Professional Gaming: A Blessing and a Curse

The reason for this post is to talk about what people often don’t talk about when it comes to professional gaming; what effects does it have on you? What are the pros and cons when it comes to professional gaming? From changes to physical health, to mental health, and social aspects of life, there are many things that I have looked back on over the last year. If I could go back, there are things I would do differently. The problem is, often times you are blinded to what is actually going on in your life when your focus is trying to be the best at what you do. For some people it’s sports, academics, a job, but for me it was in gaming. I was a world champion in 2019 playing EASPORTS NHL, getting to the top in that professional scene. Playing EASPORTS NHL, I have won in tournaments that had crowned me best in the United States, best in North America, and best in the world. The reason I am sharing these accomplishments is not to boast; I am giving context because I know what it takes and how difficult it is to make it to the top in any professional scene.

To start, I want to say that I am incredibly blessed to have been able to partake in professional gaming. For those who compete, we know how hard it truly is to make it to final stages of tournaments. From a purely gaming perspective, I am extremely happy I have been able to be at a high enough skill to compete year after year. There are a ton of great things that have come from being a part of this scene. The memories I have made through professional gaming have been something I have cherished more than anything else. Meeting players from all over the world all from a game we played is really wild to think about. I also enjoy sharing winning moments, and the losing moments, with my friends and family. The best part of it all is that I am still very close with people I met through gaming, people I would not have met without it. Getting to travel across the country to compete is something I will never take for granted as well. Seeing new places, getting to explore the world has been a very humbling experience. Last but not least, the glory of winning is a feeling that is indescribable. You truly feel on top of the world in moments where you are crowned the champion. Seeing all the people watching live or from home, knowing that you are the reason you are putting smiles on their faces is a fantastic feeling. Better yet, knowing that you are making your family proud is one of the best feelings of them all.

With that said, I want to talk about some of the negative things that people often don’t hear about in professional gaming. First off, I will start with importance of physical health. Physical health should have been put high up on the list for things I wanted to continue with when I started gaming professionally. I graduated high school at about 190 pounds, began professional gaming at around 205 pounds, and then peaked up to about 245 pounds in the peak of my gaming career. Over a two year span in that time, I had put on 40 pounds. What was difficult about this was for one, I see myself everyday in the mirror. You don’t really notice changes on your body until you get to the point of “wow, okay I put on a lot of weight.” At that point, your physical health has drastically changed. You stopped being active, started making bad food choices, and the hardest part is that you didn’t even realize it. I started to realize how easily I became out of breath doing simple tasks. My confidence levels decreased immensely because of my weight gain. I was always very social, but because of my weight gain, I never thought it would even be worth it to talk to girls I had met on my college campus for the sole reason that I was "too fat" to be liked. Now I know that simply isn't the case, but that was what I was lead to believe. I had convinced myself of that. I was so focused on becoming the best at NHL that I didn’t realize all of these bad decisions I was making. Playing everyday for long amounts of time, ordering takeout food because I didn’t want to spend time cooking when I could be playing the game, and in turn, not “having time” to workout. My drive to be the best blinded me with important aspects of my life that I needed to put a focus on.

From a mental health standpoint, it was very stressful at times with my performance, but also from outside factors within social media. The things that come with professional gaming I would compare to what professional athletes; worrying about, “am I good enough to compete,” and the constant messages/posts from social media trolls telling you that you are terrible at the sport you play. When you start placing well in tournaments and there are articles, social media posts, and videos made where you are the center of attention, it’s a very exciting thing. I always love looking at them and showing my friends and family those things, but I refuse to even slightly show them the comments or replies to posts from people on social. Having what people think is the stereotypical gamer body of being overweight, I received a lot of negative comments surrounding that. You can tell yourself to just ignore those comments, or not to look at them. For me, that didn‘t always work. Every mainstream post had something commented about my weight. The one that stuck the most was when I won the 2019 NHL Gaming World Championship. On the NHL’s Instagram page, they promoted me and congratulated me which was awesome. As I scrolled through the comments, one comment with a lot of likes from others said, “I really hope he uses that $50,000 to hire a personal trainer.” I’m thankful for those in the comments who were backing me up, but to see that kind of rude stuff written about you hurt. While there are lots of great things that come from social media, sometimes the bad things weigh heavier on you.

From the social aspect, there are going to be a lot of times where you feel the need to practice, scrimmage, compete, whatever it may be when your friends/family are having a party or spending time together. You often will have to make decisions with what you feel is best for YOU and how you will spend your time. From my experience, I had to stay home from get-togethers with friends in order to stay at a high level. There were a lot of opportunities that I could have spent more of my time with people I care about, and I wish I would have spent more time with those people. I can’t go back and change anything, and who knows if I would’ve had the same outcomes in the tournaments had I spent less time gaming. You can’t live your life in hindsight, but I know that I wish I would have spent more time with the people I love while I had all the time in the world.

Another side effect you may experience is how your love of video games may change. For me, I always loved video games. Really no matter what I played, I always found joy. When I got into professional gaming, things changed. Playing in tournaments where money was involved to be won added huge adrenaline rushes and emotional-highs that I didn’t think was possible from gaming. These feelings combined nervousness, excitement, happiness, sadness, really a rollercoaster of emotions while playing. Playing to be the best was something different, and I will be the first to tell you that nothing compares to video games when you are playing at those levels. Playing at those levels for multiple years almost made those feelings the norm. The problem with this was I wanted those feelings all the time when I played video games, and it just is not possible. Every game I played outside of my professional field, I played to be the best. It didn’t matter the game. Fortnite, Call of Duty, Battlefield, even something more casual like Mario Party, I wanted to be the best. It made me frustrated when my friends who played causally would play bad because it hurt my chances of being the best. They all play for fun, and I thought I was too, but my idea of fun from video games was drastically different than theirs. I no longer played games for the fun of it, I simply played to win. When you’re playing from home, the “best” doesn’t get you anything other than a pat on the back from yourself and a “GG” from your friends. That should be enough for me, but is just isn’t. That is one thing that I am currently working on getting better with; enjoying time with friends and focusing less on performance in games I do not compete in. I’ve found some success playing single player games that are story-driven. The games where I am the main character, “controlling a movie,” are games that I have really enjoyed. My passion and love for video games hasn’t gone away, it just has drastically changed from what it used to be before professional gaming.

I wanted to share these experiences because maybe there is someone out there who saw me win a world championship and was inspired, but doesn't know where to start or what it is like. I wanted to reveal the highs and lows of professional gaming. Not to discourage anyone from wanting to become a professional gamer, but to inform them of what professional gaming brings. After writing all of this, it has been a very therapeutic and emotional experience. Everyone is different, so some people may not experience anything from what I experienced. Professional gaming will always hold a special place in my heart. Will I ever compete again at the levels I used to? Who knows, but it has been a wild journey.