After four years of pretending to be a professional, Guyun's e-sports dream collapsed

图源《美国骗局》（American Hustle）

In the world of professional esports, Guyun is just an unknown little person.

As a professional esports player, he announced the end of his career on the game esports forum NGA, because he has been a player for four years but has not played a game, which has attracted the attention of many players in the circle.

According to the poster's self-introduction, his player ID is Guyun (real name: Deng Yonghu), who was previously a professional player in the League of Legends Development League.

In the past 11 years, Guyun, who dropped out of junior high school, has worked as a KTV waiter and garment factory worker, and has been fooled into playing college e-sports events. Being able to earn money from the games he loved, and being respected in a way that was rare before, was the main reason why he chose professional esports.

However, after becoming a professional player, Guyun failed to show the attitude and strength that matched this identity. The team analyst asked him to watch more videos of his seniors in the team, but he wasted his time on animation. The coach asked him to move up the game, but he only wanted to leave. He envies the game streamers who sign contracts with live streaming platforms to earn more money than himself in an easier way, but when he encounters difficult problems in his work, the first thing that comes to mind is embarrassment and escape.

In the end, Guyun exchanged 7 years of gaming experience and 4 years of professional e-sports player experience for only one "League of Legends" game account that played the strongest king of Hanbok. Such an ending is embarrassing.

Guyun's League of Legends development league can be simply understood as a youth training event that provides fresh blood for top league teams. After passing the team's offline trial, the outstanding gamer signs a contract with the club, which means that he has officially stepped into the door of professional esports.

But on the road to professional esports, this is just the beginning. From becoming a professional player to representing the team in competitions, players still need to pass many tests of the team's training team.

A youth coach of a professional e-sports club told Titanium Media APP, "When our training team inspects a player, we will not only look at his competitive ability, but also pay attention to his communication ability. The performance of these two items is the basis for determining whether a player can get the opportunity to compete. On top of this, self-regulation and judgment and execution in the face of extreme situations (in the game) will be a plus. ”

From getting started with League of Legends to becoming a professional player, it took Guyun nearly seven years to accomplish this. In his four-year career, Guyun has signed with four professional esports clubs, but only one has actually put him on the list.

The occurrence of these situations means that Guyun's competitive level is not outstanding.

"We have always attached great importance to excellent seedlings. Those players who are focused on are not short of opportunities to compete. A member of the training team of the e-sports club preached to the titanium media APP.

In the field of professional esports, even if the talent is not outstanding, through hard work, players still have the opportunity to become excellent blue-collar workers in the team. But Guyun easily wasted the most valuable opportunity of his career for his own reasons.

The first esports club Guyun officially signed with was FPX, which won the 2019 League of Legends World Championship a year before he joined. At that time, FPX was in the same place, and in the first year after winning the top award in the field of League of Legends, their operating budget was quite adequate.

Not only does this mean that the players will be able to enjoy logistical supplies that are significantly higher than the industry average, but the club will also be generous in investing in training in order to consolidate the team's results.

At the time, Guyun's gaming ranks were just hovering over the passing line of professional esports. But even so, FPX is willing to add this young man's name to the list of its development league team FPB in the summer of 2020.

Therefore, Guyun is quite lucky to be able to come to such a platform at the first stop of his career.

However, Guyun didn't take a professional enough approach to his job, "The analyst gave me time to watch more of Lwx's first-person videos, while I waited to watch the animation while I got into the game. ”

At that time, player Lwx (real name: Lin Weixiang) was the ADC of the FPX team, and his level could be ranked in the top three in the entire League of Legends professional league. The support position played by Guyun needs to cooperate a lot with the ADC in the actual battle.

FPB's analysts asked Guyun to watch more Lwx videos, apparently to point him in the direction of future improvement. But Guyun may not have realized this, and after his game rank never broke through, Guyun chose to leave the team on his own initiative.

During his time in FPB, although Guyun invested a lot of time in the game rankings, when it came to "becoming a qualified professional player", Guyun could neither rely on himself to achieve his goals, nor ask the training team for help, so what he did was equivalent to pretending to work hard.

Later, Guyun also moved between other League of Legends development league teams, but he never got a good opportunity like FPB.

During that time, Guyun was in an environment of great uncertainty. He had been laid off after less than a month in a team, and Guyun felt that the reason for the layoff was that he was not strong enough.

And this situation is the norm in the professional esports circle. However, with the rapid development of the e-sports industry in the past decade, people generally ignore the extremely cruel competitive environment of professional e-sports players under the halo of celebrity e-sports players with millions of fans and an average annual income of more than 10 million yuan.

How big is the gap between the top gamers and the qualified pros? Even players who have crossed the threshold of professional esports may not be clear, and Guyun is a prime example.

Today's environment has a lot to do with the development trend of the entire esports market.

The competitive pressure faced by the youth players stems in part from the training teams of esports clubs, and the training teams also face performance pressure from the club's management.

The mainstream esports events in the market generally last about four months per season. Most training teams only take half a year from stationing in the team, to taking over the team's recruitment and the official start of the season. It's a short time, but most training teams have to improve their team performance during this time.

"The top (clubs) let us produce results, so we can only tilt our resources to the players who are most likely to play [results]. As for those who can't play, we don't necessarily have to pay attention to every one. After all, there is only so much time, and my grades have not improved, so it is very likely that I will be the one who will go. The above-mentioned professional e-sports youth coach preached to the titanium media APP.

As in traditional sports, professional esports clubs often choose to change coaches when faced with the choice between players and coaches due to performance issues.

"In a club, the asset attributes of the players are higher than the coach (and the relevant training team). Therefore, for the sake of profit, if the player has a certain market value, then we will be more inclined to keep the player. An e-sports club manager preached to the Titanium Media APP.

The pressure on the training team comes from the club, and most of the clubs are highly concerned about the season results of their teams because of the pursuit of short- to medium-term income.

The reason why the club focuses on short- and medium-term income is that esports, as an emerging industry, still lacks long-term genes.

Six years ago, Activision Blizzard's Overwatch League was in the spotlight of the global esports industry. At the time, it had significantly more depth of event planning than its competitors in the market, and its $20 million team entry fee was the highest in the world in esports. However, due to factors such as the decline in gaming popularity, the pandemic struck, and the scandal of corporate executives, the event was officially terminated in November last year.

Therefore, the rapid iterative rise and fall of e-sports projects has made industry participants, mainly clubs, generally pay more attention to the prospect of e-sports projects being put into production within 5 years.

In this regard, the above-mentioned e-sports club manager even said frankly: "Even if the commercial value of League of Legends e-sports events can rank among the top two in China, we are still not sure that its development in the next ten years will be better than the first ten years." ”

In this uncertain industry environment, the pros who are adored by many viewers have been frantically involuting everything they can think of. For example, a lower age, less benefits, and more training hours.

League of Legends esports players generally debut at the age of 18, and if players do not enter the League of Legends professional league before the age of 20, then there is a high probability that they will be abandoned by the team training team.

However, age is not an absolute criterion for the training team to select players. In the history of League of Legends e-sports, there has been an older player who debuted and worked hard to win a place for himself through the day after tomorrow, his ID is called 957 (real name: Ke Changyu).

When he joined WE's team ME (later renamed WE.F), 957, who was born in September 1993, was already 21 years old.

Although 957 does not have an advantage in terms of age, according to WE club insiders revealed to Titanium Media APP, 957's solid basic ability and humble and gentle character left a deep impression on the coaching staff, which is one of the main reasons why the team will give him the opportunity to play.

At the end of 2015, WE made organizational adjustments to its teams, and 957 was transferred by the club to the top league team as the starting list. In the game, the 957 is a team player, often sacrificing self-development early in the game to gain an advantage for his teammates.

In the WE team at that time, 957 may have been more of a "dirty job" on the field that is not often noticed by the audience, but his individual ability is also not as good as that of world-class players, so he is also called "Leg Brother" by many players and spectators.

选手"957",图源lolesports官方

In the 2017 League of Legends World Championship knockout, 957's Nar (the name of the League of Legends game character) performed well in the key rounds. His efficient containment allowed his opponent to cope while allowing the whole game to gradually get into the rhythm that WE preferred.

In the end, 957 and his teammates successfully advanced to the semifinals of the League of Legends World Championship and set the best record in team history. At the League of Legends Chinese mainland annual ceremony that year, 957 won the "Best Single of the Year" award.

Later, the 957 was decommissioned at the end of 2019. In the official retirement announcement of the players released by WE, "He is the captain and the leader. This phrase shows the club's respect and affirmation for 957.

To this day, when League of Legends players talk to viewers about the most famous blue-collar players in the history of League of Legends esports, 957 is still mentioned by many players.

When the opportunity to determine the future direction is in front of him, 957, who chooses to work hard, finally leaves his mark on the field he desires and loves, while Guyun, who does not do his best, eventually drifts away from everything he wants. Professional esports is brutally competitive, but we still believe that hard work pays off.

(This article was first published on the Titanium Media APP, author|Wu Yixiao, editor|Li Chengcheng)