There are lots of perceptions, opinions, expectations and stereotypes that accompany Esports. But how do the player themselves see the space?
Pabu, Jungler from Pentanet.GG, joined us for a discussion to talk about daily life in Esports, team dynamics, high performance, the importance of maintaining a healthy balance in life and his personal journey into Esports.
Park your perceptions of Esports for 30 minutes and hear directly from the talent that drives Esports in Australia.
Transcript of Interview:
Colin
Hey everyone, Colin here from sponsorship success, and today we’re going to talk about Esports. We’re going to get a bit further and speak with one of the players with Pentanet GG. So got Jackson on the line with me. Welcome Jackson.
Pabu
Hello. Good to be here.
Colin
Excellent. Thanks, mate. Jackson, your in the game name is Pabu. So before we get started, I want to get to know a bit about Jackson and I guess how you got into the Esports space. So tell everyone a little bit about yourself and how you got to where you are today.
Pabu
So I’ve been in this space for pretty much a long time now. I’ve been playing League of Legends ever since I was like 12~13. You know, when I just started high school, I was always playing with my friends. Like we’d run around at school. We play soccer at lunchtime. School would end and then we’d all run home. We’d all play League for like a couple hours. Unlike those that was just like the reality of our days. We just spent time together on the rift instead of in the fields. And I’ve been playing this game for a long time. And you know, I hit like 17~18, I was finishing up high school. And then like, as soon as I was done, it was like, I was presented with this opportunity, because I was very good at the game. And just playing on my own on like the ladders and stuff. There’s a lot of opportunities there when you get really high up, people are like, I want you to play on my team. And then so it was like, I just graduated high school, and it’s like, okay, I can finally like, take this seriously. And like, I had offers and I’m like, all right, like, let’s just go and then so I’ve been here for like three years now. And I’ve just been playing full time ever since.
Colin
Yeah, awesome. So getting to that point, you said you started to take it seriously post high school. Did you have another career in mind, when Esports wasn’t perhaps on the cards, or what were we heading before that?
Pabu
I had a couple ideas. I was pretty big to get into web development at the time. And I’d always had aspirations to be like a lawyer. And so I was like, in a pretty good spot to start going to uni. But after high school finished, I felt like, I’m only going to have this super competitive opportunity once and I was like, really, really good. So I was like, I really had to take it.
Colin
Yeah, absolutely. All right. So we’re saying a lawyer was on the cards, some pretty high things that mom and dad would have been proud of you going into as aprofession, how’s their reaction to all this? Spending all that time, but then making a potentially career out of Esports at that time.
Pabu
My parents had been kind of exposed to it, like really slowly, because I’d always been playing this game for a long time. And then as I’m like, 15~16, I like going to small tournaments in my state. I’m bringing home like, little bits of money. So they weren’t too surprised by the time I graduated. I’m like, I’m going to go play. So they expected this by that time. So they weren’t too surprised. They weren’t initially particularly supportive but over time they realized how as they’ve been introduced to this space how much money is in it and how professional it is, how everything set up. So yeah, I think that they’re pretty happy with how I’ve ended up at this point.
Colin
Yeah excellent so obviously it’s a passion as well. So I would have seen that passion and I guess seen you doing something you love that would have played a big part in it I guess?
Pabu
It’s definitely a competitive pursuit. No one here like in this country is doing it just for the money. Everyone is doing it because they have the drive to be the best. That is like a big factor for everyone that this competing.
Colin
It’s an interesting point you say ‘to be the best, and high performance is certainly a massive aspect which we’ll probably touch on a little bit later but before we do, I want to get to kind of in game now, this video is really for people that don’t understand League of Legends again, that’s played in ther OPL. So I’d like your perspective of your particular role within the game for Pentanet.GG, and how that interaction happens with your teammates.
Pabu
So, in League of Legends, there are five different roles. So you have teams of five. And you have five very distinct roles. As you become better you learn one of these over times, and you usually stick to it. You can change between them, but for the most part, they’re very distinct. And so my role is called the Jungler. And there’s a whole series of differences, you have to try and destroy the enemy’s base, but on the map there are these, I guess, like enemies that are not the enemy team that you can kill. And so you work through those and then your job is to like help everybody on the map. My role is to facilitate my teammates and help them. I’m like the head of strategy like wherever I am, because I’m not tied to any one place in particular. So I’m moving around and I am coordinating with my teammate to set up like set plays. And that’s kind of my job is to help the game act out and like the strategic way we want it to be. And that’s my job I need to be like, where things are happening, and coordinating that and talking to my teammates and taking information from them and turning them into plans and then getting that to happen in game.
Colin
That’s a really interesting point, you say talking to your teammates, and that interaction. So it’s not an individual sport that is very team orientated. So how does that communication play out of their protocols that you follow? Is that how you actually make sure you get efficient communication and you can act in a timely manner.
Pabu
So the game itself is inherently very complex, but you can take a lot of these things and try to flowchart the decisions to make it a little simpler. You can reduce things down to a few sets of criteria to start making decisions. But for the most part, I’ll like, look at the map or I’ll hear someone say something. They’ll be like, l I’m winning. I can move around them more.Or I’m losing icons around the map. And I’ll just put that in my head. And I’d take that to make the decision, I can do this, or I need to help them here. Like a lot of the decision making is on me. And I have to listen to what my teammates are saying and help them out. But also, you know, it’s hard to explain. But inside the game, there’s kind of moments where we call it a deploy. And it’s like a moment where we’re all at a fresh state, and we can go back out and we can set up a play. And so on every deployment we’ll talk about what’s next and then people will say what they can and can’t do. And then we’ll kind of collectively make a plan. It’s my job to get it going and get started and hope it happens but it’ll be like five man of what everyone can and can’t do in the moment helping to set up the specifics of the plan.
Colin
Now, I guess with the strategy in game, there is a bit of interaction before the game, I guess planning to make sure that you can perhaps know your strengths, your opposition weaknesses and how that may play out in a game. So what sort of preparation goes on in the leading to these games? And how do you get an edge?
Pabu
Yeah, so we verse two teams every week. And at the start of every week, we will spend like a fair amount of time going over these two teams. Their are specific tendencies in game and just the way we can structure our game to play very well against this. It’s hard to describe without the specifics of the game. But we see what they do. We see how they like to play the game. And then we will structure our way of playing the game. So that it meets up well against this and is likely to take advantage of the things that they do poorly.
Colin
And would you say, Pentanet.gg has a style or a style of play that they’re known for, or particularly good at?
Pabu
Yeah, we do indeed have a style. I’d say we’re one of the teams with a more distinct style because all of our players have much smaller egos and are much more willing to commit to the idea. We have a very strong sense of what we think is right in terms of how to play the game. And we’re all very willing to commit to it. So at least it was having a very distinct style and looking like a team that is very well led, you know.
Colin
Excellent! So I guess in control, and assertiveness, I guess, is what you describe as being assertive in what you know, is knowing and having faith in your teammates. And it’s something that’s probably really synonymous with what I would call high performance. High performance crosses over sport, business and a number of different areas where you’re preparing for high performance. So that means in your preparation in your execution, now, I guess with your team, the team you guys live together, is that correct? You live together. So you sent each other in the morning in the afternoon and competed together on weekends. So how does that dynamic play out is that I guess everyone’s been in isolation recently. So you probably got an edge on some other people, we can actually be around the people you’re working with and try to be in a high performance team with.
Pabu
It’s definitely an interesting environment. It’s one of the strangest things about Esports. But it’s definitely very, very cool. You get to build this very deep bond with the group of people that you end up working with. It makes it very important to really like the people that you’re playing with because otherwise it’s a bit rough. There’s no retreat, but it does lead to some like very deep friendships and you get to spend a lot of time with the people that you work with. And assuming that you actually like enjoy spending time with them. It’s very cool and you get a deep sense of camaraderie that I don’t like, know if it’s like ever built anywhere else that’s like, I mean, sure, there will be other scenarios. But for the most part, most people don’t get to experience something like this. Like, I work with them, you know, 6,7, or 8 hours a day. And then I like, then I’m with them for like the rest of the day. And then we work even more, and there’s just a constant flow of ideas. And then there’s also you’re just always surrounded by the people that you work with. And you get to intimately know how their brain works, how they think, what they do, what makes them perform well, all these kinds of things. Obvious at the forefront when you have to live with them permanently. And you’ll just always be around these people that definitely became very ingrained in your life.
Colin
And I think that’s challenging to find people that all get on. Not everyone gets on right, however you say that there’s a great dynamic within the team, which is fantastic. Can you identify perhaps in other teams when that sort of cultural thing is amiss? Or have you experienced in other teams where that hasn’t perhaps gelled and caused issues?
Pabu
I think like the parts that make it breakdown, I usually just like, the more like anti-social people that aren’t willing to put effort into making sure that they’re friends with the teammates, and they don’t really talk to anybody. And they’re just there to play the game like, those kind of people tend to struggle a bit more inside of the house environment, but the people who are more willing to put more effort into making sure that they understand the people around them, they’re catering for them, that they’re friends with them that they’re doing all these things like make sure that their relationship is good outside of the game, tend to like see a lot more success and a lot more happiness inside of the house environment.
Colin
Yeah, sure. And you touched on before these six hours a day working with your teammates, just for everyone watching, is this your complete dedication: Esports? No one else has jobs or anything else? That is all that you do.
Pabu
Um, yeah, basically. Well, I said, six hours and that’s a bit reductive usually. So Esports works on a bit of a delayed schedule. No one’s getting up at 7am here. But for the most part, we have a meeting that starts at 11. And we’ll talk through and then we’ll have practice at 12. And we’ll play until like 5.30pm or 6.00pm. So we do have a lunch break. But for the most part, it’s like six and a half, seven hours of work with each other. And then there’s no explicit like workouts from there on out. But it’s expected that you will do your own research in your own time, and you’ll do your own practice. And you’ll talk to your coach and you’ll like downtime, like because of the house environment, and that everyone’s around each other constantly. It’s kind of expected that you will do more throughout the day. And then often, like individual practice, and so we have our own practice, which will scrims or scrimmages throughout the day and that finishes at like 5.30pm or 6.00pm. And then after that we have like the actual game itself where we can go play against random people online and people will do that for four or five hours a day as well. So there’s some pretty serious practice commitments and no one here is doing anything else apart from the game. But of course, sometimes people go out at night. We’re allowed to have friends. We’re allowed to go see people but like no one’s going out drinking and I like everyone’s pretty seriously committed to you know, improving throughout the day.
Colin
Yes, it’s interesting you say that because a big part of high performance is not just looking after what you’re doing, but looking after your body, your mind making sure you are in the right headspace. So, like you say, not going out drinking during the week, it means you’re unclear the following day to perform highly as part of a high-performance team. So what do you do on a weekly basis as a team perhaps as an individual to keep your mind and body sharp?
Pabu
I’m a big proponent of the gym. Personally, I think it keeps my head in a good space. Jake behind me is not here at the moment but he’s definitely a gym everyday kind of guy. Some people aren’t about it, but I do think it’s really important for me at least to maintain some sort of exercise schedule when I feel, I can channel my effort into that. It’s something I can do, where I don’t really have to think that much. It’s something that I can do to just relax. And then it also makes me feel better at the end of the day. And I also think that it’s pretty easy here actually, because we get our dinners cooked for us every night. But like not a chefs, but like someone who’s very good at cooking. So we have healthy dinners prepared for us every night. And then we also have groceries bought for us. So we can eat fairly well. And I think that that’s really important as well because it’s very easy to fall into a gaming house and just, you know, eat only like oven food or take out or whatever, and that just throws your body out for work. And I think that maintaining healthy food and making sure that we’re eating real food and then going to exercise as well keeps the gamers that could otherwise you know, six, seven, or eight hours a day at the computer sitting down permanently. And that can really take a toll on you. So you have to put a lot of effort into everything else outside of the game to make sure that you’re in peak form to actually compete because I’ve seen a lot of good players that just only eat McDonald’s, just kind of destroy themselves very quickly.
Colin
Yeah, sure. And I guess that that flows into your concentration levels and a number of other things within which obviously affected your gameplay. Now a lot of your schedule is dedicated to gaming but outside of gaming, obviously, that’s your job and your passion. But outside of gaming itself, is there much room for a social life and you still get to get out and hang out with friends and those sorts of things.
Pabu
Um, yeah, it’s kind of as time goes on, and the Esports space develops, it becomes more obvious the importance of actually having a balanced life. There was a point in time, two years ago where it was expected that you just stayed in the entire night and you played, you know, another seven hours of League of Legends, but that’s no longer the case anymore. If one of my teammates was going out every night to have dinner with someone, if that was the case like I literally wouldn’t even give it a second thought as long as they’re putting in the requisite effort elsewhere and then making sure that they’re always good for scrims. They’re always coming with research, they always like that knowledge is up to scratch, everything else is fine, I don’t think the specifics aren’t really what bothers anyone anymore. It’s expected that you’re putting in the effort. And then what you do with the rest of your time doesn’t matter. So you can still very much quite easily maintain a healthy social life and healthy gym life, for example. It’s all still definitely very doable, but there are still a lot of expected practice hours.
Colin
It’s really intersting you say in the time you’ve been involved, which is three years or so, that’s a long time in the life of Esports which is a very fresh, emerging and rapidly emerging professional vacation and entertainment channel. So in the time that you’ve been involved, what are probably the biggest changes that you’d see.
Pabu
Um, that’s probably the biggest one. Because it was really expected for you to just commit all of your time. You know, if you’re not practicing 16 hours a day, you’re not trying hard enough. There was a mentality instill by one of the Korean teams that won in season four and these articles about how you know, that practice, like 17 hours a day, and I was sleeping four hours a day, and it was like, if you weren’t trying to be this, you weren’t trying hard enough. And then very quickly players were burning out. Players hated it. It wasn’t even leading people to perform the best. So it just quickly became very obvious that it wasn’t the way forward and as time goes on, people become a little bit more relaxed. You still need to do what you need to do. But people are far less concerned with the specifics of how you do it. And so, as long as you’re achieving what you need to do, you can spend the rest of your time however you like. And I think it’s really important that the people are actually enjoying that time.
Colin
Yeah, sure people need to do what fills that cup, I guess, so to speak and makes sure they’re fulfilled across their lifes to help them perform as well.
Pabu
Yeah, I think it’s very important.
Colin
I think that, being in early stages of Esports, where do you see this heading in the next 5, maybe 10 years? Maybe, that’s too far ahead to predict. But what do you see as the next steps in Esports and its evolution?
Pabu
I just think that there’s a lot of like fine tuning to be done in terms of the specifics. There is rapid improvements overseas, and you see there’s a lot of outside expertise being brought into Esports and being combined with like, Esports knowledge because a lot of the things that like have changed, has not been like any revolutionary discoveries. It was just Esports that was a bit fresh at the start and a bit raw. And so everybody was doing it a bit wrong. And so there’s a lot of learning that still needs to be brought into Esports. And I’m not too sure of the specifics of what exactly is going to change, but I do think that it’s just going to come more polish as it goes on. And there’s a distinct lack of polish, but there’s a, as I said, it was very, it’s very raw. So there’s like, there’s like a lot of passion, a lot of like,
Colin
authenticity.
Pabu
Yeah, there’s like, yeah, authenticity behind Esports. But the polish is what needs to improve and will improve over the next couple years. And you see overseas like it’s getting rapidly more polish in Australia is like, lagging behind. But yeah, I think that’s definitely the way forward.
Colin
There is room for improvement. And I think everyone’s got to realise, we are in the early days of Esports, compared to a lot of sports that have had the, I guess the benefit of having these business structures in place. It’s getting the business structures, getting the high-performance structure that sounds like a massive shift has happened in your short time involved. And obviously that’ll continue. They spoke at the start about potentially being a short career in Esports. So how does that play out? And how long would somebody be, I guess at the pointy end of competitive Esports? Is that something that’s certain a length of time?
Pabu
Um, it’s a pretty interesting thought because there have been professional players that have been around since the start of League of Legends and they’re still around. But there’s a couple of factors that tend to make Esports players’ careers short. I mean, one of them was like the thing that I talked about before like the way it was done before or tended to very quickly, lent to burn out. It was very easy for players to burn out. And also, just like the short life of games. Previously in terms of like other Esports you weren’t sure if your game was going to be around for that long. So games would come to the top and then die off very quickly. So that would end people’s careers short, but with the more consistent structure that like League of Legends has shown and the consistency that this game has brought to the space and the increased development of the space as a whole, player careers have extended out fairly far. And if you’re someone with the talent and the mentality and the understanding to actually make something of it nowadays, it’s pretty likely you’ll be able to do it for a while, not for too long, of course, because that’s just the nature of the space, but you can make it for 4, 5, 6, or 7 years pretty easily. Like I’ve been doing this for three years at least. And I’m still pretty young.
Colin
Do you feel like you are still improving and still getting better at your craft?
Pabu
Of course, um, I definitely do feel like this is the best I’ve ever been. And like I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t feel like I was improving and becoming better.
Colin
yeah, sure. That’s good to know. So I guess there’s a lot of misconceptions about gaming and about Gaming and about Esports. I did cover this with Pete previous conversation where we dispelled some of the myths that gaming was purely about being in your bedroom at all hours of the night, by yourself, locked away eating junk food, which yeah, a little bit of this may happen with some people like anything, but it’s really becoming an entertainment platform. And they can access this entertainment, being gaming, through a number of different channels. I guess I’d love to get your perspective on reaching a fan base and through the channels of Twitter and through Twitch and how you may interact with people and fans of the OPL and Pentanet.GG?
Pabu
So I think this is actually one of the cool things about Esports is that you have a lot more like, I guess, as a viewer, and as like a fan, you have a lot more like straight up access to the talent that you get to see. And so for me, I play professionally, and so I’ll practice most of the week. But then at the end of the week, I’ll go and I’ll play my games and those games are streamed online to a platform called Twitch where people just get to watch them online. There’s like 10s of thousands of people come to watch our games on the OPL Twitch channel. And one of the cool things about it is that people will see me there and you know, they’ll see me wearing my shirt, they’ll see my sponsors on that. But then after that, I can go and I can do my own Twitch stream and people can come watch. And so people can come and have a very like one on one experience, they can talk and chat to me, I can respond to them. It’s in real time. So people can come on Twitch, and they can see all of these professional players, playing the game on their own time. And I think that Esports is very different than ‘real sports’. And there’s like there’s a very, very easy trajectory to actually interact with the people that you see play every day. And I can go online and I can look at some of the most famous players in the world and I can go into the twitch chat and I can ask them a question and they might not see it, but they may like it.
Colin
And what are some of the interactions that you’ve had? How do they range?
Pabu
Well, it’s usually just like, you know, it’s as silly as like, I’ll go into the chat and I’ll say, have a good day. And they’ll say ‘Thanks, man’. Oh, like, I’ll ask them their opinions on like something in the game or like something useful or like, something funny will happen and it’s like everyone will just laugh like, oh, like they’ll mess something up and they’ll get roasted for it. Like, it’s just, um, it’s very, it’s very, yeah, it’s real time interactions. And it’s very personal. Like when people stream, they’re doing it to like, interact with the fans and like talk to them and like cater to them. So it’s not a performance, but it’s almost a performance like you stream to show off your personality and show off who you are. And like talk to the people as like you as an entity rather than because like…. in like traditional sports, like it’s very hard to build a brand of your own as like, I don’t know, being super funny. Like you don’t get many opportunities to actually show this kind of thing off but in Esports, it’s very easy. You can make so much content you can stream. You can show all these people the person you are and build yourself a brand very easily.
Colin
And as part of that audience, so you obviously cultivate an audience for yourself as a player and that will follow you when you go and they are interested in what you do and your gaming, I guess within that space, do you have any structure perhaps of how often you would do these things? Or would someone that wants to come and watch your stream online? Do they know what a particular time you’re going to do it? Or is it just anytime you feel like it? Or how does that kind of play out?
Pabu
For me in particular, there’s a bit less structure. It’s often when you commit to the Esports environment. Your structure for other things will suffer a bit. When I’m not playing on a team. It’s very easy for me to maintain a stream schedule and make sure you know I’m live at these times every week and that kind of thing. But for a lot of people inside the space, they will stream like two, three times a week, and they’ll always be on at the same time. And you can go watch like, Oh, it’s like Tuesday, like, Damn, this Pro is going to be online like or watch him and like, often it’s very much like that. People have this schedule set up. But I just try and make sure that I’m streaming twice a week if I can, making sure that people can see me, they can ask me about the games, they can wish me good luck for my game. So these kinds of things. I make sure that, on my stream I’m advertising my Twitter and then on my Twitter, I’m making sure you know that I’m streaming and like, you know what I’m playing OPL you know, like, when I’m going to be on broadcast. So it’s all very like linked in to each other. Your Twitter will be advertising Twitch. You twitch will be showing a Twitter. All these kinds of things just kind of like to link into each other and make sure that everyone knows what you’re up to and how to find you.
Colin
And can people interact with twitch after the fact or are purely live? Can they come back and watch Sunday?
Pabu
Yeah, they can. Twitch, it is a setting you do have to opt in. It will save all of your broadcasts for a relatively long amount of time. I don’t think it’s permanent but it’s a semi-permanent. And you can go, you don’t miss out. Most people have this on, you don’t miss out on their broadcasts just bdcoause you weren’t there at the time. But it is definitely an experience to watch someone live that you have a lot of respect for. And then you say something in chat and then they laugh at it. It’s pretty wild to be able to have your ideals directly in front of you just like a screen away willing to laugh at the joke you said.
Colin
In real time. That’s pretty rare, isn’t it?
Pabu
Yeah. It’s pretty cool.
Colin
It’s really cool. Now I want to touch on something. It’s created a bit of controversy. Recently, Joe Rogan in his podcast essentially said firstly that he loves gaming and he loves doing it, but also compared it to things like a drug. He compare it to things that were saying it was a waste of time. But the point that I found quite interesting because it compared it to another, I guess, hobby or vocation in martial arts that you could make a career out of and came and said, you can make it a career out of martial arts while becoming a teacher. I’ve got my own perspective on that, but I’m really interested in a perspective of someone that does do Esports for a living. What is your reaction to those sorts of comments?
Pabu
So I think Joe Rogan and I have very different perspectives. But I think there’s a small bit of truth to what he said. And there is a tendency for people to justify them playing 10 hours of video games a day with no progress, no productiveness. Like one day, if I keep playing, I’m going to be a pro. And that’s simply not the reality for most people. But I do think that there is like a long list of tangible benefits from playing games. And as long as you’re aware that you’re doing this for fun, and you’re doing it to spend time with your friends. It’s no longer a waste of time at that point. Because I think that those of us who have valuable things. And then there are points of progression even if you’re not an incredible pro, you can make other forms of content. There are lots of like other places inside of the space, for you to be even if you aren’t able to be like a top 0.01% pro. There’s definitely like lots of room inside of the space for you to make a career out of completely different things.
Colin
I think we touched on it earlier, it’s a very raw emerging sport. So who’s to say you can’t know in the future coach kids how to be successful at gaming purely because they wanted to become better at it and improve their skills and like you said, interact with their friends and anything else like learning a musical instrument, or anything else. But I think you’ve really touched on a good point that if you’re going to be elite in anything, is that there’s only a few people that can realistically achieve that for a number of main reasons. So it’s a really good point you’ve made but Jackson, really want to thank you for your time and for joining us today. It’s been a pleasure to chat and get some insight into Esports from someone doing it, someone living it day to day. So yeah, thanks for your time.
Pabu
Thank you. Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here.