Unburdened by the limitations of the real world, visionary concepts and fictional scenarios of architecture and design in virtual space, are explored in /imagine: A Journey into The New Virtual at MAK in Vienna, Austria.
Gaming for a living—
Legitimate career or a legit waste of time?
by Glenn Galea
What is a career? Isn’t it a repetitive daily commitment you make in exchange for money and personal satisfaction, or a compromise of the two? Let’s give it a goog.
Okay, pretty much what I expected. But maybe let’s not take Google as the dictionary.
This one’s from Cambridge dictionary. I have to say—drastically different in my opinion. Google talks about the relevance of a career in one’s life; Cambridge’s all about the money. The distinction between the terms life and working life gives you all the information you need about the people at Cambridge; 1) they’re only thinking about 2 things in their definition—money and retirement. And 2) they seem confused; a police officer is not the right example if money’s what’s on your mind Cambridge Dictionary!
Anyway, let’s try Merriam-Webster. That’s a legit one. I think I saw it on Jimmy Fallon once…or Kimmel…or Corden. They really should hire someone with a different name.
Most. Confusing. Dictionary. Entry. Of. All. Time. I mean…4 different definitions?! I’m already confused, that’s why I’m using you Merriam! Come on, baby damn!
Ok so, the first two are the same exact thing but with a reversed subject. Third one involves training; the first mention of it thus far. And let’s face it, the fourth one is too complicated for any normal human being to understand; “public, professional, or business life”, come on Merriam, I’m still trying to understand what a career is and you’re talking business life?!
GTFOHWTS. (comment if you get this acronym—Don’t give it a goog *explicit*).
Jesus, what a tangent. Okay so, even the titans of the dictionary game are confused about what a career is, we’ll go with my definition. And if you go by my definition, then, gaming’s no longer a waste of time, it’s a career, right?
Esports is the chosen term to add legitimacy to a career built around eating chips and greasing up your PS5 controller all day. I wonder if it was the same with actual sports back in the day. When people were laborers and worked in mines and some kid was like, ‘I wanna throw a ball at my friend for money’.
Must have sounded ridiculous, but hey—people still inhale dust in mines and die from it to earn a miserable living, all the while, football players earn millions to play with a ball and so do thirteen year old kids playing a video version of the actual thing. Seemingly the only difference between sports and Esports—barring the fact that one requires physical exertion while the other requires serious eye straining—is that in sports, you have to really excel and reach the upper echelon of athletes to make a good living. That’s not necessarily the case with gaming.
I mean, look… If you want to win the Fortnite World Cup and the $20 million that come with it, then yeah, you need to be DAMN good at it. That being said, there’s a ton of people that make a great living by streaming themselves playing games all day, and let me just say, they’re not all that great. All you need is half a personality, a ridiculous hair color and a twitch account, and you can stream all day and if people like watching you, they’ll donate money to you. I know it sounds like I’m shitting on the gaming community—mild sharting at best—but it’s only because I’m one of them, therefore, I’m allowed. (that’s how it works, right?)
My first foray into gaming was with Call of Duty—yes, thats the full title of the game I’m talking about, the first one. I was about 11 at the time and although I had played some other stuff before—The Sims, Super Mario, yada yada—I wouldn’t refer to myself as a gamer, but after that? Sheesh!
That’s when I embarked on a long journey of sleepless nights, incessant snacking and prolonged virginity. I know it sounds grim, but it was fucking awesome! And I was doing it for free! No one ever paid me to play Cod, or Cod2, or Runescape, or Warcraft I/II/III, or World of Warcraft, or CoD4, or Fifa ’98 through ’22, or whatever it was (<- list extremely shortened). My point is, it’s fun! And I made a ton of friends through it. And it got me to read! (I hated books but I would spend hours reading Warcraft lore) AND NOW YOU CAN MAKE MONEY OFF OF IT?!
Okay so how do I end this? What do I think about gaming, streaming, Esports and their legitimacy? I’m not a hundred percent sure myself to be honest, but I won’t knock it. It is a way to make money these days if you invest the time; you can’t refute that. My thing is more about how you choose to spend your time. I like to dabble sometimes; I’ll play a game of TFT double up here and there, but if I over do it, the game stops being fun for me.
If I have to play, then am I really playing?
That’s my deal with this stuff. I’m also thirty and I don’t pick up games quite as easily as I did when I was thirteen. And frankly, I also know what’s out there now. Something that a lot of teenagers that are overly intense about gaming (like I was) have no clue about and could not be bothered in the slightest with what’s going on outside the four edges of their screens.
There’s other countries, other cultures, and nature. There’s the hang with your friends, the hot girl or guy that you could be fooling around with right now. There’s sports! Remember those? They’re so much fun. There’s eating out, there’s movie theatres, there’s shopping, hanging with your old folks or your siblings. You could swim, you could ski, you could pretend your name’s Dupree. There’s so many things to be done. My FOMO would be through the roof if I was locked in all day doing the same thing (the pandy’s driving me nuts). But that’s just me and to each his own!
If you’re down for some LoL/TFT or a couple of Rocket League matches hit me up on discord g13nn#4291. And if you liked this, and want more content like it, let me know in the comments. And if you didn’t, tell me what you want me to write about in the comments. Peach out ✌️
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