"We assembled a super team in pursuit of an LEC Victory": Team Vitality's Neo on org successes, failures, and America in esports (Exclusive) 

Fabien “Neo” is the co-owner and head of Team Vitality, a European org known for success and greatness over the past 10 years. While not everything has been perfect for the French group, they’ve recruited some of the greatest players and teams to play games like CS:GO. They aren’t afraid to try new things to stake their claim in the world of competitive gaming.

I recently spoke with Team Vitality’s Neo on exactly that: The state of esports in 2023. We spoke about several topics, such as his org's strengths and failures, and most interesting of all for me, American esports. There’s so much promise in our division, but our own team owners don’t seem to know what to do.

One of the other topics we discussed, Neo was very frank about, and that’s the failures of Team Vitality in 2023. One of the plans was to make a super group, but it didn’t quite click.

"We assembled a super team in pursuit of an LEC victory, recruiting promising rookies such as Bo and Photon. However, language barriers led to communication issues."

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Team Vitality’s Neo on the state of esports in 2023

It feels like for as long as I’ve been in this industry, there’s been a Team Vitality. Neo, as the co-owner and head of the org, has every right to be proud of what his teams have accomplished over the years.

I asked if he would highlight any of them as important. In response to that, he highlighted that this is the 10th year anniversary, and to really seal their legacy, they had to succeed at the highest level:

"This year, our main focus has been celebrating our 10th anniversary as we wanted to set the standard for legacy esports organisations. To accomplish this, we had to succeed at the highest level of esports and show that we are a force to be reckoned with, even after being around for a decade."

"There’s a certain amount of irony or maybe even fate, that one of the biggest esports events ever was held in France this year at the same time when our Counter-Strike players were in top form."

"Watching the team compete in front of the home crowd in Paris was incredible and it quickly became a hidden achievement of ours to win the whole thing. Winning the BLAST Paris Major was the highlight of my entire career and certainly Team Vitality’s biggest achievement so far.”

What is Team Vitality’s secret in the sauce to their success? Not every organization has quite the same level of success or even sticks around as long as this one has. While it began as an entertainment brand, it swiftly grew into an esports powerhouse. According to Neo, there’s no strength like experience:

"Our biggest strength is our experience of the esports landscape. I’ve been in esports for more than half of my life and know this industry like the back of my hand. Our experience gives us an edge over younger organisations as we have the knowledge and experience to look at things from a different perspective."

"Team Vitality began as more of an entertainment company, signing one of the biggest French influencers at the time in 2013. Then, we shifted our model to focus purely on performance, with a competitive mindset."

"We’ve seen that some of the huge legacy esports organisations are struggling on the competitive side, especially since the esports market is in a pretty tough spot right now. So there’s been a renewed interest in investing in content creators and influencers once again where organisations are prioritising them over teams."

"But for us, we’ve been there and we've done that. So we’re purely focused on what we like to do, which is to develop high-calibre players that can be successful in Team Vitality. Most of our successes have been across FPS titles, because it’s in our DNA, though we haven’t quite cracked the code on MOBAs with League of Legends just yet!"

"We’re working incredibly hard on ensuring our League of Legends team will be at the same high level as our teams across other titles that have seen success this year."

Esports is quickly becoming a global institution, but despite that, there’s still a long road to go before it becomes culturally accepted worldwide. While a few regions, in particular South Korea, have embraced esports, not everyone has gone quite as far. It feels like Europe is genuinely into competitive gaming, and Team Vitality’s Neo offered his thoughts on why:

"Europe is definitely one of the strongest regions for esports, and I believe it’s a matter of culture and appetite. In Europe, we’re a fragmented market compared to the other regions. For example, players from Asia are generally very good at MOBA games like League of Legends or strategy games like StarCraft II."

"While in Europe, the fragmented market means that every country has different interests in different esports but is still part of the European region. In Western Europe, there is more focus on League of Legends and Counter-Strike, while Eastern Europe and the Nordic countries prefer Counter-Strike."

"Europe has a legacy of massive traditional sports clubs which we can look to as an example. Sometimes I don't think we should be allowed to ignore what is going on in traditional sports and we should take the best of what they’re doing and adapt it to the specificity of our players and games."

As an American and a fan of esports, I can’t help but consider what we call the “American Dream”, especially in games like League of Legends. Every time there’s a new season, we all collectively say, “This is the year! America’s gonna make it to the big stage!” and then it never happens.

Many people have their thoughts on where America is going wrong, and who better to discuss it than an outside source? Neo’s thoughts mimic the ones I’ve had for years. We spend too much on exports, instead of focusing on local talent:

"I think American esports organisations are split. Sometimes the temptation to pay huge amounts of money to attract big names makes them blind to sourcing and developing new talent. In Europe, this is less of an issue since we are purely performance-based."

"I find that, especially in North America, some organisations go for big names who have less ambition than new faces to the industry. European organisations typically take the risk and invest in new talent, which is probably why we manage to have a permanent rotation of star players."

While Team Vitality has seen a great deal of success in 2023, it’s not all been perfect. I asked Neo about where the organization has stumbled this year - in particular, failing to qualify for Worlds in League of Legends. He was frank about what they tried to do this year and how it went wrong:

"We tried to build from last year’s super team with an incredibly ambitious project, but even after 10 years of experience, sometimes the esports industry reminds you that money is not a guarantee of winning major titles. On reflection, we had the wrong approach and didn’t build the team correctly, so it ended up being quite a disappointing year."

"We assembled a super team in pursuit of an LEC victory, recruiting promising rookies such as Bo and Photon. However, language barriers led to communication issues. Initially, we performed well, winning the Winter regular split and finishing third in the Spring Split. Our success collapsed in the Summer Split, exposing the reality that individual skill won’t consistently win games. Despite this, 2023 was one of our best years in League of Legends since 2018."

"Right now, we’re working on finding the perfect middle ground between seasoned veterans and ambitious rookies to create a stronger team. Next year’s project will be development and growth, and maybe in two years time we’ll have another shot at the LEC."

I wanted to come back to the notion of exports in esports, in particular, for regions like North America. Neo agreed with my thoughts on the situation and would further elaborate. One of the major problems alongside this is that there aren’t enough feeder systems or routes into esports. Instead, orgs are focusing on importing professional players onto their teams:

"I’m inclined to agree. If the local talent doesn’t have a path into the professional scene, such as an Academy or Challenger league, it becomes demoralising for local players. In North America, I think that fans can’t really identify themselves with some of the players, as organisations outsource new talent as opposed to elevating existing amateur talent. As a result, there’s less interest in the pro scene as players cannot see a pathway to getting to that level."

"In France, we sometimes say that ‘French only love French’ and to an extent it’s true. When we don’t have a French player on our rosters, people complain because they don’t feel connected to the players."

"And that’s the issue in North America which teams need to fix, especially when we see incredible storylines such as Blaber becoming one of the best players in the region. Or with NRG winning the LCS Summer Split with mostly North American talent, it creates amazing storytelling opportunities. So when it happens, it feels like a Hollywood script because it's real and unexpected."

When you think Team Vitality, you likely think of their FPS squad in CS:GO. However, what about the other FPS titles that exist right now? I wanted to talk to Neo about this, in particular, the state of the first-person shooter genre, with games like Valorant, CoD, and CS:GO all existing at the same time:

"I think it's pretty well-balanced at the moment. For me, they’re the games that will live forever, they will never be boring. Such games will never lose interest and they’ve been around for the last 20 years. While Counter-Strike 2 looks very different to CS:GO, fans are still passionate about the game and are still playing. I think Counter-Strike in general has just been coexisting peacefully with a very different community."

"Call of Duty is definitely the height of console esports. VALORANT is a perfect balance between League of Legends and FPS. And Counter-Strike is just all of the above just because I think it’s an incredible game, both to spectate and play."

There’s one major hurdle to esports’ growth and popularity right now, and that’s the growth of new talent. It’s so hard to find your way into esports, and there are so many players struggling to find a path. With that in mind, I asked Neo where he thinks this could be improved:

"This is what I mentioned with NA as their one big mistake is not having any Academy or Challenger leagues or second divisions in North America. For example, when we compare Europe with North America, Europe has the local scene with European Regional Leagues like La Ligue Française (LFL), Northern League of Legends Championship, and the League of Videogames Professionals: SuperLiga as national leagues to help support players looking to compete."

"It also helps the ecosystem, creating a tonne of contracts and helping players live their dreams in a safe place where they can grow, make mistakes, and evolve in a positive environment. So in Europe, you can go to LFL and straight to LEC if you’re good enough. This path to pro is why I think this model works incredibly well in Europe and should be something that every region should consider."

"We should also look to create educational tools to progress into esports. There should be esports clubs in schools since esports is one of the best tools to educate young people. They’re so passionate about it and young people are in the best state to learn when they are passionate about something."

I’m always fascinated by how esports organizations train and support their players. Team Vitality and the V.Hive really do more than perhaps any other org I can think of. I wanted to pick Neo’s brain about this in particular to learn more about what makes their teams so special:

"We want to give a chance to promising rookies and help them to tell their stories. Right now our biggest ambassadors are not our streamers and content creators, they are definitely our players. We are trying to tell the best story about these players but not to create a fixed one. We try to understand them and understand their personal goals, and then from there we try to create an alignment with the teams and the individual’s objective. This has always been the way that we are telling our players’ stories."

"When telling these stories we try to be as genuine as possible, but of course protect the players, especially when they are super young. We know that the fans are super passionate and sometimes they just want to express their frustrations and pain when the results aren’t there."

"What we're trying to do is prepare our players to be under the biggest spotlights in esports and have a strategy that fits their individual expectations alongside the team’s expectations. We focus on what we can control and what we believe is the best strategy for the organisation."

While the infrastructure of Team Vitality is quite strong, there’s always room to improve. Over the years, the org has built a series of facilities around the world, but there’s still so much more to do. I broached the topic to Neo about where they can go next, and the goal to be a global power that remains profitable is a possibility:

"Our growth over the years has been really impressive. We’ve gone from a handful of employees to almost seventy right now, just in the main office alone, with additional staff across three facilities globally in Mumbai, Berlin, and Paris including the Stade de France. We have been preparing ourselves for a long time so that we can achieve the very best for our fans out there and return to the vision of success which we had set out for ourselves."

"I think we’ve done a stellar job this year, and that’s one of our biggest achievements at the company right now. To be a major esports organisation that is going to continue to be profitable in the years to come is a complicated concept right now, but I think with our current trajectory and past experience this is achievable for us."

"We’ve managed to pass great milestones this year, and have seen growth in every facet of the company. Everyone is really proud of what we have managed to achieve this year and last year, and right now, we are doing our best to keep going and keep this train on track."

There’s always something new in esports. There are upcoming games like Tekken 8 and Project L, so with that in mind, I wanted to talk to Team Vitality’s Neo about games like this. He highlighted that they have had an interest in fighting games in the past, and Project L is particularly interesting:

"Right now, I think we have a strong lineup of games. It makes sense for our growth as an organisation, our business, and our fans since it’s what we know and what we strive to do best in."

"We’ve seen that there’s a tonne of interest in fighting games in North America and across Europe, but more often than not we see a lack of commitment from the publishers who aren’t so interested in the esports scene. However, we may be interested in Project L, given it’s being created by Riot Games who’ve supported the esports scene across League of Legends and VALORANT."

"We have been interested in fighting games in the past, even winning a few Street Fighter titles not too long ago, and will never outright say no to them in the future. Maybe Project L will be the title that draws Team Vitality back into the fighting game community."

"We could also look at games like DOTA which seem promising, but that’s not on the cards for right now. Our biggest focus at the moment is to stay at the top in Counter-Strike and Rocket League because we have the best teams in the world. Meanwhile, our secondary goal would be to find the magic recipe to succeed in League of Legends."

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It was a real pleasure to chat with Team Vitality’s co-owner, Neo. His insight into the esports industry is genuinely interesting. It will be interesting to see where their org goes in the future, especially with so many potentially huge games coming in 2024. The future is looking bright for the French squad, however.