NO ONE WHO KNOWS ME IRL KNOWS I PLAY TF2 AND NO ONE THAT I KNOW IRL WILL EVER KNOW I PLAY TF2.

aha I did the exact same thing in my programming class. somebody put a cracked 1.6 on the network drive of the school and nearly every day we would play. i didn't really want to explain to people why I was better than all of them, so I purposely missed shots and died.

I did however take this one kid off of his fucking high horse, he's the type that thinks he's the greatest at everything he does. one situation really stands out in my head on some weird map I had never played (I had maybe 5 hours in CS before this). it was a map full of rooftops, he got the awp and went up on top of one and was killing everyone. the next round I purchased the scout and went full tryhard with both movement and aim (difficult as eff with public school mice, i'll have you know). I made him the first death for the next few rounds, that's when he got up from his desk and walked around looking for who the person was. I quit the game and browsed reddit.

edit: I would make sure to kill him, and then let the next person kill me as I awkwardly fumble around trying to aim at that guy, in hopes of making the kid (Thomas I think) even angrier. "WOW this guy is terrible how the fuck is he killing me" ect

i would play q3 in my comp science classes and i was noticeably better then everyone but no one ever asked or mentioned anything.
i'd be more proud if i was actually good at games tho

any of us would say the same for you

i try to generally convince my friends to play dota with me if they play league and am generally quiet about playing tf2 FUCK no i'm not proud

You can avoid that by becoming a catholic priest.

My parents always said video games will rot your brain and never get you anywhere.

Okay.

I'm open about it, but not proud.

If it comes up I tell people it's great because it's fun, you can meet some awesome people, and it's goddamn engaging. I'm not proud because I have a shit ton of other interests, and I feel like TF2 offers me the least in terms of tangible rewards, or sense of accomplishment. I've passed on opportunities, friends, and work I should have paid attention to because of scrims, and matches. It's taken me too long to realize I need to change my leisure time habits, so that's really where the feeling comes from. Nothing too serious, just feeling like I should be spending my time on other things and not worrying about commitment to TF2, much as I love it. Even if I uninstall, I guarantee I'll be watching some streams.

As much as I love videogames, playing them consistently has not improved my life sadly.

I've told people who I trust that I play games online but generally I don't bring it up.

my friends know i play competitive video games, but its hard to explain it without sounding like a complete dork.

I bet they also told you papa johns wasn't a delicious and nutritious part of your meal, psh

no

Same with a lot of others, I don't go out of my way telling people that I play videogames (competitively, at that), or have in the past. Though, when a lot of people (including family) knew that I was going to i49, a lot of them started to just google about myself, the event, and TF2 in general.

A lot of my family and friends watched the event, contacted me regularly saying stuff like "You top damaged that last game nice work". It was really awesome to have the support from people that usually aren't supportive of 'gamer habits'. Get back from trip and I get told by family & friends alike that "I didn't know that you were at that level in your games" and such, and "better luck next year!"

Pretty awesome to have that support, and I feel kinda proud now (despite only getting 4th), but my team and I are now hungry for the title @ i52.

Coming 4 u Seb.

"I've been playing TF2 competitively for almost 2 years now. I've won about $15 for getting 4th place in the lowest division at one point and I've spent hundreds of dollars in league fees and peripherals."

Nah, I'll keep it to myself.

like to tell people I play competitive club penguin

but usually tf2 doesn't come up, but I don't hide it when they ask

"professional gamer" #foreverinsteel

also all my friends play minecraft or xbox so ;_;

.

If someone asks me, I'll tell them, otherwise I don't really bring it up. My close friends are into high level League, but that's about it.

i'm certainly not proud, but i'm also not ashamed at all. if someone asked i'd probably tell them but it's not something that is talked about often.

I've never been able to play in a team as I've always been really busy with sports and school so only pugs played to date, but I have so many hours spent on so many games and feel no shame about it, I've still got a good social life and so what shame is there in doing something you enjoy

I used to tell people all the time, only "Hey baby, I'm BloodSire" never really worked as a pick-up line.

Not ashamed at all to tell people it's my hobby or anything. My friends in real life play competitive games. We also ride bikes, go hiking, or do a plethora of other things in real life daily.

Why wouldn't I be proud of being good at a sport? What makes that different from an e-sport or whatever? People know I'm a great skiier. They also know I'm good at video games. Sometimes it confuses them, how anyone who is active and social could want to play them. Obviously, they usually realize that it is a ridiculous stereotype. Nothing to be shy about.

yes

a lot of people compliment me when i'm playing games at the arcade or when i travel out to really far locations just for a tournament. i think it's a really niche skill, but it doesn't mean i'm not proud of things that i know i'm good at. even if it's competing at something like leaderboards on random games or just getting an achievement that almost no one has makes me feel good about myself, and i guess i take pride in things that i know not everyone else can do

i don't openly talk about it unless other people ask me about it, though i'm usually hanging out in locations where people would ask about it unless i'm in class lol

very ashamed and treat it like a drug addiction

i cant believe some of you guys are ashamed to be better than other people
like what

I'm proud of being a no-life gamer. Any time I'm asked about hobbies, my first and only answer is usually video games.

However, as far as competitive gaming goes, I don't really tell anyone. My close friends know about it, and occasionally I might bring it up if I start getting into a discussion about video games with someone, but other than that I avoid it. My friends respect the fact that I'm generally pretty good at video games, but they aren't afraid to make fun of me for how many hours I have invested into TF2 and that all I ever do is play video games.

I haven't told my parents, other than that I have a "game" and need to play. They're pretty negative about video games. If I told them that I play competitively, they'll most likely take it out of context and start assuming things. They already bitch at me enough about school and how I need to stop playing as much as I do. If they found out that I play competitively, then they would assume that I'm investing everything I have into it instead of focusing on my future.

Most other people don't really understand what competitive video gaming is. They know that it's people playing in tournaments for some kind of prize, but most of them assume that it's in some large event with lots of money on the table that the players travel from around the world to play in (since those are the only kinds of competitive video game events that generally make the "normal people" news). Most of them would probably be really disappointed to learn that the majority of competitive gaming is done in small leagues and played by average nobodies sitting in front of their computers at home.

one thing to keep in mind that somebody playing with a team is being way more social than someone just playing engineer in a pub listening to his robofist hit his minisentry.

Doesn't make sense... that should work. Did you forget to say you played for muscle milk?

Shazbowl, never forget. That was one of my favorite experiences as a spectator.

I dont really announce it like most people said, but people that get to know me well will eventually find out I play kinda a lot of videogames.

I lived with 8 flatmates when I first went to college so that was a hard thing to hide anyway. Reactions were mixed, some of them were really curious on what games I played and I even got them to try tf2 (altough it never sticked to them). While others treated with apparent disgust as if I was wasting my life playing. I didn't care much tho.

I also used to play a lot of minecraft back in alpha, and my flatmates would make fun of me for playing and wasting my time on such a shitty game, eventually when it boomed, all of them were playing it on their iPads and iMacs and god knows what, left me a little bitter.

First year I joined college was the year of the big LoL boom, so playing games went from "that guy is a nerd, he wastes all his time playing games" to "that guy is a beast at LoL", even all the girls in my Computer Engineering class started playing it. Felt kinda disgusted on how people can be so hypocritical and judgemental.

Playing games is suddenly becoming "cool" or normal altough I don't like the way it is booming, because the new wave of gamers is really low on computer literacy. People play LoL and stuff like that but can't even install an antivirus or format a computer, kinda sad.

http://pastebin.com/wRF4YufW

nothing I do can possibly be shameful in comparison

I don't go around saying it, but if asked I will say I play video games. I usually try to figure out why they're asking before I toss out my response, though.

The last notable incident where admitting I was a gamer got me persuaded into a Pokemon battle against my floor manager, where she fought with her favourite Pokemon and all I had were my hyper-synergized team of purebred EV-trained killing machines.

"Haha, how did your Surf do so much damage compared to mine?"

"Uh... I dunno..."

Felt dirty as hell.