I made a decent amount playing competitive games and I gotta be frank a desk job programming is better. The constant need to push out content and spam matches to the detriment of all else was draining. I had to do data analysis on every match and constantly compete compete compete and evolve with the meta every day. If I stopped grinding (re: play matches 16hrs a day) my elo would crash and being top dog really draws views. It took me years after quitting to enjoy gaming again it just stopped being a leisure activity. You have to be good at coding and math to properly analyze and pool data and you DON’T EVEN MAKE ANYTHING with all the programming, you just fucking consume garbage from the game. Idk if I’d do it again frankly I enjoy just cleaning and decorating my house more than gaming or anything computer related these days and my partner seems to like the domestic vibes

I just have a reflex now when playing games that I can just feel the optimal pathing and builds just by industry tropes, the reality is almost every competitive game is identical. I only get fun out of smaller indie single player games now

I also hated dealing with capital G Gamers every day in the community. Streaming was a nightmare and I got sexually harassed all the time and people were genuinely unhinged about trying to dig up all info about my life that they could even though I wasn’t like a top streamer or anything