Short Stories 54 — Gaming Career

The lights were on. The security guard told me, “Be ready. Your name will be called. And then you go on the stage.” I was very nervous. I usually don’t get nervous when it comes to interviews as I give a lot of them after tournaments. But this one is different. It was an actual TV interview, not a normal one. I looked to my right and I saw that Jason is also nervous.

He is a guy that I rarely see nervous during matches. He is the pillar of our team. But today his nerves are jangling too. He looked at me and said, “This is real man. Are you ready?” and I nodded. Both of us were ready as at any moment our names were going to be called. And the TV host yelled our names. “Let's me yo you introduce the games prodigies, Jason and Mike.”. That was our cue.

We took a deep breath, put our head straight, straightened our postures, and started walking towards the stage. As we entered all we saw were lights and an audience. TO be honest there is more live audience nowadays at tournaments. But this was an interview. We greeted the host and sat on the couch.

“Hello, gamers. How are you guys doing?” she initiated with the ice-breaker. To which we had a normal response, “We are doing great how and are?”. We were tense as it was a big stage. The next few questions were about the game and how did we get into it and all that jazz. Slowly as the interview proceeded, we got more comfortable.

But looking at the approach of the host it felt like, they still perceived us as people who sit in our mom's basement and play video games all day. Which felt a lit weird. Because that is not true. At least to the majority of the people. She asked a question were, “Are you going to get a real job?” This is something that we were caught of guard. I mean we know basic PR answers to a lot of questions that we use to say some random bullshit. But I wanted to give a genuine response to that.

“Well, it is our job. It may not be seen as a ‘real job’ but it is a sport. Surely we don’t play it physically. But a lot of effort is put into the strategy, understanding the basic mechanics. Since it is a team game we have to work a lot on our team chemistry too. But we travel to different countries to play the tournaments. I am not complaining, but still, there is a lot of effort put into it.”

To this she replied. “Yes. guys all of you at home that is true. There is a lot of effort in playing video games.”

To this comment, it made me furious a little on the inside. I looked at Jason and he noticed immediately that I was done. And the rest of the interview he carried out as I was done with her.