Candy Crush, Doodle Jump, Subway Surfers, and even Wordle, we are all, at the very least, casual gamers. In fact, I’ve lost count of the hours I’ve wiled away building out my parallel universe on The Sims – but is it as much as a pro e-sports athlete?
According to Intel, an E-sports player’s daily regime includes “six to eight hours of structured team practice.” That’s almost more than 40 hours of gaming in front of a screen. And although that may sounds daunting to us noobs, Galaxy Racer’s Madiha Naz confirmed that actually “for us gamers, 10 hours is really easy.”
So, all in the name of journalism, I took up the challenge to be a pro-e-sports athlete for 10 hours, and here’s what happened…
10:00 am: I was prepped and ready in the morning wearing my comfy L’Couture set, as per Madiha’s advice. I bought an embarrassing amount of caffeine and sugar-filled sweets and had my blue-light glasses on standby. It was time to begin my journey on Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time, on PS5.
11:00 am: I used to play Crash Bandicoot on the PlayStation Portable when I was younger, so the first few hours were full of nostalgia and optimism.
1:00 pm: By hour four, I had finished two cups of coffee, and got up for a little stretch. My body felt lazy and lethargic, but my brain wouldn’t stop plotting out my route to winning the entire multi-dimensional map and collecting all the diamonds.
4:00 pm: POV: You’ve been stuck on a bonus round for almost two hours now and died 39 times, thrown the control on the floor not once but thrice, and have already downed a whole bag of Jolly Ranchers. *Record scratch, freeze frame* – Yep, that’s me! At this point I was getting tilted. I kept dying at a level that would earn me the Wumpa fruits that I needed to collect in order to score another diamond. My blue-light glasses were firmly on, my focus unwavering.
6:00 pm: My eyes were stinging and felt drowsy. Fun fact of the day: turns out, after two cups of coffee and two Red Bulls, your body will betray you. A sugar crash was definitely coming my way, but I still had four hours left to reach peak pro-e-sports gamer territory.
7:30 pm: Sleep is starting to sound really great right now.
8:00 pm: Although I was ready to pass out by this point, I realised why e-sports players love doing what they do. I actually really enjoyed being away from my phone and ~ life ~ in general. I am a firm believer that if you love what you do, you’ll do it well, and be happy to face any obstacles in your way. Gaming for 10 hours was sorta like that. It was a great way to detach from reality for a bit and I can see how gamers find a sense of community online. The only thing I’d change? Healthier snacks. Goodnight, friends. Bye-bye, e-sports self.
As seen in Cosmo ME’s autumn gaming issue, click here to read more.