Back in 1999, two friends with a passion for the game counter-strike decided to start a gaming clan that is now known as 666-Gamers. Since it’s inception the goal has always been to just have fun and to bring people who love gaming together.
The 666-Gamers philosophy
In an increasingly online world, gaming has the unique ability to bring people together from all over the world, even if they are hundreds of miles apart. However, in our experience, the strongest bonds are still forged when those people come together in the same room. Therefore, our focus has always been on offline events, to encourage people to come outside of their homes and meet each other in real life.
The result of this philosophy is that we grew out to a community of more than 150 members that doesn’t just feel like a group of friends but even like a family. Whenever 666 members come together, you’ll see them have fun together, hug each other and share laughter over some drinks. It doesn’t matter what your gender, race or skill level is, as long as you want to have fun and share memorable experiences with like-minded people, you’ll find a home at 666-Gamers.
The importance of LAN-parties
Naturally, LAN-parties have always been a huge part of our DNA. To this day, we believe that they are THE ultimate gaming events. A full weekend where gamers come together physically to game together, to compete together, to meet people that they got to know online, to meet totally new people, to see their friends again,… LAN-parties prove like no other that gamers aren’t some solitary cave dwellers, like many people still believe. The experiences, memories and bonds that are created at LAN-parties just aren’t replicable online or anywhere else.
That’s why 666-Gamers has been present at more than 100 LAN-parties over it’s 25 years of existence, including FiberLAN, OCC, FoM, SugarLAN, Dreamhack, CU-LAN, The Party, The Reality, Campzone and more! Since 2014, we started organizing the 666 private LANs for our own members. The first edition there were about 40 participants but nowadays we welcome 100 members or more, two times a year at these events.
The birth of 666-LAN
Bringing gamers together had always been our goal, so in 2020 we figured: why not open the 666-LAN concept to a broader public and thus 666-LAN Purgatory edition was born: our first public LAN-party with 172 participants in the Antwerp Expo. More than 20 years of community building, networking lead to this moment. We invested in a fiber internet connection, an esports stage and livestreaming to modernize the LAN-party concept in the Benelux.
The covid pandemic hit the LAN-party scene particularly hard and we had to delay our 2nd 666-LAN, the Valhalla edition, to 2023. However, with further expansion of the stage, professional shoutcasters, the addition of a big streambooth with player interviews and lots of local Twitch streamers, we were able to grow nonetheless. 301 Participants joined us in Valhalla.
Our vision is that LAN-parties should once again reach out to new audiences and convince them why LANs are worth the trouble of dismantling your gaming setup and bringing it to an event venue. That’s why we focus on livestreaming and content and delivering a real esports experience. This edition, we also want to include the console gamers with more crossplay and console competitions.
Final thoughts
LANs are what allowed our community to grow and thrive so we are very passionate about the LAN-party scene. The Covid pandemic unfortunately hit our scene very hard, with many LANs losing lots of participants or even quitting. We hope that 666-LAN will become one of the events that the community can rally around again, each year because the scene is far too beautiful and unique to let it go down. 666-LAN will keep trying to innovate and reach new audiences and we can only hope that we can be one small part of a scene that thrives once again.
On to the next 25 years!
