Interview with koi about the Gucci Gaming Academy
Topic: CS:GO Interview koi - Gucci Gaming Academy
Gucci Gaming Academy was a recently announced partnership between Faceit, and the high-end fashion brand Gucci. It was established with the goal of providing young players with the tools, and mentorship to guide them to the next level in Counter-Strike.
Colin “koi” Thor is the head coach for Davenport University, as well as the ex-assistant coach for mousesports. Along with these koi is now one of the Gucci Gaming Academy Coaches responsible for North America.
We had the privilege to interview koi regarding the new program. The interview is also available on our Youtube channel! Feel free to check it out here. Enjoy reading!
What is Gucci Gaming Academy?
Gucci Gaming Academy is a new program with the main goal of finding and fostering lesser-known talents. Koi gave a more in-depth look into what they were planning to do, and what their main focus is.
“Gucci Gaming Academy is meant to be a program where we are finding unknown talents in esports, specifically Counter-Strike. Basically trying to give them a platform along with the skills and resources required to push them to the next level, like the ropz’s, and the Bymas’s of the past. For those hidden talents, our goal is to expedite that process, where other teams' scouting doesn’t pick that up.”
How will it tie in with Faceit?
Gucci Gaming Academy won’t be just an addition to FPL, but it also won’t be its own entity. Koi stated that “I like to think of it as if it were parallel to the hubs.” This means it will essentially be an extension of Faceit, a separate program under the same umbrella. Overall, the academy is meant to support players who want to make Counter Strike their life.
"It will be a lot of work with the coaches. It’s a lot of resources from the mental health coaching or the hardware resources, or potentially stipends or something like that. As a result, we aim to make it their full-time job more or less, to focus on Counter Strike, even if they’re not in a team environment."
How are you going to find players, what are the criteria for them?
The new academy won’t just be for those chosen few players who have already made a name for themselves through FPL, and FPL-C. It was made evident that those who deserve to be in the program will get there.
“The player selection process comes down to a couple of things, for better or worse some of it is stats-related. We analyze the performance of players from ESEA league, other leagues, hltv, FPL, doesn't matter all of them are valid. Basically, we try to find those outlier players, players that are statistically very good.”
The Future of Gucci Gaming Academy
“Bigger, I know they’re planning on increasing the number of players we’re working with and the goals we have. I can’t speak too much about how it’s actually expanding, but we will have more players in the future. As of right now, there is no set timeline that we’re trying to move these players out by, the idea is that this is a short-term part of their career. We do want them to eventually receive a legitimate tier one team offer, however long that will take we will be working with the players. From there we’ll see how many players come in and leave, and we’ll be able to balance it out from there.”
A message for the aspiring pros.
"The most important thing is making sure, you are playing a lot, but also make sure when you are playing, that you play with intention and purpose. I look at things like Faceit free queues, we look at the stats, look for anomalies, and line them up with my FPL charts. So it’s really important that if you do genuinely want to take this seriously, and want to be scouted into a program like this, you are putting your all into every game. Trust me, we will see you, we will notice you, it does not matter what your background is."
Conclusion
It was an amazing experience to get some deeper insight into, what could be, one of the biggest youth development programs in Counter-Strike. We once again thank koi for his time! Make sure to follow him on his Twitter.
As already mentioned the interview is also available on our Youtube channel. Feel free to check it out here! Thanks for reading and enjoy the rest of your day!
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