Ag, as long as they are honest, which I doubt many of them are :P

I myself hardly practise. Hmmm maybe that's the secret. See you next Quakecon ;)

I'll be cheering for you !

\o/ Hehehe, no seriously I would love to practise practise practise and fly to Dallas if only for a holiday, but realistically I doubt it will happen.

Lance Armstrong :)

It's still considered to be an unsocial hobby by many, and while you get a great body, confidence and something you really can use by getting in physical shape, you get the exact reverse effect when you sit in front of the tv or pc and do nothing. And then there is the small pay for all the hours spend on improving your aim or mapknowledge to consider as well..if you even get to win in one of the few competions there are.
I don't blame the players for not spending more time, I actually think it's great they don't waste too much of their life on it. I don't believe in esport, like I don't believe in dart, billiard or poker as a good way of living. For some it might work out, but for 99% it wont.

well put

ok. but don't use it as an excuse at every event or tournament you play in.

If you don't want to say you practiced then you aren't good if you lose and make the excuse.

Now if you practiced and win then you can say you have skill and didn't practice.

Either way you have to make a choice, either you're not good enough to win (can't say you didn't practice) or you're skilled enough to win (can say you didn't practice)

Either way stop being pussies.

You give the answers all by yourself. They are considered "nerds" if they admit they spend most of their time playing a game, so they lie.

Also they want to be seen as "talented" and "skilled", not as "the guy who trains more than anyone else" ( while that may be the closest to the truth).

I don't think there is much more to it. People are all individuals.

True that. Spending hours practicing a video game is not socially accepted, so people claim they don't do it.

if that's true this means that some of the players are giant idiots with a huge lack of discipline. generally they put so much of their lifetime into gaming and when they have the chance of getting at least some money out of it, they should do everything in order to achieve this. e.g. cypher hardly knowing the new maps. why didn't he practice them more? maybe he could ended up #2 or #1. = more money ( i'm sure money's no problem in belarus :P).

I think cypher barely can play on inet due to his net and the lack of belarussian/russian servers.

One reason I've come up with is I think some of these guys don't want to be compared with the likes of Fatal1ty, whose public image isn't horrible, but, well, he really doesn't help himself out with being himself while under the public eye. A few of the incidents I've heard about -- and I'm sure there's more than those -- don't help, either.

There's also the lack of ability to really take being a competitive gamer seriously nowadays. Back in 2005, it was thought that ritually playing video games really could land you a good-paying job, and so it was thought that such a hobby could become socially acceptable as a profession. Vo0 made a little over $300,000 in 2005. Toxic made a little over $100,000 in 2006. How much did Cypher make in 2008? I don't have the ballpark figure, but I'm sure it was, at most, $50,000 -- probably somewhere closer to $30-35,000. Most college graduates are capable of finding a job that pays better than that.

I think the best way to put it is, right now, competitive gaming can be compared with the likes of competitive beer pong. Does the average "pro" make a decent living at their "profession?" Probably not. Does this mean that they can still passionately pursue this hobby? Depends on the free time they have.

The difference beetwen rl sports and this is the $$$ those ppl get paid millions of dollars and gamers get 0.00000001% maybe if ur 1st u get some little spit 10-15k, but that doesent make u calm.U cant just ban ur rl priorities for that small amount of money while those from rl sports can put all of their time in preperations.If gamers were to make a living out of it then maybe yes but thats impossible...

this is pretty much my argument every time some dipshit says "yay! no money now we can play for fun again!"

The opportunity for the skill ceiling drops tremendously when the money doesn't cover RL expenses. If you have to work a full time job then that's at least 40 hours you can't spend practicing. Some people don't get this. I can safely assume that these people live with their parents.

This is also a reason that I was so impressed with DKT's showing at QuakeCon.

As the father of a 5 year old son (today is his bday), and 3rd level support for the ISP I work for (I program dslams and assign sticky statics via DHCP, primarily) I'm already far too busy to ever hope to pursue any serious gameplay, my quakelive time is 10 hours combined between both of my nicks, and that's playing whenever I get the chance.

There's still plenty of guys with enough free time and passion for the game to play it regularly anyways, so this doesn't explain everyone's case. Like crea and I have both said, it probably comes down to preserving their public image -- hiding their powerlevels, if you will.

lol wtf are u talking about!?

I guess that with these "guys" u mean mommas boys that are about 15y and their mums take care of their breakfasts,dinners,give money,dress them etc.These ppl never paid any bills in their life they live in a seperate world...visiting schools and never need to worry about anything.

But hey maybe im wrong maybe they do have a job and take care of a family,think how theire gonna feed the children at home and pay bills...

I never said these people I mention put in a ton of hours into the game. Maybe 2-3 hours every other day, or even less. That's still enough to keep yourself in "good shape," while being a realistic amount of time one can spend their free time on it. Look at some players' Quake Live stats if you don't believe me?

that leads me to the question whats wrong with esports,,,,

but on topic, ofc, if a football star admits that he was lazy, he will get punished by choaches, fans, sponsors, and might even be on bench!

he seems to lower even his reputation by doing so, while progamers do the opposite, they wanna increase their reputation by that.

maybe there lies the key, why esports is still not where i could be.

our players should be considered stars, hard working for their goals, and that should noble. noone will really look at an esport athlete like a shining star. when hes still considered sucessfull due to nerdiness.

maybe we need to put more focus on the players,,,

There is no such thing as esports thats an illusion, the sooner u realise that the better.Watching quake IS BORING!!!When u mentioned rl sports and gaming there is not just difference in amount of money ppl get as salery but in whole generations.U see sports like football,tenis,basketball...all these have a tradition with 100years or even more.An average 50y old guy just doesent dig quake he doesent understand the item picking,timing,positioning and finds it unintertaining,boring etc.While he does understand perfectly football,chess and stuff like that (hell my mum knows the rules at football).Why!?

Well your father maybe played football when he was young and now and then he likes to watch a match over tv, ur mum maybe did tenis when she was a girl and so on...These sports are understandable to all generations while quake is only understandable to youths...

Maybe someday it will happen, when new generations come, but I doubt it will happen for the time of our lives...and gaming will probably be very different from what we know today! :P

maybe ur right....

at least i admit it could be, our very young gereation knows better to plant a bomb than to shoot a goal,,,

What are you talking about?!

On the topic, if you want to know what professional gaming would look like, look at the korean starcraft scene.

Well this is why they play video games in the first place.

It's easy to be confident, like Lance Armstrong, when you are cheating.

its easy to cheat on your mom when you know your a sociopath.

sif you'd know anything about that you fat/stupid rpg nerd.

Isn't Fatal1ty the only true progamer anyway? I mean, is there any other player who makes a living out of that?

I'm talking about the fast fps scene here, I know the starcraft guys are real pros and maybe some CS teams also.

stermy afaik

yeah a lot of people make a lving from playin quake.

i dont mean its a remarkable amount, but they live form sponsors deals only and dont work besides or so...

I read this as programmers

same.

fortunately it isn't or we would see boundless nerd rage from jamerio...again