Carmac IEM 100 interview: “Anyone that’s made themselves a part of this journey as a viewer, fan, player, or otherwise — thank you.”

DreamHack Dallas 2024 is not only a festival for gaming and esports fans, but also the location of a significant milestone for the Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) series. We sat down with Michal "carmac" Blicharz, the vice president of product development at EFG, for an interview about IEM Dallas 2024 as IEM 100 and more.

IEM 100 took place in Dallas, TX, and featured a stadium filled with fans cheering and booing for the different teams on stage. The passion-fueled reactions after each win or loss emphasized the long and rich history of CS:GO esports. In his interview with esports.gg, carmac reflected upon this, feeling immense pride in what these events have achieved over the years.

"This is the one that's a thread in esports history that remembers esports being small, tiny, and almost irrelevant and takes it takes a direct path to moments where we have goosebumps because we have thousands of people cheering," carmac said. "Intel Extreme Masters was one of these vessels that took esports from empty seats to absolute goosebumps and the feeling that the earth is shaking."

On a personal level, carmac revealed that he feels grateful for the opportunities esports has given him and his colleagues. Over the years, he has managed to grow, see the world, and experience so much through esports.

Carmac shared his thoughts on how to keep CS:GO both engaging and relevant as an esports domain and as a form of entertainment as well. He said that the stories write themselves. Therefore, the key is to correctly showcase them. He also noted that unpredictable events, like an underestimated player making it to the finals or another player opting out of IEM Dallas due to a wedding, add to the challenge of covering and promoting the game. However, it is these unpredictable stories that make esports authentic.

"The stories write themselves," carmac told esports.gg. "We just need to correct it — react correctly to them. You can't predict HooXi going to his sister's wedding, skipping Intel Extreme Masters Dallas, and G2 picking up Stewie who was considered to be finished — and then going to the finals."

At IEM Dallas, G2 won against Team Vitality in the grand final with Jake "Stewie2k" Yip. Stewie2k played for the team because Rasmus "HooXi" Nielsen was at the wedding.

Carmac believes his team's role is to capture the energy and allow players and the audience to express themselves rather than interfering with the natural course of events. Having a department dedicated to researching stats and stories, with internal frameworks to determine the significance of various events, however, is also quite helpful in enhancing these storylines.

"Sometimes, it could be that the biggest team loses," he explained. "But if you give zero coverage to the underdog that beats them, that underdog in the next round is not that interesting. So we have frameworks that define how we talk about this."

Carmac told esports.gg how the core of his team's work lies in creating memorable moments for people. For example, it could be a 15-year-old kid attending their first esports event or perhaps a Fortnite player witnessing CS2 players and becoming a lifelong fan. It could also be a player haunted by narrowly missing a victory. Thousands of attendees each have their own unique memories of events such as IEM 100, which carmac finds the most rewarding.

He then acknowledged the numerous technical achievements they've made over the years as well — though many have become standard practices today. Throughout the interview, carmac held those who were part of IEM before his arrival in high regards, crediting them for pioneering many esports solutions.

For example, over the years, technology was developed to reduce set-up time on stage. Given the numerous configurations players require, such as mouse and keyboard drivers, resolution, and refresh rate settings, setups used to take 25 minutes plus warm-up time. Now, players use their own SSDs with pre-configurations. This approach, while once a milestone, is now a standard.

In terms of where carmac sees the future of CS2 esports, he believes that esports is growing steadily and will stabilize over time. He also believes that there's no need to necessarily reinvent the wheel.

"We are experiencing consistently steady growth with our model of esports, which is a circuit of events where we bring global superstars to one place and people come and watch and there's a winner and then we continue next month, two months after with another event," he said.

"That model has worked very well for esports. And it continues to prove itself to be strong and effective. So I would say we will continue with that model. I think esports is growing steadily. I think it's just going to stabilize. I don't think we need to reinvent the wheel necessarily. I don't think we need to necessarily reinvent the wheel because it works — just like you wouldn't change tennis or the U.S. Open in tennis. You don't really need to because it works."

As for parting words, carmac expressed his thanks to everyone who has ever participated in IEM events.

"With the 100 IEM — anyone that's ever tried to qualify, anyone that's watched, anyone that’s maybe bought a product of one of our partners, anyone that's made themselves a part of this journey as a viewer, fan, player, or otherwise — thank you. Because if it's an empty vessel, it doesn't survive. But it has. And it's thanks to multiple generations now of esports fans and players."

That's all for now. Stick around on esports.gg for more interviews, news, and updates.