Rix.GG is the agency creating and developing esport talents

Jamie Lewis spoke to Andy Martin about how he went from journalism to Rix.GG, an agency that helps put together esport teams

Lewis: ‘We want to be better than each other – it’s evolution’ (Jamie Lewis)

In the burgeoning realm of esports, they’ll soon be having a “masters” competition for anyone over 20. Jamie Lewis, who runs Rix.GG, building esports teams, and is known fondly to his players as “Boomer”, is worried about hitting 30 – and he’s already had a couple of careers. Including a stint of several years working for The Independent, so I guess there’s hope for me yet.

He grew up in Hornchurch, Essex, where his single-parent Mum was a hairdresser who drove around in her Corsa giving perms to former East Enders. Lewis spent a lot of his teenage years “bunking off” school. He was one of the first generation of digital natives who found his friendships and communities online. “All my interactions with girls at school came through messaging,” he recalls. In those days it was MSN, or MySpace or Piczo.

“The internet is on rails now – it’s curated,” says Lewis. “But back then, it was a very different beast. It was the internet and the dark web all rolled into one. There was no one telling you where to go. You just dived in and hoped for the best.”

In the nineties and early noughties you could still be bullied for being a geek. Lewis and his handful of mates were great fans of Runescape (an immersive game akin to World of Warcraft). “Most of the time we’d be playing Runescape. But you didn’t mention it at school. If someone heard you, it would be a cause for derision. We spent the day pretending we didn’t play Runescape and then going home and doing nothing but play Runescape.”

After Runescape he graduated to Starcraft 2 and became an ardent fan (he reckons he has played about 7000 games). It was then the most popular game in Korea, where young people would gather in dedicated “PC-bangs” to play video games – an environment that encouraged and facilitated competitive gaming. The Korean football team training for the 2014 World Cup were given a pep talk by the Starcraft players. “They were more famous than footballers in Korea,” says Lewis. “Huge stars. Up to a few years ago the best players in the world were Korean.”

In the remaining vestige of the world that was not online, Lewis went to Cornwall to take a year-long Access course in media, studying under Jane Stanley. “That was the first time I ever had an educational experience I enjoyed.” It was the making of him. At 19 he got a job working for The Romford Recorder and recalls finding himself in the editor’s chair when the editor went off sick. “They thought I was on a Masters rather than an Access course.” From there he went on to his glory years with The Independent and then weekend sports editor at The Evening Standard.

The key thing is that they are all paid full-time wages. Lewis is not exploiting anyone’s passion for the game to get free labour

But eventually he fell out of love with journalism. “I was 25. I had no student debt. I was working for the best newspapers in the world – and I hated it. I thought I hadn’t done anything with my life.” He had been putting in 16-hour days six days a week and was burned out. He started freelancing, creating content for different companies, and then set up his own marketing agency, Rix Digital. “A lot of it was built on telling clients I could do this or that even when I couldn’t – I would simply hire someone who could.”

He was partly funded by his success with online poker. “I’ve fallen back on it over the years,” he says. “90% of it is the same mental attitude you bring to esports. Chess is similar.”

His agency was working with a lot of Premier League players, but during lockdown they were left twiddling their thumbs. At the same time a new game was released, “Valorant” – a free-to-play multiplayer “counterstrike” game – that was an immediate success. Lewis thought, “They’re not going to stop that, no matter what happens.”

And so his online and offline lives merged into one. Lewis says that all he does now is “recruit people”. But, as he says, “they have to be the right people.” And right now that means esports players. He has created a Valorant team and another team for Rocket League (a “vehicular soccer game”) and hired coaches to coach them. Some of their players are so young they still need their parents’ signature on the contract. Their eldest is in his twenties. “He’s considered very old,” says Lewis. Another player, Dan, aged 18, left his job at Morrisons to join Rix.GG and is also doing a part-time course at college.

The key thing is that they are all paid full-time wages. Lewis is not exploiting anyone’s passion for the game to get free labour. “We don’t have any interns,” says Lewis. “Or any help from the government.” He wants his players to have the freedom to hone their skills and compete in big-money tournaments. He is also working on forming a professional league. “I’ve bet a lot of money on that happening.”

Lewis reckons the reason why people are so keen on playing games is that “they’re a form of art.” And competitive gaming was inevitable as soon as two players started playing on a split-screen at home: “We want to be better than each other – it’s a fundamental part of evolution.” But he also has an original take on why there is such a huge audience for esports.

“It all began with cheat codes,” says Lewis. A decade or two back, if you were playing a game, there was a hotline number you could call: “I’m stuck on level 3,” you might say. “I can’t get past the golden retriever.” And they would say, “You need to go and get him a bone…” That, says Lewis, “was the germ of a business.” Now people watch other players to see how it’s done, to look out for their tricks and strategies. “You want to know – how are these guys so good? It’s like a young footballer watching Christian Ronaldo do keepie-uppies”.