I don't share the information freely, but if someone asks me, I'm not ashamed to say that I play a lot of video games.

i don't really mention it because nobody i know plays tf2 or even cs

mobas kill friendships

e: if you consider speedrunning a comp game, i do mention it when my friends are interested in the game (ie: oot, sms, etc.)

I dont hide it but I don't try to show it off either. In fact, if someone came up to me asked me if I played video games competitively I would gladly tell them all about my mid-open esports career.

If someone asked me if I played competitive videogames, I would say yes. Given that most people who consider themselves 'gamers' are the type who play minecraft occasionally, I generally avoid saying anything along those lines.

sometimes i lie about there being money in tf2 so when my roommates ask me why i spend so much time playing this game i can tell them there's a paycheck in it

I'm not so much proud of being a video gamer but I'm happy with it because I enjoy it

i dont have to hide it. i play video games becasue i have no friends and i have no friends because i play video games. ezgame ezlife

some people spend as many hours as we do watching the shit box.

Well, it dosent mean we dont have many hours playing this game.

Whelp.

I never go outside, so hiding my nerd shame is easy.

too busy spamming stickys on badlands middle?

im not proud of yelling at people to get on flank

but really i enjoy tf2 and the competitive side is great, i just wish that more people played.

If people ever ask what i do in my spare time i normally say i play video games competitively. I'm pretty open about it if they question it.

my friends didn't know until senior year of high school. that was when we got closer. they all played league of legends so i had nothing in common with the other gamers.

they were all dicking off in low-elo league of legends so they thought it was amazing that i was 50 times better than them at video games.

am i proud of it? idk. it's nothing special. first played diablo 2 and tfc when i was like 8 so it was my destiny.

gaming is becoming a norm. i know a lot of people who are casual gamers (console gamers, moba players, and even people who rarely play games) that give a lot of respect to anyone with skill. i live in california so it might be different for a lot of you guys.

Great topic, I think this is something that every gamer battles with.

Even if I like to imagine I have a certain level of confidence in my choice as competitive gaming as a worthy pastime, there is still a stigma attached to it and I know trying to explain it to some of my friends would just be an exercise in futility.

Quite a few of my closest friends know about my exploits in online gaming from living with me at uni, from shouting at people late in to the night in Natural Selection to attending i-Series events, but few of them know about the full extent in terms of the ridiculous hours I've plowed in to it over the last 15 years or so.

A few years back when I was on Microsoft internship in Dublin my social circle was much more versed in these nerdiest of endeavors so I would talk at length with my flatmates about the goings on in TF2 and they even watched a few of the games I played or casted on the big TV we had downstairs!

Still though, I agree with the common consensus here. I don't introduce myself as a competitive gamer, but if asked directly or I think the person can handle it I'm more than happy to get in to it.

Sidenote about working for MS: I actually mentioned a lot of the gaming stuff I did on my CV in terms of being involved in communities as admin, beta tester and content creator etc. and it went down really well in the interview. Most companies are looking for multi-talented people, so don't be afraid to sell your nerd :D

i dont proclaim playing comp games to people but i love playing games and i wouldnt have it any other way

It's not something I tell everybody I meet. People have a stigma about video games that usually involves them thinking you are lazy, never go outside, etc. Nothing could be further than the truth, but I play because it's something I enjoy doing a lot.

I am proud, in the sense that I only tell people who play video games. Most of my guy friends know I cast TF2, but my roommate and best friend from college has no idea. I know she'd look at me weird and wonder why I'm wasting my life (during senior year, she had to stage an intervention because I was playing too much Plants vs. Zombies). So yeah, for those people who don't know about it, I hide it and I guess I'm a little embarrassed, because they wouldn't understand and I wouldn't know how to explain it. But for those who do know, I'll brag and tell them how many subscribers on Youtube I'm up to ;)

God damn right I'm proud.

i guess but at least it's better than being a black weeaboo

yikes

i would be if i was actually good

#foreverinopen

I

I told my three female roommates that I "talk to people on the Internet every night"

wonder what they think about that

I'm not proud but I'm not ashamed either.

I tell my new teachers at school this like i'm important lol

i told some people that i was going to london for sightseeing when really inwas going to i49. people know that i play a lot of videogames and a lot of people are clear with that they think i'm wasting my life so i figured i'd be better off not telling them what i was doing. to be fair though, i live close to j

Online, I guess pride is something I feel. All I know is that playing games for competition and sport has lead to some fun things for me, the Shazbowl being the absolute biggest thing I've ever participated in that was something more than a marginal success. People still recognize me sometimes in various games and in TF2 pubs, it's a nice feeling. I've also learned a lot from people who have played competitive games, mostly here, and I wouldn't have known them otherwise if I didn't play. In real life, I just tell people that video games are one of my hobbies, both in playing and collecting. I've had people unironically brag to me about being actual MLG pros in Halo and Gears of War when I've told people I like FPS games so I just keep my mouth shut

.

KEV YOU'RE OUR MAN ON THE INSIDE

I remember finding out a kid in my school played cs:source

I challenged him to a 1v1, destroyed him, never talked to him again

you think this is a motherfucking game?

I took a business class my sophomore year of high school at a local community college and for some reason during one of the lab days everyone was playing cs because I guess one of the kids put it on all of the computers.

It was fun for a while but it's hard to hide being better than everyone else by large margins.

A lot of my RL friends ask me to play League of Legends with them but they lack any notion of competition in video games so I more or less avoid it.

That being said, I've never been shy about telling people that I played tf2/dota competitively and in a number of cases it's actually really interesting to people to hear about that stuff. I also don't allow playing video games competitively to completely define my person.