Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, gamers of all ages; welcome to another interview with your friendly neighborhood gamer Zalgo_Cometh. Continuing our coverage of eSports and the various faces representing it here in Jamaica I present to you the driving force behind the League Of Legends community for Jamaica; Khadeed Fearon.
Q. Welcome to the blog, could you please introduce yourself for all the readers?
A. Hello, my name is Khadeed Fearon. I’m a League of Legends player in the Jamaica gaming community. I also play Street Fighter and I’m working on getting back into Counter Strike.
Q. eSports is becoming a movement in Jamaica and throughout the Caribbean and a lot of people are stepping up to the plate to help lead in the task of setting up a foundation for eSports in Jamaica. What role do you play in the Jamaican eSports scene?
A. I work as a eSports Community Manager for Jamaica through an organization called “Jamaican G.A.M.E.S.” It stands for Jamaican Gamers Association in Multimedia Entertainment and Services. It used to be called Caribbean G.A.M.E.S. but it got changed recently for some reason due to something big that is happening in the Caribbean as a whole. The organization consist of the Island’s premiere tournament director and organizer Andrew Johnson. Wayne Benjamin who is the CEO of The LabVideo Game TV., Gregory Moore who owns Str8Games where you can find the latest video games on the Island and Triforce Johnson who founded the organization and is Jamaica’s eSports Architect and Consultant.
Q. The whole paradigm for eSports in Jamaica is rather diverse. What do you think are the games that will really push Jamaica forward into the future?
A. There are different types of gamers throughout Jamaica and we all play something differently, whether that may be competitively or casually. Based on my experience I’ve seen games likes Tekken, Street Fighter, Smash Bros. at our yearly tournament Mash Di Button. Although those games are popular in their own right, it’s really games like FIFA and League of Legends that pushes the island when it comes to eSports.
I’m a part of the growing League of Legends community and I’m working with them to push their tournaments throughout Jamaica. I use social media tools like Facebook to help me. There are gaming groups like LoLJa (https://www.facebook.com/groups/LoLJa/) and websites like http://lol-swallowtail.rhcloud.com/ that we use to support and foster the community. For the most part that is what is used for League of Legends.
Our country’s main game “FIFA” is literately headed by Empire Arcadia’s FIFA team called The Silverbirds. The Manager’s name is Dean Barnnett and he has been running 90% of the FIFA tournaments long before I even got into the whole eSports thing. There are other games like Call of Duty, I don’t want to leave them out as the community has run a few tournaments as well for them. Most of these tournaments listings can be found in the Facebook group communities; mainly FAJ (Fighters Allegiance Jamaica).
Q. From your point of view what is the status of the progress coming along for eSports in Jamaica?
A. Before 2014, it was just local tournaments we could run from the community. We have one widely regarded yearly major and that’s Mash Di Button. Andrew Johnson has been doing that for about 3 years now I think. When Triforce came down to the Island earlier this year he and Andrew teamed up to revolutionize and commercialize the eSports exposure to the masses. It was obvious that some significant events were in the making.
Digicel and LIME, both of which are our telecommunication giants got involved and hosted a couple of tournaments between the two of them. You even have non tele-communications companies like Intcomex who have been hosting a yearly LAN tournament. Not too long ago we helped organize a League of Legends tournament at the Cyber Box Lan Centre with more to come in January 2015.
Q. Can you explain to my readers how does your group operate to get things done for eSports in Jamaica?
A. We’ll start from the top, first you have Triforce who set up the structure for it. This is his primary role as our eSports Consultant. From what I can say, he designed the whole system and positions based on our strengths and that allows us to complete the task that best serves the community. He also brings in foreign help in terms of sponsors and supporters of the tournaments such as soon to be major supporter MVG (Multimedia Video Games).
Next you have Wayne Benjamin who pretty much covers all the media for us. Honestly without him the true coverage of eSports throughout Jamaica is impossible. If you look at his work on Youtube or TV on Channel 100 Flow you will see that he gives us the true professional coverage that we need so that people can look at our scene with respect and integrity. Not to add to fine a point on it but communication is key and through his media resources he is able to provide the entire country with info about the community, new games and tournaments.
Then there is Greg from Str8games. Greg takes care of all our tournament gaming logistics. He has supplied LIME for their eSports integration challenge that they had in the fall through J.A.G (Jamaica G.A.M.E.S) and even before in past tournament. He has a game store in Sovereign Kingston and he’s our go to guy when it comes to that.
There is myself, which I mentioned earlier in my role as the Community Manager for League of Legends.
Finally you have the head of FAJ Andrew Johnson, a core piece to the whole strucutre from what we're doing. Everything that's done has to be relayed to him as he's the organizer for the grand scheme of things for the future Esports' Tournament lifestyle. As I stated before he’s our fearless leader and overall tournament director (T.O.). I gather relevant information on established or up and coming gaming scenes and present that information to Andrew who takes that and ascertains how to best support and incorporate that scene.
As you can see, the system works and although it’s very young it serves our scene well. I can see where we can and will improve. That alone brings promising results for future for eSports in Jamaica.
Q. What are the big eSports tournaments that you think we should look out for in 2015 in Jamaica?
A. For 2015 based on what I know when I last spoke to Andrew, you obviously have our premiere yearly tournament "Mash Di Button". Then there is foreign company called MVG that Triforce is introducing to Jamaica in hopes of being our first and primary international sponsor. Intcomex I think is going to be running a LAN tournament again. Then you have the big boys LIME and Digicel that will be hosting something again for 2015. Now that they have some time to prepare I think it’s going to be bigger and better this time around. Finally you have tournaments for League of Legends that I’ll be helping to run along with COD and more. 2015 is going to be a BIG year for eSports in Jamaica.
Q. Do you have anything to say in closing?
A. Thanks for taking the time to do this interview with me Zalgo_Cometh. I know you do a lot for Jamaica behind the scene. You’re invaluable and a huge player in this whole thing. I also want to thank the gaming at large, all the supporter both corporate and otherwise and finally my friends and family for supporting me and all I do.
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