You would drive by it if you didn’t know what you were looking for.
Tucked away in this Alameda neighborhood full of track houses and tidy lawns is the Evil Geniuses training facility. Unassuming on the outside, the beige-colored home hosts the e-sports organization’s “Dota 2” team, one of the top squads in the world. Inside the living room, monitors and computers line the walls. The family room features xfinity and Evil Geniuses branding as well as an enormous television. A pingpong table sits in the garage as an easy distraction when the team wants to kick back from their practices.
It’s the type of digs that gamers dream about, but for the Evil Geniuses, being at the training facility is all business. Whatever success the “Dota 2” team has at The Boston Major 2016, it begins here in this house in Alameda. In the run-up to this weekend’s tournament, the team has practiced for six hours each day, according to coach Clinton “Fear” Loomis. Afterward, the team members drift away on their own playing in public matches and streaming their gameplay. Interspersed between their work and free time, the team will talk about strategy and go over replays.
But being all together at a the training facility is a “huge benefit for us,” said Ludwig “zai” Wahlberg, a team member from Sweden. “It makes life convenient. We wake up. We have a computer out here. We have access to everything we need.”
At the house, the team has its meals ordered in. They have a gigabit fiber connection installed in the house thanks to the Evil Geniuses’ sponsorship from Comcast. The telecom giant also helped set up the artwork and other amenities of the home in October. It’s one of the perks of the partnership.
“What xfinity has done for us, it’s monumental,” said Phil Aram, Evil Geniuses team manager. “It’s a mainstream sponsor from that standpoint. They bring in a lot of credibility to what we do. For them to put their stamp on us is important.”
Having a house as a training facility isn’t something new for e-sports. Aram says, the idea “comes out of the older days.” Team owners would buy a house and use it to help support a team. Before e-sports came into popularity, owning a team was a money-losing prospect, he said. The house enabled the owners to build equity while the players lived there, and throughout the years, the team house concept has endured. Because most of the play comes in virtual world, training facilities don’t have to be cavernous warehouses or multiroomed offices. It’s an economy of space, Aram said.
The scrimmage area for the Evil Geniuses is about the size of cargo hold of a small U-haul truck. With their headsets on, the team stays mostly quiet. It’s almost monastic except for the sound of furious clicking as team members negotiate the map on “Dota 2,” a multiplayer online battle arena. It’s a video game genre that has come to the forefront of e-sports. Teams of five control heroes who try to destroy their rival’s base. Successful outfits are ones that can coordinate attacks, fill lanes and play support roles.
Aside from the space requirement, the team also needs speedy internet, and that’s one of the advantages that the Evil Geniuses have with their fiber connection. Aram said having a solid access to the internet means that Evil Geniuses can hold scrimmages without worrying about lag or a slow connection. It’s also a draw for team members.
“A lot of the guys live here full time when they’re not at an event,” Aram said. “We used to beg people to move in the house.” But that’s not a problem anymore.
Having a centralized location also means that the team members can also meet face to face. It’s often a hard thing to do with e-sports teams. Many organizations are split across continents. Evil Geniuses’ “Dota 2” team itself has members hailing from Denmark, Pakistan, Sweden, Canada and the United States.
With teams traveling extensively — Aram says the team spends the equivalent of two weeks out of the year in airplanes — having a base of operations on the West Coast is a important. The time zone is important because The International, the most prestigious and lucrative “Dota 2” tournament in the world, is in the same time zone and a few hundred miles north in Seattle. Training in Alameda lets Evil Geniuses prepare without the fear of fatigue or jet lag. This year’s International had a prize pool of more than $20 million with the Chinese team Wings Gaming, taking the crown.
As for the Boston Major, Evil Geniuses are one of the few teams that were invited to take part in the event. They beat Wings Gaming earlier on Wednesday, and the team plays Virtus.pro today. The total prize pool is more than $3 million with the winner taking a $1 million prize. If they win, the grueling six-hour days will pay off.
“The primary function is to come here to train for the tournament,” said Loomis, the coach, at their Alameda house. “We can be the best we can be.”
