Rio de Janeiro (AFP)

The Brazilians Guilherme and Arthur, 11 and 14, have their eyes riveted on the screen, following step by step a video game character supposed to kill all the others to become the only survivor on an island.

They are not in charge, they are content to attend on Youtube a game of Barbara "Babi" Passos, Brazilian of 21 years world champion of Free Fire, game inspired by films like Battle Royale or Hunger Games which has won over 450 million players worldwide.

Teenagers can see the professional player's face on a separate screen and also hear her comments.

This video with millions of views comes from the Brazilian channel Loud, created in February 2019 and classified in December "revelation of the year" by Youtube in its Rewind world ranking, with the highest increase in less than 10 months.

Loud is also a collective of a dozen professional players who benefit from infrastructures worthy of top athletes.

Like competitors of a reality TV game, some of them live together in a villa in Sao Paulo (south-east).

They spend their days training and recording videos for Youtube, and are regularly visited by specialists in audiovisual production or social media management, but also by psychologists or performance coaches.

But these players, in their twenties, are far from being confined: they travel around the world to participate in international Free Fire competitions, in tournaments with bonuses of up to $ 100,000.

"Babi", who is one of only two women in the group, won the Free Fire World Cup in Bangkok with the Brazilian selection in Thailand.

Each member of the team has their own Youtube channel in addition to Loud, with millions of fans: two of them (including Babi) are also in the top 10 of the Rewind world ranking of revelations.

- Video with Neymar -

Loud was founded by Bruno Oliveira Bittencourt, better known as Playhard, pioneer of "mobile game", a term which designates online games for mobile phones or tablets.

One of his main feats of arms: a video recorded last July alongside footballers Neymar and Marquinhos, from Paris Saint-Germain, with whom he teamed up for an epic part of the game Brawl Stars.

His personal YouTube channel has more than 10 million subscribers, with around 1,700 videos totaling over a billion views.

"When I created my channel in 2014, I realized that the videos with advice and analysis on mobile games were the most successful," tells the AFP this young man of 25 years.

With Loud, in addition to founding a Dream Team of mobile games, he wants to retain fans thanks to charismatic players, sometimes staged in videos that have nothing to do with games.

On one of them, we see for example "Babi" receiving a bouquet of flowers with a card signed by another member of the team ... without his knowledge, turkey stuffing.

"They were selected not only for their quality as players, but also for their ability to tell stories," says Playhard, who knows how lucrative the sector is.

He even created the Loud clothing line, sold online.

- Booming market -

In June, specialist analytics company Newszoo estimated that mobile games would generate $ 68.5 billion worldwide in 2019, or 45% of total video game market revenue.

Brazil is the largest consumer in South America and the 13th in the world, with a market of $ 1.6 billion.

According to the Pesquisa Game Brasil survey, more than 57% of the 75 million Brazilians who play video games prefer mobile platforms to consoles.

"It's much easier to play on your laptop than buying console games, it's free, and many mobile games have as good an image quality" as on consoles, explains the specialized journalist Diego Borges.

© 2020 AFP