If I may, David Foster Wallace (as so often) said it better:
> “But it’s better for us not to know the kinds of sacrifices the professional-grade athlete has made to get so very good at one particular thing…the actual facts of the sacrifices repel us when we see them: basketball geniuses who cannot read, sprinters who dope themselves, defensive tackles who shoot up with bovine hormones until they collapse or explode. We prefer not to consider closely the shockingly vapid and primitive comments uttered by athletes in postcontest interviews or to consider what impoverishments in one’s mental life would allow people actually to think the way great athletes seem to think. Note the way”up close and personal" profiles of professional athletes strain so hard to find evidence of a rounded human life — outside interests and activities, values beyond the sport. We ignore what’s obvious, that most of this straining is farce. It’s farce because the realities of top-level athletics today require an early and total commitment to one area of excellence. An ascetic focus. A subsumption of almost all other features of human life to one chosen talent and pursuit. A consent to live in a world that, like a child’s world, is very small…[Tennis player Michael] Joyce is, in other words, a complete man, though in a grotesquely limited way…Already, for Joyce, at twenty-two, it’s too late for anything else; he’s invested too much, is in too deep. I think he’s both lucky and unlucky. He will say he is happy and mean it. Wish him well."
I think the DFW was a little melodramatic here. I don't think the commitment to true excellence necessarily detracts from other possible commitments in the long run. E.g. DFW was a writer of singular ability, and he was, at various points in his life, dedicated to tennis, philosophy, and mathematics.
More to the point, the time spent being great at CS doesn't seem to have limited this guy's future ability to do things like work at a startup. While I'm sure it was an unbalanced life during the period of dedication, suggesting that it's the dedication itself which reduces athletes to "shockingly vapid and primitive comments" goes a little far.
I don't think the issue is confined to athletics, looks at the people who populate television. Groomed for their looks and outrageous behavior a very similar numbers strike out in the real world once their careers are over. Toss is all the abuse they put their skin and bodies through to maintain the persona they show to us daily.
To be good at something you have to make sacrifices, but it doesn't mean the sacrifices are the kind of things we can look with contempt.
Take for example a Formula 1 driver, or a violin player, or a guitar player. All they need to do is practice, and practice, and practice a little more.
In fact, right now, I wish I wasted less time in my teens and twenties trying to be 'normal' and meeting girls and going to parties and all that stuff, I should have invested more time doing weird hacking stuff and learning vector algebra and physics.
Normality is very overrated. That's what I'm going to teach my children.
I spent a fair amount of my youth playing counterstrike and still have fond memories of it. I also learned to program roughly around the same time and found the later far more fulfilling in the long run. I learned skills in programming in those years that I still use today, but whenever I even touch a public counter strike (source) server these days I get hopelessly owned by a new generation.
I now see video games as pure downtime in the same way as watching a movie or something, I used to be very competitive and my scores in public servers and clan matches deeply mattered, despite all of this I really wish I had spent more of my CS time learning programming or taking up a completely different hobby (e.g real sport or music). I sometimes wonder where I would be now if I had spent that time doing something else.
The problem with video games is that you are spending your time perfecting something that is useful only in a very specific virtual world which can be radically changed or even destroyed at any time.
A very small minority of people may become "professional gamers" but for the most part it feels like almost completely wasted time in hindsight.
Will it make you money? No
Will it get you laid? No
Will it help you express yourself? No
Will it make you healthy and fit? No
Will it better mankind in some manner? No
I'm not hating on video games, just if you are going to spend that amount of time becoming awesome at something it does seem like a very poor choice.
I always knew there were more worthwhile pursuits and that's why, in hindsight, I struggle to accept the time I spent playing. But I never felt like it was downtime.
I knew I was building skills that I would use again someday. It wasn't about trying to be the best at shooting a gun in a virtual world. It was about outthinking and outmaneuvering my opponent. Analyzing details and figuring out the best strategy.
It was never about my score, it was about how well my team did. CS taught me a lot about working with other people. Managing and recruiting talent, motivating people, and keeping everybody happy.
Would you say the same thing about chess, which is arguably just as useless? Just wondering if it is mostly public esteem that makes you think so (chess would presumably be held in higher esteem - being a grandmaster in chess would gather more respect in the general public than being a grandmaster in CSS).
I don't mean it in a bad way, just seriously wondering what are worthwhile things to pursue. Should we discard any and all recreational activities and concentrate every waking hour on researching cancer cures? Even music and art seem very questionable, at least it is not clear why they should be more worthy than playing games.
I don't think it's any more of a poor choice than spending time trying to be awesome at sports or music, or any other hobby. The real question is: does it make you happy?
Not everything in life needs to fulfill one of the questions you ask of a hobby - there are lots of things that people devote time and money to that won't make them money, get them laid, etc., and I don't think they're any more a waste of time than being a competitive gamer.
The choice is hardly one after 10,000 hours. Video games are addictive and satisfy short-term pleasure. My guess is that becoming awesome is sometimes just a matter of "addictiveness".
> which can be radically changed or even destroyed at any time
This was the nail in the gaming coffin for me. Imagining all those hours spent to be completely worthless once the servers are shut down- and then imagining that all that time had been spent playing guitar and writing code. I still like to play games occasionally for fun, but not with the drive to be the best.
I started competitive play at 15, eventually peaking at 18 with 2 CPL showings. I probably played vs. juan at a couple LANs.
The amount of focus, time, and sheer mental fortitude required showed me what it took to truly master something. When I could drop 35 kills in a half in a tournament, or kill 10 people in a round in a pub, I understood my level of commitment had led to that success.
I spent the past few years at a telecom/networking company doing sales as an engineer. Multi-million dollar deals, complex designs and high-stress situations. Learning to communicate only what was relevant and necessary, eliminating all extraneous information, was essential to success. My co-workers looked to me to quickly prioritize targets, shift strategy, and keep morale high as we focused on the end goal of closing.
Counter-strike taught me that. No other "group project" or random nonsense in college prepared me to work with the most highly regarded and ardent professionals in the world. My team would put egos aside, drop all sense of the individual, and focus on beating an enemy that was composed of the very same caliber.
It taught me the value of "ideal scenarios" or "how it's supposed to work". The immaculate plans leading up to a meeting, that required innumerable changes during practical execution. Without the ability to communicate as fluidly as possible between individuals any slight shift in the plan would create utter confusion and chaos, quickly exploited by a foe just begging for you to make a mistake.
I'd like to grab a beer with JonMumm. There's just something about the high-level Counter-Strike people that has reassured me that there are others out there can place so much of themselves into something that it doesn't become second nature, it becomes you.
To be the best at anything, means that you must live abnormally and do abnormal things. This is why being the best at everything is nearly impossible, since each thing to master would require different kinds of abnormalities and different ways of living abnormally.
This is why you find "geniuses" in a particular field, like math, or music, and they're usually not-so-genius in most other fields. "Genius" is attainable in my book, it's a matter of being focused and "putting your mind to it" as the article states, and this focus and "putting your mind to it" require being and doing abnormal things.
That's what makes the old-school polymaths like Goethe and Von Neumann so amazing to me - they not only did it in a single field, but many, all relatively simultaneously.
This is why I abandoned the desire to be the #1 best at something. This isn't to say I can't strive to be exceptionally good, but being the best is such a great cost. I haven't yet found something where I feel the payoff of being THE best is worth it.
This doesn't really jive with conventional worldviews, and I feel like I should be ashamed for "giving up", but honestly it seems like a destructive behavior/goal.
According to a lot of research, it isn't that the person does abnormal things, it's that the person invests an abnormal amount of time into practicing his skill. It's an important distinction, because it illustrates that 'being the best' is more of a decision than an abnormality.
There is a place called Kota in India. It is a hub of coaching institutes trying to assist highschool students get admission into top engineering and medical colleges(IIT,AIIMS) of India.
>5000 hours of counterstrike is pretty common game-time that students living there spend and you would easily find >25000 kids of age 15-16 such types. Millions of students go there each year. Competition is so tough that hardly top 2% get admissions into IITs.
As a result, >90% do not study.
You see them playing they are experts! Most of them don't even know how to log into a server. The cybercafe would set up the LAN for them. All they do is play, all the time. As per rule the shops are supposed to close after 11 pm. But these shops have eating/smoking and toilet arrangements inside. They pull down the shutter, as if the shop is closed from 11 to 6. Students stay 'voluntarily trapped' inside for a LAN party at a discounted rate of 1-2$ for the whole night. Once the course is over, the gig is too. they go back to their hometowns, never playing again.
I work in Delhi and I see clans participating and even winning international competitions like WCG. But even the gameplay of the best, is only at par average as per Kota standards.
All this time spent for happiness, curing boredom. Rajasthan would be the biggest consumer of CS, DoTA, Tekken, AoE if pirated stuff is counted for.
Wow, never knew that about Kota. Had a friend who lived there for a year for IIT studies. He himself admits that he never once attended a single class and was mostly just having fun. Counter Strike in India is certainly big. I only wish Starcraft 2 was as well.
Oh, and can you tell me where in Delhi do these tournaments happen? I don't play much CS but earlier on in school, all I could think about was being a pro-gamer!
Thanks for the great article. Counter Strike was the game that really got me interested in programming. I got introduced to it in early 2000 and was blown away that this game was made by hobbyists who created a mod (expansion package) for Half Life which in itself was revolutionary at the time. Eventually Valve acquired Counter Strike and the rest is history. I still think fondly of the many hours spent on de_dust and cs_assault.
I think I'm also very close to those 10.000 hours in cs 1.6. I can really relate to this guy story. I don't think many people will ever experience that adrenaline you get when you're in high level competition. That is sport or esport. It's like a first girl friend, I will never experience that feeling again and that kind of makes me sad.
I know I've wasted a big part of my life playing this game, but I don't regret because of that competition feeling, that stress, that happiness when you win a tournament, that solidarity between players of the same team, the nights spend training and practicing...
Gaming taught me a lot and made my life better. I was depressed and with few positive catalysts.
Warcraft 3 made me play with other people, meet people who I am friends with today and also taught me to be excellent.
I got to compete, set up a clan which trained other people, and held tournaments, and taught me how to take responsibility for my team.
Like someone else mentioned, I learnt how to maintain morale, how to take on the jobs no one liked and to excel at them. Having people have faith in your strategy, making people follow your plan, knowing how important it is to even have one, no matter how bad, I learnt that from gaming.
But above all, like the OP, i learnt what it means to be the best at something. I look back at that time and am glad I did it. It helped me start building myself back up and taught me the basics of team work which I use everyday.
League of Legends has become my modern-day Counter-Strike. The buzz the author mentions is exactly the buzz I get playing the game over hundreds of hours. The rules of the game are fairly simple -- and inside of that simplicity a desire for perfection emerges. It's fun and challenging -- likely why I'm a programmer, too.
LOL is many more times more complex than CS. If you are weird, try running game-theory and stochastic simulation models. Try to optimize things like item builds, team-movement/formation, engagement sequence, allocation of champions to lanes at various times, allocation of gold/farm to champions. And then to apply it.
Based on the title, I expected Jon to explain the things he missed about Counter-Strike, the game, with respect to Counter-Strike: Source (CSS), the sequel. That's not what this is about. It's a retrospective on his career as a professional CS player.
I then wondered why he didn't pick up another game or hobby. Turns out, he did. "Earlier this year I stumbled my way in to the world of tech startups."
I played with and against him for years. His old teammate n0it was chatting with me on facebook for a while about my start-up-turned-company as he uses our software on his campus. I had not talked to either of them for a few years at minimum.
Jon's a great guy. Good read. Very surprised I saw something like this on HN. Small world, eh?
Having read this, there are so many skills you can pick up from the gaming culture that helps you integrate with working as a programmer.
He probably knows how to do scripting from IRC... maybe he's written a bot or knows how a bot works from IRC. I remember lots of bots that work in different way and what you can learn from watching it run.
At 16 I remember seeing my very first bot and being amazed by it. The problem was that I was on a Windows box and everyone around me was on Linux. Then the problem was which language did I pick. Then the problem was that the most popular language was a bitch to install... then there was the problem I had no idea what the error was and if it was something I had done.
Oh the list goes on.
What I'm trying to say is, not everything is a waste. Knowing when something is valuable enough to spend time of is a skill in its self.
Modern day first person shooters provide an immersive, story-driven single player experience, but have gameplay that cannot make for a decent competitive platform.
It's a great feeling, being the 'best' or better than the majority. I've also experienced the void created after deciding to move on. I still feel as though I'm on an endless search to find something that I can be as passionate about.
Looking back to a few years ago, I would actually say that I was addicted to CS. Playing matches in a clan is a sure fire way to drive the addiction because it becomes hard to leave without letting your teammates down.
Luckily, due to Steam's awful user account tools via the client and the website, I am unable to recover my Steam password. The only way to recover it is to deface the CD box by writing the support ticket number on it, taking a photograph of that defacement and the product key and then sending that photo to their support email address. Then they will reset your password.
Few news articles (even on HN) 'move' me, but this one did. To all those whom were among the best at a popular game, you understand.
Some interesting comments: like whether playing CS, or any other game, is "worth it." I agree with kejadlen, "does it make you happy?" Though heroin, at some point in time, makes addicts "happy." One thing is for certain though, the feeling of mastery gets harder and harder to find later in life, at least with regards to professions or wealth.
Wow. Nicely said. I help out with Ninja Girl's party in D2 which is a Counter Strike Source server and I never hear anything about Counter Strike outside of the server anymore. I am curious to see what Counter Strike Global Offensive will be like. Our server is the most popular in the US and I am pretty sure we can keep that status in CS:GO. I am kinda hoping it brings the spotlight back to CS.
[+] [-] gwern|14 years ago|reply
> “But it’s better for us not to know the kinds of sacrifices the professional-grade athlete has made to get so very good at one particular thing…the actual facts of the sacrifices repel us when we see them: basketball geniuses who cannot read, sprinters who dope themselves, defensive tackles who shoot up with bovine hormones until they collapse or explode. We prefer not to consider closely the shockingly vapid and primitive comments uttered by athletes in postcontest interviews or to consider what impoverishments in one’s mental life would allow people actually to think the way great athletes seem to think. Note the way”up close and personal" profiles of professional athletes strain so hard to find evidence of a rounded human life — outside interests and activities, values beyond the sport. We ignore what’s obvious, that most of this straining is farce. It’s farce because the realities of top-level athletics today require an early and total commitment to one area of excellence. An ascetic focus. A subsumption of almost all other features of human life to one chosen talent and pursuit. A consent to live in a world that, like a child’s world, is very small…[Tennis player Michael] Joyce is, in other words, a complete man, though in a grotesquely limited way…Already, for Joyce, at twenty-two, it’s too late for anything else; he’s invested too much, is in too deep. I think he’s both lucky and unlucky. He will say he is happy and mean it. Wish him well."
http://www.esquire.com/print-this/the-string-theory-0796?pag...
(A quote I come back to on occasion, thinking about my essay http://www.gwern.net/The%20Melancholy%20of%20Subculture%20So... )
[+] [-] jodrellblank|14 years ago|reply
What's that supposed to mean? He will say he is happy and mean it, but really he isn't?
DFW committed suicide, I don't hold him as a great authority on what kinds of happiness are 'valid'.
[+] [-] kevinalexbrown|14 years ago|reply
More to the point, the time spent being great at CS doesn't seem to have limited this guy's future ability to do things like work at a startup. While I'm sure it was an unbalanced life during the period of dedication, suggesting that it's the dedication itself which reduces athletes to "shockingly vapid and primitive comments" goes a little far.
[+] [-] Shivetya|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Shorel|14 years ago|reply
Take for example a Formula 1 driver, or a violin player, or a guitar player. All they need to do is practice, and practice, and practice a little more.
In fact, right now, I wish I wasted less time in my teens and twenties trying to be 'normal' and meeting girls and going to parties and all that stuff, I should have invested more time doing weird hacking stuff and learning vector algebra and physics.
Normality is very overrated. That's what I'm going to teach my children.
[+] [-] JoachimSchipper|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jiggy2011|14 years ago|reply
I now see video games as pure downtime in the same way as watching a movie or something, I used to be very competitive and my scores in public servers and clan matches deeply mattered, despite all of this I really wish I had spent more of my CS time learning programming or taking up a completely different hobby (e.g real sport or music). I sometimes wonder where I would be now if I had spent that time doing something else. The problem with video games is that you are spending your time perfecting something that is useful only in a very specific virtual world which can be radically changed or even destroyed at any time. A very small minority of people may become "professional gamers" but for the most part it feels like almost completely wasted time in hindsight.
Will it make you money? No Will it get you laid? No Will it help you express yourself? No Will it make you healthy and fit? No Will it better mankind in some manner? No
I'm not hating on video games, just if you are going to spend that amount of time becoming awesome at something it does seem like a very poor choice.
[+] [-] mumm|14 years ago|reply
I knew I was building skills that I would use again someday. It wasn't about trying to be the best at shooting a gun in a virtual world. It was about outthinking and outmaneuvering my opponent. Analyzing details and figuring out the best strategy.
It was never about my score, it was about how well my team did. CS taught me a lot about working with other people. Managing and recruiting talent, motivating people, and keeping everybody happy.
[+] [-] Tichy|14 years ago|reply
I don't mean it in a bad way, just seriously wondering what are worthwhile things to pursue. Should we discard any and all recreational activities and concentrate every waking hour on researching cancer cures? Even music and art seem very questionable, at least it is not clear why they should be more worthy than playing games.
[+] [-] kejadlen|14 years ago|reply
Not everything in life needs to fulfill one of the questions you ask of a hobby - there are lots of things that people devote time and money to that won't make them money, get them laid, etc., and I don't think they're any more a waste of time than being a competitive gamer.
[+] [-] gabaix|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] delta1|14 years ago|reply
This was the nail in the gaming coffin for me. Imagining all those hours spent to be completely worthless once the servers are shut down- and then imagining that all that time had been spent playing guitar and writing code. I still like to play games occasionally for fun, but not with the drive to be the best.
[+] [-] ricardobeat|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] noobface|14 years ago|reply
The amount of focus, time, and sheer mental fortitude required showed me what it took to truly master something. When I could drop 35 kills in a half in a tournament, or kill 10 people in a round in a pub, I understood my level of commitment had led to that success.
I spent the past few years at a telecom/networking company doing sales as an engineer. Multi-million dollar deals, complex designs and high-stress situations. Learning to communicate only what was relevant and necessary, eliminating all extraneous information, was essential to success. My co-workers looked to me to quickly prioritize targets, shift strategy, and keep morale high as we focused on the end goal of closing.
Counter-strike taught me that. No other "group project" or random nonsense in college prepared me to work with the most highly regarded and ardent professionals in the world. My team would put egos aside, drop all sense of the individual, and focus on beating an enemy that was composed of the very same caliber.
It taught me the value of "ideal scenarios" or "how it's supposed to work". The immaculate plans leading up to a meeting, that required innumerable changes during practical execution. Without the ability to communicate as fluidly as possible between individuals any slight shift in the plan would create utter confusion and chaos, quickly exploited by a foe just begging for you to make a mistake.
I'd like to grab a beer with JonMumm. There's just something about the high-level Counter-Strike people that has reassured me that there are others out there can place so much of themselves into something that it doesn't become second nature, it becomes you.
[+] [-] windsurfer|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yahelc|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hkmurakami|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] janineyoong|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] benatkin|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sev|14 years ago|reply
This is why you find "geniuses" in a particular field, like math, or music, and they're usually not-so-genius in most other fields. "Genius" is attainable in my book, it's a matter of being focused and "putting your mind to it" as the article states, and this focus and "putting your mind to it" require being and doing abnormal things.
[+] [-] jaggederest|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sliverstorm|14 years ago|reply
This doesn't really jive with conventional worldviews, and I feel like I should be ashamed for "giving up", but honestly it seems like a destructive behavior/goal.
[+] [-] dominostars|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kang|14 years ago|reply
>5000 hours of counterstrike is pretty common game-time that students living there spend and you would easily find >25000 kids of age 15-16 such types. Millions of students go there each year. Competition is so tough that hardly top 2% get admissions into IITs.
As a result, >90% do not study.
You see them playing they are experts! Most of them don't even know how to log into a server. The cybercafe would set up the LAN for them. All they do is play, all the time. As per rule the shops are supposed to close after 11 pm. But these shops have eating/smoking and toilet arrangements inside. They pull down the shutter, as if the shop is closed from 11 to 6. Students stay 'voluntarily trapped' inside for a LAN party at a discounted rate of 1-2$ for the whole night. Once the course is over, the gig is too. they go back to their hometowns, never playing again.
I work in Delhi and I see clans participating and even winning international competitions like WCG. But even the gameplay of the best, is only at par average as per Kota standards.
All this time spent for happiness, curing boredom. Rajasthan would be the biggest consumer of CS, DoTA, Tekken, AoE if pirated stuff is counted for.
[+] [-] manish_gill|14 years ago|reply
Oh, and can you tell me where in Delhi do these tournaments happen? I don't play much CS but earlier on in school, all I could think about was being a pro-gamer!
[+] [-] cdk|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baby|14 years ago|reply
I know I've wasted a big part of my life playing this game, but I don't regret because of that competition feeling, that stress, that happiness when you win a tournament, that solidarity between players of the same team, the nights spend training and practicing...
[+] [-] mattbot5000|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WALoeIII|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] intended|14 years ago|reply
I got to compete, set up a clan which trained other people, and held tournaments, and taught me how to take responsibility for my team. Like someone else mentioned, I learnt how to maintain morale, how to take on the jobs no one liked and to excel at them. Having people have faith in your strategy, making people follow your plan, knowing how important it is to even have one, no matter how bad, I learnt that from gaming.
But above all, like the OP, i learnt what it means to be the best at something. I look back at that time and am glad I did it. It helped me start building myself back up and taught me the basics of team work which I use everyday.
[+] [-] bprater|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dingfeng_quek|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baby|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] taylorfausak|14 years ago|reply
I then wondered why he didn't pick up another game or hobby. Turns out, he did. "Earlier this year I stumbled my way in to the world of tech startups."
[+] [-] cliftonk|14 years ago|reply
Jon's a great guy. Good read. Very surprised I saw something like this on HN. Small world, eh?
[+] [-] kaichanvong|14 years ago|reply
He probably knows how to do scripting from IRC... maybe he's written a bot or knows how a bot works from IRC. I remember lots of bots that work in different way and what you can learn from watching it run.
At 16 I remember seeing my very first bot and being amazed by it. The problem was that I was on a Windows box and everyone around me was on Linux. Then the problem was which language did I pick. Then the problem was that the most popular language was a bitch to install... then there was the problem I had no idea what the error was and if it was something I had done.
Oh the list goes on.
What I'm trying to say is, not everything is a waste. Knowing when something is valuable enough to spend time of is a skill in its self.
+1 procrastination proclaimer
[+] [-] littledude|14 years ago|reply
same for designers as well lol
[+] [-] whunut|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cliftonk|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] muffs|14 years ago|reply
It's a great feeling, being the 'best' or better than the majority. I've also experienced the void created after deciding to move on. I still feel as though I'm on an endless search to find something that I can be as passionate about.
Thanks for the great read!
[+] [-] junto|14 years ago|reply
Luckily, due to Steam's awful user account tools via the client and the website, I am unable to recover my Steam password. The only way to recover it is to deface the CD box by writing the support ticket number on it, taking a photograph of that defacement and the product key and then sending that photo to their support email address. Then they will reset your password.
You know what, I'm really not that bothered!
[+] [-] mafro|14 years ago|reply
Ahh the memories..
[+] [-] deepkut|14 years ago|reply
Some interesting comments: like whether playing CS, or any other game, is "worth it." I agree with kejadlen, "does it make you happy?" Though heroin, at some point in time, makes addicts "happy." One thing is for certain though, the feeling of mastery gets harder and harder to find later in life, at least with regards to professions or wealth.
[+] [-] DutGRIFF33|14 years ago|reply