You litearlly get to sit on your ass for months during the off season while you sit in a gaming chair for 5-8 hours a day collecting a bag to play a video game when theres people that work year around 12 hour shifts....
source : https://twitter.com/chronicleEZ/status/1694386316404797498?s=20
SPOILED.
Athlete work year around
And there's been complaints about burnout and injury proneness from both athletes and coaches, where the respective schedule is crunched (See football/soccer, this is a widely discussed issue for the last few years). Also, your usual athlete is paid way more than your regular esport player, in order to "pay off" that loss of time and burnout.
Workers for business work year around
Complains about burnout and need for more time off exist in this as well, with some regions (parts of Europe) addressing this by offering more PTO and family time.
theres people that work in oil rigs that work all day and put 10x effort that a gamer does bro
These people are also the ones that have the most time off between jobs, working a few months a the time then having time off, to avoid that burnout (even though it is still prevalent). Oil rig workers usually complain about not having enough time to spend with family, but they're offset by the pay. Also, oil rig jobs pay way more than your regular esports salary.
You're only doubling down with stupid takes that underline and prove my point.
Anything else?
youre just being soft about the burnt out shit, its the same thing for every game bro, you play from december - august/sept and get a few months of a break ( League, Cod, Val etc ) whats the one game complaing ? Valorant Lmfao even cs puts more of a grind then valorant pros and they dont say shit. quit being soft with this mental shit when they put 0 physical traits into there job LITEARLLY 0. a average job requires more mental and physical activitys then a Pro gamer.
nah, the only one being soft here is you, since the truth hurts your little feelings.
Most eSports have more breaks in between competitions, on top of the fact that not all competitions are mandatory to attend to (hence giving teams the latitude to skip some), while still gaining enough circuit points to attend their respective majors. Even League, the most similar eSports schedule to Valorant, has bigger breaks between splits. That's why League of Legends schedule goes through virtually the full 12 months of the year, there isn't a 4 month off slapped at the end of the season.
At this point I'm not sure if you're doubling down to prove that you got some stupid macho bravado (which clearly you don't since simple facts hurt your feelings), or if you're this much of an idiot to not even be able to tell the truth from simple data sets.
10× effort that a gamer does
I've worked a couple jobs and they were all so much easier lmao. As a professional gamer you have to focused during pretty much 100% of tour work hours. As an office worker you need maybe 1 hour of intense focus a day, max. Most is just autopiloting simple tasks. Same for physically demanding jobs, you get used to it pretty quickly and then it's just autopilot.
Obviously gaming casually in your free time is fun and easy but you're not doing it for the entire day, six days a week, with the expectation that if you don't perform, tou get fired.
Always easy to sit back on your ass and tell other people they're soft when you couldn't do half the shit they do.
not to mention when they lose and get eliminated from tourneys, they go to home and just chill till scrims start again. Sentinels for example was eliminated about 2-3 months ago and only recently has been scrimming, imagine 3 months without doing anything but still getting 20k+ a month.. Val players need a wake up call becaue holy shit
I can't understand the "pros can't survive a real job" take. Like these mf are playing valorant consistently over 8 hrs a day, which is longer than the average job (Around 7 hrs). It may not be as physically demanding as some jobs but when you think about the effort, the grind to be the most decorated valorant player, climbing the ranks, aim training ect - most pros have been playing fps since childhood. It's a long time.
you choose YOUR hours
That's just.... straight up a lie? You can choose hours to individually grind on top of your mandated work hours, but most of the time invested is as a team and that's very rigidly dictated by the org.
you choose how much of a grind you put in
That is, on top of the mandated grind that you don't have a say in. All the grinding you do unpaid in your free time, and it's still required because if you don't grind enough you get fired.
A lie ? a team picks the best hours that works for them, weather is 1 pm - 9pm, 5 pm to 1 am, They choose whats the best,
bro Most of these players are making bank for the 8 months a year they work, not including tournament hours, stream revenue, partnerships or anything, the amount of money they make is enough for a grind for 8 out of the 12 months a year bro.
no way we're defending valorant pros about who has the harder job right? i mean i know they get paid loads, i dont complain, i know its the entertainment industry, but im not here defending like they actually play a vital role in our lives right? theres hard workers out there who work tirelessly and every drop of sweat is worth the effort, they dont get paid enough, it is what it is, but there is no way anyone can defend these people like some are in this thread. work a real job, then you can compare, its not a comparison worthy of being talked about.
Nobody is saying they should be paid more or whatever, it's just about the work hours. Competitive gaming isn't just "playing fun little videogames all day", it's hard work. I've worked physically demanding jobs and it was the easiest shit in my life. After a few weeks at most you're fully in shape, and then it's just autopiloting. After getting home I could just chill and my brain was still functioning. On the other hand when I worked more mentally demanding jobs, after work I was dead, I couldn't do anything. Barely managed to make dinner for myself most days. And that's without the pressure of having zero job security and basically needing to grind in your free time just to be able to keep your job.
Are Valorant pros overpaid? 100%. But that doesn't mean that it's an easy job. Chronicle's point is literally just "loosening the schedule a bit would be better for players' mental health" how the fuck is that controversial??
I think he wants the events to be spread out. Right now, it's 7 months continuous, followed by 5 months break. He wants the breaks to be in between because it simply makes sense. Obviously, he's getting paid to play a video game like you said, but that doesn't mean that he can't point out when something dumb is being decided. It's not about being spoiled. He is not asking for more time off. He is asking for the existing time off to be more sensible. He is criticizing Riot's decision to put all the events back to back followed by a huge break. the VCT 2024 season looks fine to me though. It's at least better than this year's. We won't have anything going on after Champions 2023 till next year, right?
realistically mate if the job of being a professional valorant player is so easy then there would be so many people trying to jump for that job, but considering the fact that only 0.000001% of the playerbase is professional, you dont really have a right to speak on how difficult their job is if you could never actually do it yourself
And how do you know that? They practice everyday bro they just don't play when there's tournaments going on. Include also the traveling. You don't know how exhausting it is. Sure it's not warehouse job or construction job but it's still not as easy as you think. All they're asking for is to make the schedule better. Even I as a viewer it's exhausting to keep up since everything is happening so fast. I think most viewers will also prefer a longer break each tournament instead of rushing it and 5 months off season
have you experienced being a professional esports player?
having the pressure of millions of eyes watching you onstage while your entire career hinges on your ability to stay consistent and keep up at a game, with your whole job stability being able to change in an instant after a single season,
a singular bad performance or misplay can cause toxicity towards you online and be at scrutiny until you have another decent performance?
id make the argument that having an average stable job is more forgiving and easier than a job as a professional player
people arent crushed by the physical aspect of a job, they are crushed by the mental aspect of a job, whether its working at a construction site, in an office or as a pro player
at the end of the day they arent working to play games, its an entertainment business and they are paid to do everything possible to be the best
You literally missed the point. Is it wrong for a professional competitor to want a way to be able to perform at his best at every tournament he plays?
Yes, he has an easy job that many people would want, but this does not mean he can't be affected of stress and tiredness... I think it's only normal that a competitor would want to be able to perform at his best...
Think people are thinking wrong on this one. Yes plenty of people work year round with only a short amount of vacation time however, they aren't in the high stress environment chronicle is in. And saying he's spoiled when there are people who work 12 hour shifts with little to no vacation is a dumb outlook, its like telling a depressed American to be happy because at least they aren't a starving child in Africa.
Its much different and comparing two completely different environments and work spaces to each other to prove ur point just makes u look stupid.
Why is everyone arguing about wages or comparing esports to physically demanding jobs? Chronicle is just asking for the schedule to be loosened a bit, how is this so controversial?
1) Obviously esports players get paid a lot of money and you could definitely argue that it's unfair or whatever. That's besides the point though.
2) Comparisons to physically demanding jobs are bit difficult, because physically demanding jobs and mentally demanding jobs affect people in very different ways. That being said, esports is generally horrible for long term physical health, notable eyes, neck, back and wrist are affected. While physically demanding jobs undoubtedly are more straining, well, physically, they can be a lot easier to recover from, because you actually still find mental energy to do things in your free time.
3) In terms of mental health, there's an elevated risk of burnout, depression, anxiety and more, and these schedules are contributing to that. Compared to office jobs which include somewhat comparable amounts of sitting in front of a computer, esports requires a lot more mental focus over longer periods of the day. During pracs, you have to constantly maintain a low reaction time, process information quickly, and react to information quickly. In most office jobs cognitive processes are much slower, making it a lot less tense and mentally straining
4) This whole, "they're getting paid so much, their jobs SHOULD make them suicidal" thing is so weird. Loosening the schedule a bit and distributing the same amount of games over a slightly longer period of time to give players breaks means they do the same amount of work, but their mental health suffers less. Why is that not something we agree on?
5) People in this thread are talking a lot about the length of the breaks. The thing is, breaks that are too long are actually super counterproductive. Short, regular breaks are a lot more effective at alleviating the effects of stress on the psyche. There's a reason why at the gym, you do short breaks between sets rather than doing everything at once and then taking a long break. On a bigger scale this still holds true, and literally just a one or two week longer break after Masters could already be effective.
Pretty much all the science (granted, esports is young and science is slow, so there isn't a plethora of research, but the little that exists) agrees with Chronicle. See for example https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00138/full for a review.
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