Little story about pazazu - E-sports / Call of duty 4 (video inside)

I've been gaming since i was a little kid. My mom and dad had a furniture shop and my dad thought it would be good to buy a computer. I'm talking about 1992 here (I was two). He, like me, was also a bit of a geek. He managed to get a LAN connection going on with the neighbours, enabling them to play games versus each other. People at the time found him a bit strange doing things like that. A bit after I think we were amongst the first adopters of this weird thing called the internet (wonder if it becomes big some day). I remember playing Age of Empires when i was 5 over ISDN, needless to say it was a cool and expensive(!) experience. We had bills of over 2.000 euros a month, just for internet. So you can say, i grew up gaming.

Fast forward to the the year 2008. In the years before i mostly played Call of duty 1 (2003), totally skipped on Call of duty 2 and went to play World of Warcraft for a few years. I always had the urge to get better in a game, i did not like single player games too much and i just had the urge to try and be the best in a game.

A few years after, practicing in different teams and trying to get better. I kinda got better. Most of the time i played with a guy called pr0phecy, who actually lived really close in the same city. Pr0phecy is this super nice guy who always makes you laugh because he does weird stuff. I remember being in a tournament final (he being the only one left vs 3 guys) and he randomly started to sing this kids song super loud, he actually clutched that round while singing. He was also the guy who made you wait when going to a LAN in Belgium because he needed to put peanutbutter on a whole loaf of bread just 2 minutes before leaving.

People laughed when i told them i was good in a game. Most of the time they said something like: "How can you earn money, with something so stupid?" or ''A game is not a sport , how can anyone be good in something so stupid?''

We did not think it was a joke however, we practiced with our team 3 to 5 hours a day 5 days a week, mostly after classes. We did different kinds of tactics and studied our opponents. Everyone in the team had a certain role, i had a hard time explaining people its not 'just shooting people' and no, i'm not a lunatic who will go out buy a gun and kill people. At one point i actually got called by the Dutch news when a shooting took place in 'Alphen aan de rijn' and they found the guy playing Call of Duty. I felt most people did not understand it at all, hell at first i do not think my parents even understood it. After explaining it to them they actually started to watch the streams i was on. My mom also defended me when i told other people i gamed for 'money'. This wasn't that much money, most of the time i got lucky if most of my expenses got paid.

I've met lifelong friends through e-sports. We laughed, cried, got angry together and shared so much throughout the years. The best is they came from all over the globe. I think i can speak for a lot of people when i say that the Call of Duty 4 promod community was like a family. I still kinda miss it sometimes. Nowadays people earn a ton of money and esports is getting bigger and bigger. More and more sponsors are joining and more investments are made. I did not make the cut though, Call of Duty 4 died and CS:GO became a big game. I had 10 years of Counterstrike practice to beat and i figured real life was getting to me anyways. I don't game anymore as i know i was better before.

Here's a highlight of me playing:

What do you guys think, is esports a real sports? Have you guys met any friends for life through gaming?