Event & Esports Manager at Ubisoft France for the past two years, Alicia tells us how she discovered a fascinating competitive universe and a community of passionate gamers.
I have a university background: I first studied mathematics applied to social sciences, before doing a master's degree in marketing and management at ESSEC. In 2015, as I was finishing my studies, I had the chance to start an internship in communications at Ubisoft, in the event team. The six months of this internship went very well, and three months later, when an opportunity came up, I became a marketing and events project manager for two years. I was in charge of coordinating Ubisoft’s presence at the Paris Games Week event.
That's when I started following Esports competitions, first with the 2017 Rainbow Six French Cup. I was already playing when I was young with my family. And if I started playing again when I arrived at Ubisoft, even though I was more of a console player, more at ease with controller than on PC with keyboard and mouse.
But with the competitions, I discovered a passionate community. It's like going to a soccer game for the first time, there's an amazing energy that comes out of the audience. This is especially true with video games, since you have to know the rules to understand what's going on. The fans are very active and become very expressive during competitions when the players pull off crazy moves. I really started to get more and more interested in not only the game itself of course, but also in the community, the players, the shoutcasters. We used to play tournaments with colleagues and today I can say that I master the keyboard-mouse!
This passion allowed me to become in May 2017, Event & Esports Manager. It's a very versatile position: I work with many people with various expertise, I'm in contact with the community, I take care of events, streaming, communication, choosing competition formats, art direction... To achieve this, I obviously work in direct relationship with my colleagues from marketing, press relations, digital, sales, etc. No two days are alike! And during the tournaments, it's a real reward for me to see the joy of the fans in the audience and the recognition of the work we've done for them.
Ubisoft saw that I was interested in this subject and gave me the opportunity to do more. Not all companies allow this or see what their employees are passionate about. Moreover, I benefit from a real autonomy: I am trusted to make decisions even if I did not have a professional gaming background. Ubisoft is a very dynamic company that invites you to learn and develop a real expertise, in my case that of events and sports, and it's exciting! "