eSports: Publication of the decree on the status of professional players employed video game

This Decree concerns companies or associations organizing video game competitions and employing professional competitive video game players as well as salaried professional competitive video game players.

As we specified in our previous articles, article 102 of the Law of October 7, 2016 gives a definition of the salaried professional player of competitive video games and sets the companies or associations wishing to pay such players the obligation to obtain ministerial approval.

This Decree specifies the conditions for obtaining, renewing and withdrawing this authorization.

It also fixes the conditions under which it is resorted to the fixed-term contract of less than one year and the dates of the video game competition seasons.

He specifies :

• the conditions for obtaining the authorization required to employ professional video game players (Articles 1 to 8 of the Decree);
• the conditions under which a contract can be concluded during the video game competition season (Article 9 of the Decree) è A CDD can be signed for a period of less than twelve months in order to:
  • Creating a team to compete in a newly launched game;
  • The creation of a team to compete on a game where no other existing employer team is competing in the same competition circuit;
  • The creation of a new position in an existing team.
• the procedures for determining the start and end dates of video game competition seasons (Article 10 of the Decree) è The start and end dates for video game competitions are defined by an order from the minister responsible for digital technology. They can be defined according to the video game used or the competition circuit concerned.

This Decree will come into force on July 1, 2017.