The VR headsets used by EVA read QR codes placed around the perimeter of its “arenas” in order to locate the players wearing them in space. EVA
“Guys, cover me while I take the point.”Thiago says to his teammates. “Watch out, there’s one behind the wall at the back!”Tom answers eagerly. Before announcing two seconds later: “He got me, I’m dead.” In the middle of a futuristic spaceship, two rival factions exchange heavy fire: one defends an area it has captured and the other attacks. Everything happens very quickly. Gabriel aims and shoots, Thibaut trotting behind him, while Maxime attempts a discreet incursion into enemy territory.
The immersion is such that one would almost forget that all this action does not really take place in a machine floating in space, but rather under the virtual reality (VR) headsets worn by five young men, who have been trampling for half an hour on the white and black floor of a hangar of approximately 1,000 square meters, itself lost in an industrial zone of Val-d’Oise. We are in the town of Beauchamp, inside a room stamped EVA, for Esports Virtual Arenas.
“Here, it was a laser game that went bankrupt with Covid,” tell the World Bastien Mignon, the director of this establishment which offers its customers games of shooting video games (FPS, for first-person shooter) in VR. Its owners, who also own a trampoline park and a children’s playground located a few hundred meters away, were won over several years ago by the concept of the French start-up EVA and opened as franchisees in 2021. It was then the very first room to offer this innovative offer.
Since then, around thirty establishments of the brand have opened in France and twenty-five more are planned before the end of the year. “We are aiming for one hundred theaters for the complete French network by the end of 2025”explains Jean Mariotte, co-founder and president of EVA, whose turnover was 8.5 million euros in 2023 (excluding franchises). Since its launch in 2018, the young company has shown ambition: in addition to exporting, it is investing in e-sports and plans to release a new game in the hope of opening up to a wider audience.
Monthly “Battle Pass”
The clientele of the EVA in Beauchamp, open seven days a week, is already quite varied, according to its manager. “On Wednesdays and weekends, it’s quite family-oriented but there are also friends who come to play among themselves.”notes Bastien Mignon. The players, whose average age remains young, “around 30 years old”sometimes come here on specific occasions. “We held our birthdays there.”confides Tom, aged 18 and passionate about the license Call of Dutyhis forehead still wet with sweat accumulated under the VR headset.
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