entities that work in eSports, that promote eSports from teams to equipment companies, industries and even the part of international federations probably in the future knew that to arrive. So that's our main goal and that's how we are trying to position ourselves in the wide world of eSports precisely. All right, fantastic. I guess the name of the show really fits what you're doing. I'm glad I got it first, right? Let's show the video. Changing the people changing the world is an international digital sports programs from Westco that aims to educate, include and create children and young people using the ecosystem of digital sports. We create an educational program that can be used by schools, universities and different organizations to use different aspects of digital sports to give to the people tools to improve their life. No matter the size of your venue from a small room to an entire building, we can give you the standard business, L and educational model to implement changing the people changing the world program. We use classes of robotics, mathematics, engineering, history, geography, languages, internet and software programming, 3D, CGI, caster, coaching, narrator and the whole eSports ecosystem disciplines. No matter if you have gamer skills, you can be inserted in the digital sports environment by creating games, being a coach, a narrator, a referee and learn mathematics, programming and so much more. Give your citizens a chance to have a carrier to make their dreams come true in a safe, straightforward, inclusive and democratic way using digital sports as a tool to create a better citizen. You can avoid school evasion, gaming addiction, drugs involvement and so many other negative and destructive bad paths in young people lives when using what they love to detect on the good path. One know more about the international digital sports program, changing the people, changing the world, contact us. We will make sure you will leave a wonderful legacy to your people. Westco, feel it digital, live it real, deep dive into digital and emerge to real life with Westco. Rui, tell us about that video. Well, I hope you liked it. It took a lot of effort to put it on for us because it's not easy to capture all the messages that the world eSports can bring to the world. I mean, like the video shown, there are many possibilities. Not only in the competitive part, we'll talk probably about that a little bit on the show, but not only about the sports and competitive and gaming part, but also on the professional side for mainly for new young people, for new generations that want to go in eSports many times, even like future entrepreneurs and in future business, not necessarily only in the part of coaching or gaming or team management. So that's what we are trying to to to alert that and try to speak through the video in images and words because it's important when we talk about eSports to really understand for people that see the videos that come to us and look at these type of videos for the first time to understand the broad opportunities and the wide range that eSports offer. Absolutely. I actually do love that video. It's very very modern. So let's talk about, we hear people talking about gaming, competitive gaming and eSports and also virtual sports and electronic sports. Do you think that there's a difference and what is the impact of that difference? Well, like you were talking, it's impossible for five different words. It could be synonymous, it could mean the same thing, but it does not mean the same thing and it's very important to clear that out in the many conversations. I must tell you, let me say this, my background, I didn't have the chance to speak in the show, but a little bit about this. My background is from sports. I normally say that I'm from the sports in the E. I didn't come from the electronic part. I did come from the classic traditional sports and the word sport means a lot. It brings with it many references and many meanings. Gaming, playing, it's more common words. We play in the street when we are kids and we make games of our own. So it has a wider range of that word. Why it is important? In these last seven years that I've been studying and working in eSports, many brands and many investors normally come to us from different parts in the world and say, I want to go in eSports, but I want to understand one thing. Is it a sport or is it not a sport? And why do I want to know this normally? This question comes normally for investors or brands or new companies that already worked in sports, in traditional sports. That's the main difference. For those companies and for those brands and for those investors that came from gaming, it's indifferent. They knew and they know what was gaming. They knew and they know the ecosystem of the gamers and of competitive gaming. So for them, it's not important to call it eSports. They know what we are talking about. But for the other people, I mean, outside the gaming community, the new ones that arrive in these last decades probably, that means a lot. It's very important to difference or to clear if really it is a sport, because that means a lot of things, in my opinion, very important things, to level up the gaming part. Or it's just simple entertainment, an act of industry, entertainment industry, business that is playing games, organizing events of games, either individual or team. So with all this being said, I believe that is, and I try to explain why do we think that it's very important in conferences, in debates, in talks like this one, when we are starting to talk about eSports, first to define exactly what we are talking about. Because we could do a show about gaming. We could do a show about competitive gaming and talk about that. At some point, we'll be talking about the same things. But at one point, we'll be talking about different things, because eSports means more than the word gaming. Sure. And eSports usually means particular eSports games, right? Yes. Well, that's one of the differences. Listen, I'm talking from Portugal in Europe, and I'm talking to the American continent. The word sport, it doesn't mean exactly the same thing in the American continent or in the European continent. Why? In the perspective of the society, of the structures of sport, of the importance of sport, of how do, when we say something is a sport, how is it ruled, how the regulations work, how the government or the state, the public administrations intervene? It means different things. So, like your question about the type of gaming and sports, one of the words you mentioned in the first question, in the second question was the virtual sports. Again, that is one thing that in the last two or three years also has provoked a little bit of confusion. And most people use it like a normal electronic sport. It's not the same thing, because virtual sports are linked to traditional sports federations are the modeling or the conversion of a sport that exists, that the sport that has specific rules, that the sport that has a governing body, the sport, and that is produced in virtual reality, in virtual gaming, in electronic games, it are differently managed. There are publishers, there are companies that produce them. There are, it's even in that point, there's an immediate difference. Okay. And that's why there are many things happening now still, but also many possibilities in the near future. Sure. And you alluded to the publishers having control of esports. And I think that's an important different differentiation between esports and sports. What is your background in sports, Rui? Well, I'm a sports law expert or consultant, started in Portugal, then in Europe, then a little bit all over the world. And that's what allows me now also to perspective the differences of esports around the world also, because again, I won't repeat myself, but the idea is that the world sport in the African continent, in the American continent, in the European, in Asia, it has a lot of similarities, but it's not exactly the same thing, for instance, about minors, about the formation of athletes, about how do you manage sporting with young people? Well, Catherine, the best example, we are making this conversation in April 2022. The best example will be now in this year, the Asian Olympic Games. It will be the first time that there will be a kind of fusion between the traditional sport, the Olympic movement, okay, and the electronic sports that will have medals and that that is happening now. So it shows how gaming has evolved to esports, how esports are, but it also shows that we have to work together. And that's the important, that's what we try to do in West Coast. We need to stop a little bit on all of this evolution, quick evolution of esports, and all unite and think a little bit together on how we can make this more structured, more solid, because the example of the Olympic, of the Asian Olympic Games, there are some countries in Asia that are not allowed to play some of the games that will be, that will give medals for, I'll give you an example, there are more, but in India, PUBG, it's not allowed to be played by the government, by the state. The minister of sports and youth are now analyzing the possibility of a special, so it's a little bit incredible. And in other parts of the world, we don't think, how is that, how is that, why? The world is a huge place, many different cultures, and that's why it's important to have an entity like West Coast or other entity in the future that can unite every nations around esports in a better way possible. And that's a big, that's important in order to proceed with esports in the Olympic Games as well. So what do you think the differences are with esports around the world? And we could even start with Portugal, Europe, Africa, Asia? It's without getting too specific, because of course, if we do a sample of one country or another country, there are many differences. But the most, there are too many examples that we need to, we all need to, we that love esports and want to esports to get bigger and better, that we must stop a little bit to think. First of all, the question of the national federations. There are some countries that demand more the existence, the existence of a national governing body for esports that could and this regarding the organization of competitions, not the managing of the game, because as we said before, the manager of the game is of the publishers that have the right will talk there are many texts and articles about that. It's about the organization, the national organization of that. And that's one of the first things because there are countries even inside Europe without even going to the difference of continents. Even inside Europe, there are countries that do allow or do need a bigger intervention of a national entity of the state of the public administration in saying we must recognize that esports are a sport. And that there's don't. One of the many examples was France. France was one of the first countries in Europe that organized the national federation to manage esports. Why? Because the government showed a great worry, a great need to regulate the use of the games and the internet and the games by minors, by people young of age. So that's one of the first worries and first of main perturbations that that we have. Other questions is about doping about how do you contest scores and how do you contest situations of when you are playing the rules? I mean, again, in Europe, in sports, we have a European court that looks at the same way for all the nations in Europe regarding aspects of sport, problems of the athletes, clubs that don't respect rules, teams that cheat, match fixing, whatever, all those cases around the sport. In esports, we don't have nothing of that yet. Yeah, you know, I would agree on that. And I don't think that there's anyone that can say that will not be a good thing for esports to for an athlete, for a team manager, for a club, for an organization to say, look, I've been some I've, I think I've been there's some injustice in something that happened with me. With whom can I to whom can I appeal to whom can I request justice? In esports, there's nothing of that because all is controlled and managed by the publishers. Sure. And you know, you know what's interesting really is I've been a hearings officer for USA triathlon for quite a few years. So and we hear the appeals and and you know, but when you're talking about something that would be similar in esports, it really doesn't exist. But let's move on. Let's talk about the wild wild west. Okay, I mean, anyone in esports has heard that terminology. So do you think that esports is still the wild wild west in Europe and and around the world? I must say that, unfortunately, that it's not that wild as it was a few years ago. But it still is. It's this is still wild for everything that I've already talked to you because there is no true governing world governing body. There's no one in the there's no entity at the moment that tries to make it make things stable for everyone of the same thing. No, it's different in every game. It's different in some in some areas and countries and nations. And that's make it really wild, even for one for one example, that unfortunately still happens. In many countries, you find national esports federations that call themselves national esports federations and that are recognized as national esports federation by some entities at that off federation doesn't have anything. It's someone who creates a kind of company that calls itself federation that doesn't have clubs that doesn't have athletes registered that doesn't have nothing referees boards nothing. But in many countries, it's there's no other there's no one that can deal with that. And that's make it that is making it to still very slow the the evolutions in my perspective of esports. Again, calling it esports using the word sport in the electronic for people of the industry and of the business doesn't mean anything special. It's it's even good regarding the cooperation with the gambling and gaming and all of that and online betting and whatever. But for society in every in most every countries of the world, the word sport means something. The word sport has a meaning. For instance, for fathers for for people that Oh, it's something like sport. So it has this part good that it's ruled or it's managed or things like that. And I could give you a lot of examples, but one of one of the most most valuable one for me and for Westco. It's for instance coaches and who trains the kids who trains the young athletes. There's no requisite. There's no specification for there's no evaluation for people in esports for and it's it's it's not I personally believe and now it's a personal opinion, not a Westco statement. It's my opinion, my personal opinion. It's one of the worst things to for credibility of esports for make it a safe environment because we can write the practice guides. We can we can communicate best practices, but if there's not an evaluation and independent evaluation, there's no credibility. Sure. And you know, certification of coaches of officials of, you know, many elements of sports are it's kind of necessary and widely spread across the world. So turning to kind of a big picture. Do you think that in the near future it will be possible to unite all the gamers and esports athletes in one kind of friendly ecosystem? I hope so. And they all if you talk to any sport athlete professional or not, they will all say yes it will be good even in their own countries. But again looking at of course it's different, but looking at it in classic sports in most sports it's still not very consistent the the gathering of the athletes and there's always needs to be someone that gathers them. There's no normally not initiative by them. Of course any sports at the professional level there are unions, there are happening that kind of representation, but at the amateur level that where it's sometimes most needed because the protection is most is most valuable for them, there is still a long way to go. But let's see it's difficult to unite the world in other things. So that is absolutely true. So what is the role of international entities such as Westco on a worldwide scale? Again in my personal opinion and I believe that everyone would well most people would agree in my perspective is the question of credibility for esports. I mean it's strange to see at this moment about three or four worldwide organizations that claims to be the new international entity of regulation for esports or gathering. There are three main ones but even if you look if you google it appears four or five so it's not good for the credibility of esports. It makes confusion people. There are countries I know about national federations of esports that want to help and want to gather and suddenly they say but exactly with whom do I register? Which one is the best for us or will have more future of? Of course there is ISF International Esports Federation that has more proximity and better more number of entities but it still needs also to be well for everyone to be united and to know what they want collectively and wanting the same of course. Okay let's show the next video. All right so I'll give you the last word. How can people find Westcoe? Well it's easy to research it on the internet and come across Westcoe Esports because there are the Westcoes in the world. Westcoe Esports in the website and can encounter it on the social network and can look mainly our core objectives about the regulation and help other entities in very different countries to establish themselves and to go on a path to the evolution of esports and to make them as possible as as as as better as possible. All right how can people contact you? Well probably let me say about LinkedIn. I don't have a personal blog, I don't have a I don't tweet so I have LinkedIn is most is from my professional side it's the better it's a better way to contact me and to understand how they can communicate and okay they can interact through my also my professional profile which is something that I thank you a lot for letting me throw that thing through the world. Thank you. That's fantastic. Well Rui, thank you so much. We learned a lot about esports around the world today. I hope so and thanks a lot and let me congratulate you for the fantastic program you have and for the fantastic talks I've already been seeing dozens of them and I loved it a lot of them and thanks. Right Mahalo, thanks so much and so thank you to our viewers for joining us today. Make sure to tune in next week. My guest will be Emarion Docks the Great Stevenson Player for Raps Rebellion. Our topic is the impact of esports on young gamers. See you then. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at think.kawaii.com. Mahalo.