My journey to GosuGamers
Or: How I got lost along the way and it wasn't all that bad after all.
Now that I’ve been with GosuGamers for a little while, I think it’s about time to first personal blog. I’ll take this as an opportunity to reminisce about how I got here and into gaming in the first place, since the best start to a story is the beginning. This kind of structure has worked for centuries, so I’ll stick to it, regardless of what Memento has taught me.
To go back to the very beginning of my relationship with video games, we’d have to go back to the day my dad came home with an SNES when I was around four or five, but that would be too exhaustive and my failing memory keeps me from retelling that chapter of my life. I might, however, add that said console is currently with me, merely a few feet away from me and as functional as the day I got it. Instead I’ll start with the moment I started PC gaming, the path that eventually got me here and was most formative in my adolescence.
To kick things off, I want to mention that I was lucky that my school wasn’t divided by certain societal groups so while me and my circle of friends were kind of nerdy, but not to the point where we wouldn’t get wasted on weekends with the more athletic guys. Most of us would do sports on the side anyway so everyone in my year was on the same page regardless. So eventually the day came my friends and I were invited by someone equally nerdy from our year to participate in a LAN they were hosting. Being around the age of fourteen at that time, I am not ashamed to say that, retrospectively, I was fairly horrible at the games that were played.
Later that night, that one short, slim and timid Iranian boy (I’m not being racist, this is important for a later anecdote) suggested we play Enemy Territory, a First-Person Shooter most have heard about and, as far as I know, a decent number of people have played over the years. So it filled our night from then on and it became evident that that one Iranian kid, barely a year older than me raped practically everyone. Hard. We came to talking later and he’d shyly tell me that he is actually on of the best international teams, called Helix. He played for Germany, and, as I should find out in the following months, he was one of the very best at this game. As you can tell perhaps, I was “born” straight into the world of competitive gaming.
In a time before DirectX9, there was a man. He was black and liked to look at cannons.
A friend of mine, that got equally as hooked on the game as I, joined a clan together with me and in which we later formed our squad. Things were good. But the more we played, the more everyone around me progressed as time went by, the more apparent it became that I wasn’t cut out to become a very good player. The team eventually dissolved and I look back at the time with these wonderful people, Nippel and Hirdhor and frush and whoever filled spot that is currently vacant in my memory. Even though I played in a small number of other teams before and after, I tried to find my personal space in gaming that allowed me to excel. So I turned to making frag movies and even got the chance to make them for some of the best players, but the heavy workload for no pay made me quit almost every project before its finalization. The upside is, once again, the people I met doing this. Lasse, that weird Finnish guy that I learned to love. He is now painting and even though I’m not really a connoiseur when it comes to paintings, his are goddamn amazing. And Eli that Jewish Arab whose bad taste in jokes equals mine in many aspects.
You probably wonder about the Iranian-kid-anecdote. So here you go. The last I ever heard from him was told to me by the same guy that invited us to our first ever LAN. I was told that for a graduation trip, his class decided to go to the cradle of modern religions: Israel. Believe it or not, Iranian-German is practically the worst combination of nationalities if you’re trying to get into Israel. So the story goes that he was held up by the Mossad for several hours on his arrival being questioned Good Cop-Bad Cop style. Keep in mind that this is all hearsay and if someone from the Mossad is reading this: please don’t kill me in my sleep.
He didn't look anything like this. I swear.
While all of this was going on, a close friend of mine and current roommate got heavily involved in the WarCraft 3 scene. The teams he played for were German second-tier teams until he was signed by myRevenge, where he played together with a person some of you may know called Naama. I later learned that he earned a small amount of money during his stint at myR and I was blown away. Not because he earned money, I had read before that players were paid in an article about BoxeR changing teams. It was the fact that my friend was the one on the payroll.
Like many others, however, by the time WarCraft 3 died out he had to decide whether to go with flow or stay where his heart is, so he stuck with WC3 and is now playing for one of the few remaining German top teams. He is also the one that demanded I start playing “a real game” after he caught me playing LoL. With my innate desire to please, I ordered StarCraft 2 almost immediately, whose scene I had followed a bit before anyway, due to my addiction to eSports.
Once again I was at a point where I tried to find my calling. Gaming myself had failed. Movie making had failed. I have a face for the radio and a voice for the newspaper. Newspaper. Newspaper it is then, I thought. I don’t exactly recall the circumstance that led me to GosuGamers at the time, but they had that neat little button that invited me to apply as an editor. With my lack of experience I figured I better mention that they’d have to do all the teaching an eventual editor might require. To be fair, it’s still a long, long road for me, but I can’t get rid of the feeling that the next time I will write a post like this, the people I met at GosuGamers will find their place amongst all the amazing and inspiring people I’ve met on my gaming journey.
Now that I’ve been with GosuGamers for a little while, I think it’s about time to first personal blog. I’ll take this as an opportunity to reminisce about how I got here and into gaming in the first place, since the best start to a story is the beginning. This kind of structure has worked for centuries, so I’ll stick to it, regardless of what Memento has taught me.
To go back to the very beginning of my relationship with video games, we’d have to go back to the day my dad came home with an SNES when I was around four or five, but that would be too exhaustive and my failing memory keeps me from retelling that chapter of my life. I might, however, add that said console is currently with me, merely a few feet away from me and as functional as the day I got it. Instead I’ll start with the moment I started PC gaming, the path that eventually got me here and was most formative in my adolescence.
To kick things off, I want to mention that I was lucky that my school wasn’t divided by certain societal groups so while me and my circle of friends were kind of nerdy, but not to the point where we wouldn’t get wasted on weekends with the more athletic guys. Most of us would do sports on the side anyway so everyone in my year was on the same page regardless. So eventually the day came my friends and I were invited by someone equally nerdy from our year to participate in a LAN they were hosting. Being around the age of fourteen at that time, I am not ashamed to say that, retrospectively, I was fairly horrible at the games that were played.
Later that night, that one short, slim and timid Iranian boy (I’m not being racist, this is important for a later anecdote) suggested we play Enemy Territory, a First-Person Shooter most have heard about and, as far as I know, a decent number of people have played over the years. So it filled our night from then on and it became evident that that one Iranian kid, barely a year older than me raped practically everyone. Hard. We came to talking later and he’d shyly tell me that he is actually on of the best international teams, called Helix. He played for Germany, and, as I should find out in the following months, he was one of the very best at this game. As you can tell perhaps, I was “born” straight into the world of competitive gaming.
In a time before DirectX9, there was a man. He was black and liked to look at cannons.
A friend of mine, that got equally as hooked on the game as I, joined a clan together with me and in which we later formed our squad. Things were good. But the more we played, the more everyone around me progressed as time went by, the more apparent it became that I wasn’t cut out to become a very good player. The team eventually dissolved and I look back at the time with these wonderful people, Nippel and Hirdhor and frush and whoever filled spot that is currently vacant in my memory. Even though I played in a small number of other teams before and after, I tried to find my personal space in gaming that allowed me to excel. So I turned to making frag movies and even got the chance to make them for some of the best players, but the heavy workload for no pay made me quit almost every project before its finalization. The upside is, once again, the people I met doing this. Lasse, that weird Finnish guy that I learned to love. He is now painting and even though I’m not really a connoiseur when it comes to paintings, his are goddamn amazing. And Eli that Jewish Arab whose bad taste in jokes equals mine in many aspects.
You probably wonder about the Iranian-kid-anecdote. So here you go. The last I ever heard from him was told to me by the same guy that invited us to our first ever LAN. I was told that for a graduation trip, his class decided to go to the cradle of modern religions: Israel. Believe it or not, Iranian-German is practically the worst combination of nationalities if you’re trying to get into Israel. So the story goes that he was held up by the Mossad for several hours on his arrival being questioned Good Cop-Bad Cop style. Keep in mind that this is all hearsay and if someone from the Mossad is reading this: please don’t kill me in my sleep.
He didn't look anything like this. I swear.
While all of this was going on, a close friend of mine and current roommate got heavily involved in the WarCraft 3 scene. The teams he played for were German second-tier teams until he was signed by myRevenge, where he played together with a person some of you may know called Naama. I later learned that he earned a small amount of money during his stint at myR and I was blown away. Not because he earned money, I had read before that players were paid in an article about BoxeR changing teams. It was the fact that my friend was the one on the payroll.
Like many others, however, by the time WarCraft 3 died out he had to decide whether to go with flow or stay where his heart is, so he stuck with WC3 and is now playing for one of the few remaining German top teams. He is also the one that demanded I start playing “a real game” after he caught me playing LoL. With my innate desire to please, I ordered StarCraft 2 almost immediately, whose scene I had followed a bit before anyway, due to my addiction to eSports.
Once again I was at a point where I tried to find my calling. Gaming myself had failed. Movie making had failed. I have a face for the radio and a voice for the newspaper. Newspaper. Newspaper it is then, I thought. I don’t exactly recall the circumstance that led me to GosuGamers at the time, but they had that neat little button that invited me to apply as an editor. With my lack of experience I figured I better mention that they’d have to do all the teaching an eventual editor might require. To be fair, it’s still a long, long road for me, but I can’t get rid of the feeling that the next time I will write a post like this, the people I met at GosuGamers will find their place amongst all the amazing and inspiring people I’ve met on my gaming journey.
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