Gamers of the world, unite!

The winter holiday vacation is now gone and the French offices are full again with loads of French mouse clickers who just finished to brag about the hangover on the aftermath of the Saint-Sylvestre night. Unfortunately there's simply no excuse left to not getting back to work and, while the settled employees are secretly longing for the traditional spring skiing vacation that is about to arrive in February/March, most of the unemployed French begin to brush up their resumes.

For quite a long time Versailles was the town of small businesses, mom and pop shops with a few employees having to perform several small jobs at a time; but the times are a-changin', gently pushed by the ambitious Versailles mayor who seems to have understood that the town needs new blood, other than the ephemeral tourists. And blood he got monsieur de Mazières - virtual, that is!


One can only guess how he did it, but nonetheless he managed to convince the management of a legendary company to move to Versailles with bag and baggage: and nooow (drum rolls) please welcome, ladies and gentlemen, Blizzard Entertainment!!!

Only *I* know, as a young student in computer engineering, back in the days, how many times I had to renounce to a night out with my then-bf for the bigger pleasure of following a tournament of Starcraft that had the power to emblaze whole floors in the boys dorm (ahem!). Although there were various other games in vogue at the time (Caesar, anyone?), Starcraft was the unattainable standard and had the magic of top-notch graphical design that elegantly used all the computer power available (and put to a good use the artisanal and somewhat chaotic student network). How many times our virtual selves have sacrificed themselves and their neat and carefully built war colony on the altar of resource planning, strategy skills and forecasting capabilities (including alliances building or spectacular treasons)?...

"Les voyages forment la jeunesse" says an old French adagio (=Voyages shape the youth) and with each unexpected arrival of the morning light after a night of relentless playing, we were shaped in an inexorable way by our virtual voyages in the amazing world of Starcraft.

So now it's time for you to apply to a fabulous job, dear reader, Blizzard is hiring in Versailles!