Inside Breda Guardians

Authors: Daniel van Olphen and Sem van der Schilt are placement students for Breda Guardians during the 2023-2024 spring semester. They work together to help innovate Breda Guardians and build its growing community.
Liedewei Ratgers is a lecturer in Sports & Esports at Academy for Leisure & Events, and a member of the management of the Breda Guardians esports team.

Breda Guardians, founded in 2015, is an esports community with the vision of uniting gamers in and around the city of Breda. They have their own gaming and esports facility ‘The HIVE’ located in the Frontier Building of BUas, where students can relax, make friends, and play games – both casually and competitively. Aside from that, Breda Guardians also organises events for its members and students interested in gaming and esports. The community is very diverse - coming from different domains and several schools. Quite a few members of Breda Guardians and visitors of The HIVE are internationals, and it is our goal to make everyone feel welcome and at home, while providing a safe space and having fun.

Meaningful work placements
Every academic semester, Breda Guardians offers two placement positions: Event Manager and Community Manager. Throughout the placement period, the placement students work closely together to oversee the Breda Guardians community, the teams, and to organise various events for its members. As the Breda Guardians community is very diverse and interculturally oriented, the students get in touch with all kinds of cultures and backgrounds. This experience fosters not only professional development, but also personal growth as the students gain knowledge on various perspectives in the multicultural environment of Breda Guardians and esports.

Esports Teams
Breda Guardians has multiple teams who compete in various esports titles, including VALORANT, CS2, Rocket League, League of Legends, and Super Smash Bros. These competitions vary from a local to national scale - where other university teams are the opponents - and are a perfect stepping stone for competitive gamers in the Benelux countries. The members of the teams are often BUas students, from different educational programmes, but also students from Avans and even secondary school pupils are part of the teams playing for Breda Guardians. Regardless of the team’s members, communication is always in English, as this is the primary language within Breda Guardians, as well as in the esports industry.

A meeting place for game enthusiasts
Breda Guardians is for everyone, whether they are serious and competitive gamers, casual players, or individuals who simply want to meet new people. We view gaming as a means to bring the community together rather than solely a competitive pursuit. Some students stop by at The HIVE during their breaks to play games, while others visit more frequently for purposes such as testing new games or socialising. 

The HIVE – home of Breda Guardians – is a place for its community to feel at home and welcome and for its members to know each other not only online, but especially from interacting in person. Joonas, a 25-year-old veteran gamer from Finland, student of BSc Leisure Studies, visits The HIVE at least twice a week. The general vibe of feeling accepted and invited into the fold of Breda Guardians and the overall welcoming atmosphere are appealing to him. As he tells us, he appreciates that he does not feel judged maliciously about liking games and being a ‘nerd’. “I saw my people and was instantly hooked”, Joonas describes aptly.

Another regular visitor of The HIVE and member of the VALORANT team of Breda Guardians is Thomas. He was born in the USA, raised in Mexico, and is studying Data Science & Artificial Intelligence. Alongside practising with his team, he visits The HIVE almost daily to say hi to his friends and sometimes plays games. “I have felt included in Breda Guardians since the day I came to this school.” Thomas enjoys being part of a competitive team with which he won a national tournament in VALORANT. Breda Guardians has been a stepping stone for him in competitive gaming. 

Breda Guardians’ future
The development of Breda Guardians is still in full progress, lots of opportunities arise and new steps need to be taken to ensure further growth. One aspect that will remain important is the thriving international community to be a cornerstone of Breda Guardians’ identity.

This article was published in Uncover Magazine - Internationalisation. You can read the complete magazine via this link.