E-SPORTS Star

What are the best things that happened to you in your career? Beyond all the traveling and various life experiences I've gathered, I think the opportunity to live in the US for two years would have to be it. Since I was little I had wanted to live abroad for a while and now that I've gotten a chance to try it, I know that it's also likely what I will end up doing in the future. I have also made tons of friends in various countries around the world and learned various skills that I will be able to use later in life.

What was the greatest disappointment to you as player? I actually posted an update on my Facebook page about this some weeks ago. By far the greatest disappointment in my career was losing the World Cyber Games 2006 semi-final against NiP. We won the opening map de_inferno 16-10, lost de_dust2 14-16 (after a stupid three-on-one loss versus NiP's zet when we had the lead), and then lost deciding map de_train 14-16 after leading 14-11 as terrorists with NiP on a weak buy.

I didn't even watch the demo for years. I don't think anyone on our team said a word in the next twelve plus hours after that match. I recall basically staying up all night in our hotel room and just staring at the ceiling, too pissed off to sleep. Luckily we beat NoA the next day for $15,000 for a little consolation, but it's still a tough loss to swallow knowing we could have left Monza with $60,000. It wasn't all about the money either; it was more like an added bonus. We really wanted to be the best, and we were very close.

To add insult to injury, naSu's mouse was stolen from the hotel (forcing him to play with a different one) and while it obviously means nothing (and I mean it, nothing), we were practicing versus Pentagram on the final day demolished them. Should have been the grand final.

What do you think is the ugliest side of eSports? There's a lot of stuff that goes on but when you hear about certain organizations funding their operation by the owners taking money out of their children's college funds you just have feel bad. Not for them, because they are the ones making that choice, but for their family. I doubt any of those people have ever recovered that money. Plus, for events practically robbing players by promising huge sums of money, declaring bankruptcy and then starting up again a year later is also bullshit, although legal. Luckily companies like Riot are stepping it up a notch, or a few.

You are now stepping out of eSports as a player and have started working as a shoutcaster and a writer. How big is this change for you? It's obviously a big change, but it's honestly been an easy adjustment. When I left Roccat in 2008 due to some personal issues within the team, I regretted the move pretty shortly after and felt like I should have just kicked out the person causing the issues. I still wanted to compete at the time. However, I had been so frustrated with people's inability to commit to actually trying to improve as a team that I had already considered quitting playing at the end of 2007.

2011, but mentally I was simply drained again in Nov 2011 (when my internet made playing online unbearable). I didn't want to practice for hours upon hours anymore, knowing I couldn't rely on my teammates to do the same anyway (the only time I could was in EG, and due to the lack of competition in USA it was hard to capitalize on). I had made the decision to play out the IEM World Championships before quitting, and stuck to it. I was even playing with the idea of going to Copenhagen Games, but as I was overseas prior to it, I decided I did not want to come back for it, and that was that. I didn't load up CS once in the next four months. I love competition and I enjoy CS, so when I was

given a chance to attend tournaments in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Tokyo, I naturally went for it in late 2012. We even went to ASUS FBotY practically on our own money with the ex-WinFakt roster to try to win it. If there were more tourneys for CS 1.6 I would always consider playing them for fun, but with CS:GO replacing CS 1.6 it's just a good time for me to step aside, as I have no interest in playing CS:GO. My final event will likely be this season's ESEA finals for CS 1.6.

Now that I no longer play actively, I luckily don't have to attend many events anymore (I'd love to travel to places like Singapore, New York and London, but somehow events always take place in Jönköping, Hannover or Paris) as I do all my ESEA and HLTV.org work from home, which is a big change, albeit mostly a positive one. It's nice to meet up with some of the old guys occasionally when I cast an event on-site, though.

Where do you see yourself in five years? I'll either be a few years into my working career or working on my master's degree, depending which path I choose to follow. Apart from that I don't really know. The biggest changes in life (both good and bad) tend to come out of nowhere so it's not worth planning too much. I will simply continue enjoying life, whatever that entails.

Where do you see eSports in general? I'm not involved enough in other parts of eSports aside from Counter-Strike to really take a solid guess, but I don't like the general direction its headed. While there will continue to be more money, I personally continue to think the best years of eSports have already passed. That's a very subjective opinion and it's intended as one.

I don't like companies running it solely for business or new games being introduced every two years. I can't imagine there being much continuation in the future of eSports, and it's simply not something I will be interested in following once the Counter-Strike players I'm familiar with choose to retire. If you can't keep the same game for a decade, nothing will ever stick.

Do you think that eSports should be recognized as a sport or should it stay as eSports? To be completely honest with you I've never understood the need to brand it either way, I don't think one letter should make a difference. One of my friends once defined sports in a way that suggested if you can both attack and defend in it (e.g. soccer, basketball, Counter-Strike), meaning you theoretically have the ability to keep your opponent's score at zero, it's a sport.

Otherwise it's a competition (e.g. racing, running, etc). It's not official and most people won't agree, but I like it as a definition. Then again, I don't value the word "sport" over "competition". The Olympics committee's opinion doesn't matter to me; I'm not sure why it should affect others'.Teemu Hiilinen


Hiilinen