For the love of the game -

When I started gaming around the age of 10-11, almost fifteen years ago now, I first laid my hands on the DOS version of games such as Wolfenstein 3D, the first version of Simcity, Civilization or Prince of Persia. Simply because that was as far as my 386 could take me. A whopping 32 Mb of memory this beast of a machine possessed – and I’m not talking about the RAM memory. This was the physical storage space this PC was equipped with. Never in my life had I imagined that this would lead to this point in my life where everything I do involves gaming in one way or another, making my  living from the thing I love(d). Passionate I was about gaming, I annoyed my parents for years and years to upgrade the PC and finally get us that internet connection I was dying to get. Finally they caved and I could test my skills against gamers across the globe.

Looking back at those years those might have been the most pure years of gaming I experienced, with every minute, hour or day passing I wasn’t keeping score. I wasn’t looking to get somewhere nor was I looking for e-fame. I simply loved gaming. I loved every second of it without thinking about things to come, without any goals before me besides getting that next frag.

Getting into it more a whole new world opened up for me, giving me a hotseat in international competitions, teams, leagues, ladders and LAN events. I started to participate in every level I could and attending events I met the people I was playing online with for so long. I still enjoyed the game but it became so much more. It became a lifestyle, I set goals for myself and explored every corner of the virtual battlefields. Evolving throughout the years the business side of gaming started to emerge and I started to familiarize myself with the basic concepts of running a team on a daily basis. TEK9 was founded and the rest of the story is now well known. But I can’t help but wonder if all that has come at a cost.
No longer do I look at gaming and see just fun and frags. I see friends, travel, competition and ultimately money as well – as I attempt to make a living from this industry. It has transformed me from a passionate gamer to a product of gaming entrepreneurship and part of the global games industry. Although I am extremely fortunate to be in this position I start to realize that far too often people tend to lose the passion and love they started out with. The sparkle in the eyes that coincides with receiving that new game is gone. Gaming has become a way to become someone in the virtual world and those goals transcend the passion and love that used to be the very reason they started playing those games. Winning a tournament, topping the leaderboard or becoming the first level 70 of your guild is more important than enjoying getting there in the first place.

Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing bad about setting goals and committing to yourself to do whatever it takes to reach those goals but if there’s no passion or love for what you are doing one must ask himself: “what am I truly trying to accomplish here?”. Fear for being just another person on the globe that won’t be remembered is seemingly present in one way or another in almost every living being and the world wide web offers a plethora of opportunities for those who want their 15 minutes of fame. It has come so far that I feel the gamers in the competitive communities flock to these games no longer because they see a game they love playing but because they see e-fame, money and other fortunes lying ahead of them. That they happen to be in something which is quite enjoyable to do is just a bonus.

Winning my first ever LAN event in 2002 (a CB event), I loved every single bit of it, true story!

Going back to when I started gaming I loved the game so much that as a 17-year old I travelled to the Netherlands to participate in my first official LAN event. I spent over £300 attending i17 (yes, I go back THAT far), actually winning the event and getting a cool £50 back from the prize money. Ironically I ended up spending twice as much due to a missed flight but I didn’t care. I wasn’t there for the money. I was there for the friendship. I was there for the love of the game and all the doors it had opened for me. This is a feeling I’m missing more and more with the new wave of players coming into the scene. Far too often I see players and teams demanding unrealistic things from their organizations. Unproven teams wanting international travel paid and expect everything right now, not tomorrow. The moral fiber within the youngest generations have declined so much that there no longer is room for honor or loyalty. Jumping ship has become the most normal thing to do even if the latest offer is one of promised future opportunities that only slightly surpass the guaranteed opportunities already on offer with the current organisation.

With an ever-shifting community that continuously becomes more demanding the climate for investment in a team becomes less and less interesting. With large investments required and little to no guarantee for a return on investment or even no guarantee to breed some loyalty from your players the people with passion for the game are driven out of the scene. Committing myself for the community every day, I keep wondering, where is the love for the game nowadays?