My Background & The Challenge
About my gaming background
Hey, I am John. A former professional gamer and eSports fanatic. My gaming life started out by playing such classics as, Sonic on the Sega Mega Drive, Road Rash and Toe-jam and Earl. Later on getting involved in competitive gaming (eSports), playing in front of crowds, leading Team UK in national tournaments, television appearances on MTV and even being sponsored by Alienware to travel around Europe for their 2011 Backpacker Challenge. Basically... A lot of gaming!
It
all started when I was 11 years old, sneaking onto my brothers computer after school
playing some Doom. A game way too gory for kids, but ridiculously addictive. Later trying out Half-Life’s Opposing Force, then one of my favourites still to this day.. Team Fortress Classic (TFC). I made my first clan ever at 12
years old… -=[ExPLoSiVE-cLaN]=-… Yes some how at that time I thought it
was a bad ass team name.
Team play
Gaming
in a “clan” (or team to anyone unfamiliar) was awesome. We wore the
same tag and people knew on public servers we were together as a unit, dialing up through our 56k modems and racking up a huge bill.
[ Originally a modification for Half-Life, the rights to Counter-Strike, as well as the developers working on it, were acquired by Valve Corporation in 2000. - picture: youtube.com]
Slow
progression and with a huge learning curve I dived into the world of Counter-Strike in 2002 (CS1.1). Enjoying getting headshotted in seconds by a guy bunny hopping around
the corner, or being killed by a guy floating on a sky box glitch on de_dust. The
game was way too hard, I sucked. I sucked, hard. For me, somehow getting owned
and seeing how bad I was made me want to better myself. No more
being called a noob on public servers. Lets take this more seriously! A
fun hobby started to turn into a more serious passion.
Competitive Gaming & eSports
Fast
forward a few years to 2004. I competed in my first Counter-Strike
LAN tournament at our local LAN cafe, 'Harrow Arena' run by the UK’s first
professional gamer Sujoy Roy; a quake legend that often floats around in the DotA scene now a days.
Playing competitively at a LAN
Cafe was one of those things that made me think more in-depth
about team work and preparation. Little did I know at that time that over the next 10 years this
would form part of my gaming career and later help with my current profession.
I love tournament play to this day. The passion to practice and to prepare against a team. The passion shared with my team and the shared drive to have the commitment to improve as a team is absolutely awesome. Constantly trying to improve your game and help team mates out, watching demos, training on aim maps and playing in small online tournaments or cups.
I love tournament play to this day. The passion to practice and to prepare against a team. The passion shared with my team and the shared drive to have the commitment to improve as a team is absolutely awesome. Constantly trying to improve your game and help team mates out, watching demos, training on aim maps and playing in small online tournaments or cups.
The quality of online play grew over the years as did the tournaments and sponsorship opportunities. Going to local LAN events or wiring up our computers at a friends house, we always had something to play in. If it wasn't an online tournament it would be a competition amongst ourselves. Whether it be Street Fighter 3rd Strike, DotA, WC3, TFT or Serious Sam, we were always up for playing games.
Carrying on playing CS competitively, I got the opportunity to travel around the UK for a few smaller tournaments, such as, Multiplay's iSeries to
ESWC and WCG qualifiers. Meeting like minded people that wanted to take that extra step and who were as passionate for gaming as I was.
Going pro
I finally got my big break. 2007 was the year when I turned a fun hobby into more of a semi-professional career.
Imagine
the scene, a group of teenagers who have been playing individually for
around 3-4 years, who shared the same passion to be one of the best in the UK, formed as a team and spent 3 solid months
practising for a tournament. 6pm-11pm, 5 days a week. With Deathmatch (aim
practice) in between, racking up around 40-50 hours a week in practice. We finally got recognised for our efforts and were picked up by a UK organisation,
Infused-Gaming. My first sponsored team receiving awesome free
mouse pads and headsets. Something at the time that I thought was worth it
after racking up thousands of hours in one single game, constantly
improving myself and my team.
[ Fnatic were, and still are regarded as one of the best eSport Organisations globally picture: fnatic.com]
Infused paid for us to attend Multiplay's i33 LAN, to compete in the CS:S tournament. We
were seeded 24th, one
of the biggest underdogs in the huge pool of nearly 90 teams, facing the likes of European champions
Fnatic, London Mint & Birmingham Salvo (professional salaried teams at the time who competed in the Champion Gaming Series, CGS. A Professional league on Direct TV in the US). The teams were
insane… and here was us, a local UK team that put in a serious amount of
hours, dedicating every moment of the day to doing something we love. To
shoot heads, learn tactics and become the best. A dream for a team
seeded so low, but a dream and a vision we had.
That
tournament had one of the biggest upsets in LAN history in the UK. Our
team, infused which I captained, went onto not only beat our
seed by finishing 9th place but by knocking out fnatic who at the time were the best
team in Europe. The passion, the commitment, the team work was finally
paying off.
[ A few photos from my pro gaming career over the years]
[ A fan made CS Movie of my time playing competitively - ref: Klutch]
The Mindset
Playing
competitively is still in my blood even today. I love the excitement of
teamwork, strategy and playing as a unit. If one of us fails, we all
fail. This mentality has followed me throughout my personal life with
friends if someone hits tough times, we pick them back up. I do the same at work being in a group of like minded people to create some awesome digital products. The mentality of a gamer, has helped shaped what I do today.
[ Playing in the ESL Pro League at the Gadget Show Live! Event ]
Gaming shaped my career
My
gaming career was eye opening, and helped me get several jobs. A side passion I had was designing clan websites and banners. Going into job interviews I always explained what I do in my spare time and I was always asked the same questions:
“What is professional gaming?”
“You get paid to do what….???” were common things I heard without anyone really realising the effort, dedication and commitment it took.
“What is professional gaming?”
“You get paid to do what….???” were common things I heard without anyone really realising the effort, dedication and commitment it took.
Competing though fun could only earn me a few hundred euros at a time and was not a sustainable
way of life. The creative thinking, problem solving in games and tactics is what helped choose my direction at university. Starting to understand peoples interaction with a
problem or solution was much like analysing gameplay.
Gaming and User Experience, as cheesy as it sounds, feels like my vocation in life. They are two things I have loved being involved with, like mentioned before designing and building clan websites. Not only that but I have loved helping sponsors test physical products such as gaming
headsets for Dolby Digital and Plantronics and helping be one of the first few pros to beta test Valve’s CS:GO. No matter if it's a digital or physical product, I loved being apart of the experience from start to finish.
[ Wireframes, Visual Designs mapping while I worked at Tempur-Pedic ]
Working in UI/UX I've worked with with a startup company, several freelance roles, an international luxury goods producer and a global franchise operator. Usability has had a huge impact on how I perceive goods and experiences. Working all the way around Europe, US and Canada and the Middle East I have been constantly engaged working with customer facing products in order to find efficient solutions to problems. Creating eCommerce websites, digital products & in-store applications, all with the aim to solve user problems and maximise business efficiency.
[ Riot's League of Legends pulls in currently 100million active players monthly, with a turn over of $1.7b in 2016 ]
The
idea of this blog is to talk about my progression, from my gaming
routes and dedication to levelling up myself in a new genre of game,
Riot’s League of Legends. A game I played for fun in the past, but now my journey through
learning the game from levels 0-30. Learning the characters and how I can use my years of
professional gaming and interaction with players and teams alongside my working career in Usability to understand League of Legends. From one dream job to
potentially another, how do I challenge myself to step up my game
I’ll be posting daily updates about my 7 day grind on League of Legends, how to get to level 30,
my first impressions on usability and my suggestions and thoughts
throughout the process. And most importantly, kicking ass, having fun
and playing with my friends.
Welcome to my blog!