Fnatic are currently hosting a pop-up shop in Shoreditch, London, called the Bunkr, and they used that as the venue to announce their new League of Legends team last week. At the event we got to speak with Fnatic's co-founder Sam Mathews about what Fnatic are trying to do in general as well as with the Bunkr.
"I think we're really just trying to represent esports in the most authentic way," he said, "and also a little bit trying to lift esports into the mainstream and do it in a way where people can relate to it and aspire to be a part of it, and so for us it's obviously a part about building a [...] brand, but it's also like what can we do with all the stuff that esports has? Livestreams, tournaments, even digital culture - actually that's why we did Bunkr, it was kind of like let's have a space that's physical, you can go in there, you can see all the aspects of esports, you can get a look and feel of what that esports environment is like, and that's something that we're really trying to show off, and we're excited to do that as an esports team."
When we asked about why he thinks esports in the UK isn't as big as elsewhere, he said: "Obviously esports has been big in different guises in the UK, but it's never been massive competitively in the esports tournaments. I've never figured out 100% why that is. I think either it's a cultural thing where esports has been more on consoles more than it's been on PC, or it's been a stigma thing where people have always seen competitive video gaming as a 'geeky' pasttime and not something they want to be a part of, whereas in Sweden it's very much like all the young guys are doing it and it's almost inspirational, that's why DreamHack's about. But overall I think that's changing and I definitely think that esports is losing that stigma and that's one of the reason's we're doing things like [Bunkr], and I think that the UK is obviously a huge market and will be arising in the future competitively as well."
Have you had a chance to visit the Bunkr in London yet?