The situation remained dire. This game had already lasted for 55 minutes. We were slowly approaching the one-hour mark. I, however, still believed. Few of my teammates shared my optimism. This tournament was our way to the top, and if the final game kept on going, we would most likely lose. I refused to think about it. Even though this was but a video game competition, I could feel sweat on my cheeks and my forehead. Even flies seemed too afraid to buzz around; the entire room reeked of the players’ focus.
And then, the opening. One of the enemy players ventured a bit too far in our side of the map. I tried to shout to my team to go for him but only a whisper came out. They heard it, nonetheless. We didn’t make it all the way to the World Championship finals through luck. We were a team. We were one.
It all happened very fast. The catch, the objective, and we found ourselves rushing the enemy’s base like there was no tomorrow. Rushing, yes, but in a precise manner. We left no opportunity of a potential comeback to our opponents. The Nexus exploded, and I wondered for a second if my heart wasn’t about to follow the lead. We won. The crowd roared in joy as they witnessed the most unlikely upset in esports history. Not to say that our team didn’t deserve this spot, but we still overcame Korean legends. And, for a moment, my brain wondered in the past.
The year was 2014. In less than a month, I would graduate and leave high school for good. But I still had no idea whatsoever about what I wanted to do next year. I certainly applied for college, but none of them made me feel this surge of interest that could lead me to believe it was my life path. From the outside, it appeared as terribly shallow, but that one game I discovered the year before, League of Legends, gathered all my focus. The first few months ended up as a disaster. I was sleeping in class, due to self-inflicted sleep deprivation in order to catch up on my friends’ level in the game. I managed to maintain pretty decent results in the first trimester, but some of my grades dropped in the second. I overlooked the third one, for it didn’t matter as far as college studies went.
All that time spent playing allowed me to get pretty good at the game. The question that bothered me daily was simple; how could I make my parents understand that I wanted to spend a year playing to see how good I could become? I figured that the best way to find out would be to ask them directly. Of course, it didn’t go my way at all.
– Dad, can I talk to you for a second?
– Sure! Have your college admission results arrived yet?
– No, but… it’s connected to what I want to talk to you about.
– Yes?
– The truth is, I don’t think I’m ready for college. None of the ones I’ve applied to really light a fire inside.
– We had this conversation before, and I told you how much I disliked the idea of you not doing anything for a year.
– But I wouldn’t, Dad. I would like to see how good I can become at League of Legends.
Because of the first trimester shenanigans, that name itself could make him quite angry. But he managed this time around, even though his face turned an indescribable colour.
– More than anything else, I firmly believe this is a waste of time. What will next year look like? You, staying at home all day long, just playing the game from morning to evening, whatever the hell mornings and evenings are for you?
I tried to remain as calm as possible. This situation required me to display diplomacy.
– I don’t think that’s how it works, Dad. I gathered information about professional players. I know that visualising it might come as hard for you, but their lives also include the standard features of athletes’ lives. Eating healthy, exercising daily, NOT (I put a certain emphasis on the word) messing up their sleep schedule… I think wishing to become a professional player gives you a certain structure and a healthier lifestyle that casual players can have when they try to combine playing and studying or working, for example.
– You have a point. But I still refuse. Unless… unless you can come up with a precise plan of not only next year but also the following ones. If what you offer seems reasonable, I might consider it more seriously. Oh, and you also need to talk about this with your mother, but you and I both know that a plan is the best way to do it, considering her opinion of video games.
That represented a huge win on my end. More than ever, I was eager to show my father that I could plan this out, and at the same time show him that I haven’t lost my edge in scholar matters by doing as good as possible on my A-levels. Convincing my mother remained another challenge entirely. But it was as my father said, a plan looked like the best way to do it.
I decided to wait until I get my college applications results to expose my plan to my parents. I admitted that none of them particularly appealed to me, but I still wondered how I would do. And as expected, most likely because of my second-trimester grades, I only got law college. That was very far from the choices I put higher on the list and convinced me once and for all to present my finished plan. I asked for a family meeting and had trouble sleeping the night before, feeling quite nervous.
The sun rose. We had agreed to conduct this at my father’s place. My mother arrived quite early. I didn’t even have the time to start my explanations that she had already refused.
– Not in this lifetime, Martin. I won’t see you not doing anything for a year, because that’s what playing video games all day basically stands for.
Despite the perceptible tension in the room, my father helped me.
– Let’s at least hear what he has to say.
And I told them about my ideas with the most amount of confidence I could gather. I would follow a professional player’s schedule and potentially look for paid coaching with money I would earn by working during the summer. If that didn’t give any results around the following month of March, I would give up on becoming a professional player, quit League of Legends for good and look for a college to enter in September 2015.
They took quite a bit of time to think about it. To my surprise, my mother spoke first.
– And that means that we won’t ever hear about this game again, right?
– Yes, I said. Although I can’t guarantee that I won’t look to work in the esports industry, I will not play again.
– Seems like a fair deal to me.
I could tell she still wasn’t totally convinced, but those words were all I needed. My father looked like he wanted to say something a couple of times, but no sound came out of his mouth. Finally, he said one word.
– Right.
And that meant I had his approval. The expression ‘a man of few words’ fitted him perfectly.
This opportunity that my parents were offering got me quite excited, and I had trouble focusing on studying for my A-levels. That probably explains why I only did alright, which was not the best I could have done. And in September 2014 began a new adventure, that would end up with me being part of a team at the top of the world, but that’s a story for another time…
The 21st Century Blog 