Gaming Background of the Vreo core team
When Egor came to Germany at the age of 15 he barely knew anyone here and also still had to learn the language. Being an avid gamer already he looked for an Internet café to socialize, where he got to know Andreas, who helped him improve his german skills while playing games together.
Tino came into the mix a little bit later, when they were playing World of Warcraft together back in 2005 and the three of them met for the first time about a year later in Vienna celebrating the Birthday of another of their gaming friends. From that point onwards they quickly built a great friendship, still playing games together in their freetime and visiting each other multiple times over the next couple of years.
In 2011 after finishing school Tino made the decision to move across the country to live and study in Frankfurt, where Egor and Andreas were located already. They started spending more and more time together outside of video games and now they are even working on this project for the gaming industry and especially the gamers. I think this is a great example of gaming being a social activity that allows people to connect with others sharing a passion for the same hobby.
Andreas Schemm: I am a passionate gamer since the age of 12, when I started getting into strategy and simulation games. My first job actually was at a gaming cafe in Frankfurt, where I organized gaming events and tournaments for the regional community. During that time, I met Tino & Egor, who are now working with me on Vreo. We played a lot of games like World of Warcraft and Diablo together and are still gaming if the time allows it.
Later on, I helped develop the brand of LaserTag Germany, implemented it into the German market, assisted with the expansion and set up a franchising chain (with over 14 centers in total when I left) as well as the still ongoing German LaserTag League. We build a great community tool with achievements and prices as well, which got tens of thousands of users on board. After that, I switched my focus to VR and Gaming as a whole, developing Vreo with my friends and partners to improve the monetization and advertising of my favorite industry.
Egor Malychev: I have played games ever since my childhood. It starte out as a great hobby and passion and I achieved semi professionalism when I was 12–16 years old. During that time I successfully participated and won several Counterstrike, Starcraft and Warcraft 3 TFT tournaments, which were regional as well as international tournaments across many countries.
Diablo is easily one of my favourite franchises,mostly playing Hardcore mode and especially the aspects of figuring out the best and most effective routes and farming methods were fascinating. In D3 I ended up clearing Inferno as one of the first players worldwide, just before it being tuned down to make it more accessible.
I plaed WoW from the very beginning, reaching r14 and multiple gladiator titles, raiding with top 100 world guilds on a constant level and ended up killing Argus with Advance, top 5 worldwide guild with a 2 day raiding schedule, #1 in Germany.
I also participated in a lot of Alpha and Beta testing of new games, which helped to develop a general understanding of different games and patches from the game developer point of view, such as which aspects are of interest, what behaviour is important, etc.
Tino Kügler: I started playing video games as a at the age of 10 with Pokémon, but quickly transitioned to various RPGs such as Diablo 2 and Baldur’s Gate and joined a few friends playing World of Warcraft shortly after, where I was raiding competitively and later on playing high-rated arena (often times with Egor and Andreas). After a lot of my friends switched from WoW to League of Legends I followed suit and started playing ranked games almost as soon as I reached the required Level. I peaked in Diamond 3 back during Season 5.
I was always very interested in statistical ways of optimizing my time spent playing, whether it’s about finding the best farming routes, calculating which pieces of gear I want to use, or what my optimal damage rotation should look like. A few years ago I decided to focus even more on those skills and started playing digital TCGs and CCGs more seriously.
The highlight of my gaming “career” so far was attending a $100k LAN event, playing a small TCG called Hex: Shards of Fate and placing 4th in the actual tournament after winning a qualifier tournament. I have also reached the Legend rank in Hearthstone multiple times since then. These days I spend most of my free time playing Path of Exile and League of Legends and am looking forward to getting more into Magic: The Gathering after the crazy times of the ICO.
