Mother and son from Mexico find "great adventure" with Boston Breach eSports team
FOXBORO - Gaming has the opportunity to brings friends and families together.
"Video games throughout the whole time kind of kept my social life alive. It kept my relationship with my brother kind of at an all-time high," Murph Vandervelde told WBZ-TV.
Vandervelde is the president and co-founder of the Boston Breach. They're an American professional "Call of Duty" eSports team that plays in the Helix Center in Foxboro. They're owned by the Kraft family.
Vandervelde had no idea the eSports team concept would take off.
"But as we built more and more centers and ran more and more tournaments, it became clear to us there was such an untapped set of talent that wasn't getting an opportunity to compete," he told WBZ.
Now on his team is Eric Perez from Mexico, better known as "Snoopy." He was planning on becoming a surgeon but then he told his parents he wanted to try eSports professionally.
"I was very angry, very very angry, actually yeah. Choke, angry," said his mother, Veronica Locano.
"It's not like I'm quitting being a doctor, maybe in the future, something in the medical field, but right now, I really wanted to pursue gaming," Perez said.
So he and his mom came to an agreement. Eric could pursue gaming for now as long as she was able to go with him on this journey. They left Mexico and their family for the eSports experience.
"There's losses, there's wins and being able to enjoy it with her and share with her is something really, really great," Perez told WBZ.
"Ohhh! It's exciting, amazing, it's a great adventure," Locano said.
The Boston Breach are hosting the first "Call of Duty" major of the year on January 24-to-28 at the MGM Music Hall in Fenway. They're expecting about 20,000 people.