Why Is Çamlıca ESpor So Successful? Interview with İbrahim Yörük (2021)

Although Çamlıca ESpor is a new club founded in 2019, it has quickly risen and, with successes in every tournament it has entered, has suddenly become a club talked about in the esports community.

By becoming champion in the second season of the Zula Super League, which it entered in 2019, it showed everyone how ambitious a team it is.

Championships Won by Çamlıca ESpor

Çamlıca ESpor, which has taken part in many local and international tournaments in 3 years, has managed to reach the semifinals or final even in tournaments it did not win.

Çamlıca ESpor has many championships:

• Vestel Cup Zula (2020)
• Vestel Cup CS:GO (2020)
• TESL 6 CS:GO Cup (2020)
• TESL 7 CS:GO Cup (2021)
• XPG CS:GO Cup (2020)

We asked Çamlıca ESpor club board chairman Mr. İbrahim Yörük about the reasons for its success in a short time and about esports in general terms.

We Asked İbrahim Yörük About Çamlıca ESpor

Question: How many teams does Çamlıca ESpor have in total? Does competing with different teams in many different games cause difficulty for management? If so, what are these difficulties?

Answer: We have 8 teams in total: CS:GO, Zula, VALORANT, NBA, FIFA, PUBG, PUBG Mobile and Rocket League. We too experience the difficulties of competing with different teams in many branches. In the end, at the start of tournaments there is a community of 50 to 60 people, and later it can reach 100. The team with the most activity is our FIFA team. We have 18 players who take part in FIFA tournaments. There can sometimes be difficulties in looking after these players and keeping track of them. A year ago I could run the general structure by myself, but as the number of teams and players grew, we decided to run this with my assistants, and we started running the organization by assigning different managers to each team. Most teams have their own managers, and thanks to their working in coordination with the team captains, we can run the order and organization in a healthy way. Sometimes two of our teams can have matches on the same day. Preparing different designs and creating the messaging for each team takes effort and work in itself.

Question: You have successes and championships in different tournaments. What is the secret of your success?

Answer: The secret of our success is creating successful teams and always keeping motivation at its highest. Especially in FPS games, the most noteworthy detail I see is the offline competitions, regular training and repetition. Each team may have its own problems or needs, and by analyzing these correctly and intervening immediately, we make sure they work in a more comfortable environment and give their concentration only to the match. As much as the professional structure, the sense of belonging and the big-brother relationship we have created help us a lot on the road to success. We give them the value they deserve, and successes come in return. Especially on match days, providing this momentum has a very big place in the successes achieved.

Question: What do you pay attention to when selecting players?

Answer: Player selection is a difficult process, and I can say that in FPS games player selection is even harder. Individual talent is very important here as in every sport, but choosing players inclined toward team harmony and blending them well into the team is just as important. When selecting players, we first look at their individual talents and second at whether they are inclined to fight for the team. If we are taking a team rather than a player, we make sure they have played together for at least 6 months to 1 year. The most important thing I would tell those who generally want an esports career is this: beating an esports player once does not make you a very good player. As a team, you need to have been playing together for some time at least at an amateur level and be achieving success.

Question: Is there a match or memory from the tournaments you entered that you cannot forget?

Answer: Yes, there is. Most recently we took part in the Zula Super League Season 6 tournament. We finished the league stage in 4th place and earned the right to take part in the quarterfinal and semifinal matches. We knew the quarterfinal would be very tough. We brought the whole team to Istanbul a day before the match and ran our preparations together. The biggest advantage for us was that the tournament would be held offline because of the pandemic conditions. After we passed the quarterfinal, we moved on to the semifinal, and the opponent was very tough again. We were matched with Fastpay Wildcats, the undefeated team of the Zula Super League. We beat them 2-1 in a best of 3. In the final, in a best of 5, there was again an incredible struggle. In a match where we went ahead 2-0, it became 2-2 and we had lost the momentum to the opponent. Despite this, our players continued without being demoralized and managed to beat our opponent 3-2. I can say I will never forget the matches in this tournament, and especially the final.

Question: Where do you hope Çamlıca ESpor will be in the future? What are your dreams?

Answer: Of course, in a better place than today. Our sponsor support is low and we have to compete with small budgets. In the future, as our sponsorship power grows, our goal will be to achieve successes in the international arena. Right now, LoL tournaments are the only ones we do not compete in. I believe Riot Games slots are sold for 3 years, so it is both hard to get in and, as hard as it is, costly. We think of LoL tournaments as a long-term investment for the future too, but our priority will be to compete in Europe and represent Türkiye in the best way. In terms of games, we have a team that has achieved important successes and plays very well in CS:GO. We plan to give priority here and focus on the tournaments we will enter in the European arena. After that, we also have a goal of showing up in the European Leagues in PUBG.

Question: What criteria do you think are needed to become an esports player?

Answer: First, you need good equipment. This is a subject that is really overlooked, but good equipment is the most important factor in showing your abilities. By good equipment I do not mean extremely expensive 100,000 TL devices. To give a number, you can have good equipment with lower amounts, around 10,000 TL. After that, of course, comes working hard and repetition. Then being inclined toward team harmony and the adaptation process, I would say. The material and moral support the family gives the player helps a lot in their development and focus. We are in the age of technology, and all children are, so to speak, born with computers. I can say what develops individual skills the most is repetition, repetition and repetition. Natural talent can take you only so far, but being talented alone does not carry you forward in esports, or in any sector by itself. For that you should work regularly and keep your goals high.

Question: Do you think esports in Türkiye is at the point it deserves?

Answer: I think it is definitely not at the place it deserves. Families are not aware that this is a profession and has turned into a huge sector. Unfortunately, state administration, brands and companies still look at this subject from a distance. But this sector growing organically is much healthier than growing all at once. We experienced this badly in the Riot Games example. Non-organically, 50,000-seat halls were suddenly built, and sometimes unnecessary transfer fees of around 250,000 euros were paid for a single player. Now the teams competing in that league unfortunately cannot get a return on the investment they made. They have no regular income and are trying to create a resource within themselves, but this comes back to them as a very big financial burden. Even football now finds it hard to pay such sums, yet such transfers and unnecessary spending were made in the past. With the economic problems the world is experiencing on top, very big troubles arose. Investments that clubs like Galatasaray and Beşiktaş, among the big teams, can make can be much larger than ours. These are more like communities than a team, but even they may have problems paying salaries and keeping the wheel turning in this period. Where they could previously invest 2-3 million, we have now seen a season in which Beşiktaş and Galatasaray could not even pay player salaries of around 100 thousand or 200 thousand TL and were banned because of it. Galatasaray experienced this last year. Although these are very small amounts for a club like Galatasaray normally, the pandemic period caused even them this trouble. Although they experience these troubles less in their much larger branches, because esports branches are the lowest investment pool they allocate and they cannot get a return on the investment in tournaments, such troubles unfortunately can occur.