In today’s episode, we have the pleasure of talking with Wim Stocks, one of the most refined and revolutionary minds in gaming and esports. 
Currently, Wim is Head of Partnerships & Commercial at Belong Gaming & Vindex. His relationship with gaming started when gaming was a garage business; he evolved and grew alongside the industry, from pinball machines to console and pc games. 

For over ten years, Wim was Executive Vice President at Virgin Gaming, where he participated in the forging of gaming and esports’ cornerstones as we know them today. 

Throughout our fantastic conversation, Wim described his relationship with gaming, his natural and unavoidable evolution into becoming part of the space, and some of his most impactful career achievements. We also talk about the early stages of esports and collegiate, which Wim helped develop, the benefits of gaming, and much more. 

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Resources:

Visit Belong Gaming’s website: https://us.belong.gg/

Connect with Wim at LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wimstocks/

Full Episode Breakdown:

3:51 – Wim talks about his relationship with gaming during his childhood and how he saw the industry develop into what it is today.

8:39 – Wim shares a bit about his past in AT&T and the early stages of distributing computer software and video games on floppy disks. 

13:11 – Throughout the digitalization of music and books, games were still finding trouble to get easily distributed. Wim talks about how they started to figure out digital distribution.

19:06 – Wim talks about the early stages of esports, and they struggle to differentiate and separate from gambling, which almost everyone thought competitive gaming was about.

24:01 – Wim describes his experiences at Virgin Gaming and how he saw the industry take giant steps toward its current form.

31:14 – The NCAA and esports. Wim explains the relationship between NCAA and gaming and the moment the NCAA wisely decided to stay away from it.

36:38 – Gary and Wim talk about the positive aspects of gaming.

40:20 – Wim shares his thoughts on how society changed its general perception of gaming and video games.

44:12 – Wim does a quick recap of his career in the gaming industry.

49:55 – Wim uses his ability to foresee things to guess what’s next in esports and gaming.