Typical Day
It's 7:00AM and most of the people in Esau Knoob's household are up and out of the house. His twin sisters are on their way to school with his parents off to work.
Esau Knoob and his dog, Nunu, are sound asleep. Esau's League of Legends bout didn't end until 2:00AM the night before and he's beat. Nunu just likes to sleep.
Four hours later, Esau's alarm goes off and he's ready to face the day. Sort of. Two bottles of Coke and a Pop-Tart later, he fires up the workstation in his bedroom and starts in on a friendly game to practice his skills. He turns on his Twitch feed and lets his fans watch his prep.
Many gamers don't offer this exclusive access into their process, but Esau finds the attention actually makes him play better. Besides, it's the only interaction he'll have with people all day, even if it's a one-way feed. The idea that people from all over the world have eyes on him now through the camera lens is exciting. He's finally on TV.
He also knows that the more time he's streaming, the more money he'll make in donations for his PayPal account and the more ad dollars in his pocket as well. Esau has big plans and has already saved up close to ten grand after almost a year. That's ten grand more than his friends have, and think of all the money he's saving not going to college.
Being out in the public eye also means Esau has to shave on a semi-regular basis. His mom warned him he needs to shower too, or at least freshen up. When he's living in a team house, he's heard that it's anything goes when it comes to personal hygiene. That's because gamers know what really matters in life...scoring kills and racking up wins, not smelling fresh as a daisy.
Esau runs a washcloth around his pits and the creases in his body, brushes his teeth, shaves, and puts on one of his many Computrixathon T-shirts. Computrixathon is Esau's sponsor. It's a small, not very well-known computer company, and his sponsorship money is about enough to pay for his car insurance and not much else.
Fortunately, Esau spends all his time playing League of Legends so he can become the best player ever, so he doesn't really need a lot of cash right now. Living in his parents' house saves on rent and he doesn't have a girlfriend (or any chance to meet one), so it's not like he has to pay any money to go anywhere.
When he gets into a team house, he'll have lots of interaction and probably tons of girls who'll want to hang out with him, seeing as he'll be rich and famous and all.
Right now, Esau needs to focus on his game and that means sticking to his schedule. He has about three hours of game time with WildeBeast, LoNeckLio, and KarabungaSam to work on his short game and get limber.
The guys don't make an official team but they do like playing with each other. While Esau lives in California, WildeBeast is from China, LoNeckLio is from Korea, and Sam is across the States in Maryland, so everyone's time zones are a bit off. Still, when you're into League of Legends, the life is 24/7.
Esau remembers a quote from one of Team PentaSkill's top support players: "The game never sleeps and neither should you." An important reminder, considering Esau desperately wants that same job for the same team. Of course, the last four support players only lasted a couple of months, but that was because they all stunk.
Esau would never find himself in that situation. He'd be a lifer like Famous Andy, who's been playing top position on the team for the past three years. "Boy, that guy's living the dream," thinks Esau out loud as he munches on a piece of cold pizza for breakfast.
After his warm-up game is over, Esau spends an hour just honing his signature move, the triple action double threat kill, which requires amazing skill and lightning reflexes. If he just spends an hour every single day working on it, by October when it's time for Worlds, Esau will be ready...unless he's drafted by Team PentaSkill first, of course.
At 6:00PM, after seven hours of play, Esau turns off his stream and leaves his room to say hello to his family and eat dinner with them. He thinks it's very important to lead a balanced lifestyle, which is why he makes time for these twenty minutes to sit with his folks and sister to hear about their day.
About ten minutes into dinner—it's Tuesday, so chicken tacos—Esau's mind starts to drift away from his family's boring conversation and back to the game. He's so close to perfecting a certain move that he's sure will get the attention of the Team PentaSkill coaches.
He wishes he could leave the table right now and just work on it a bit before he has to log back on to his stream for the nightly game, but he knows he'll catch an earful from his mom if he does.
So he sits there and pretends to listen about whatever it is they're all talking about while giving Nunu a chicken taco under the table when nobody's looking. After all, Esau's a born team player, and Nunu's part of the team too.
After dinner, Esau leaves the table, grabs another six-pack of Coke for his mini fridge and a couple of Drumstick ice cream cones to munch on, and runs upstairs to his bedroom to perfect that move before his next game starts.
Everything starts smoothly, but in the middle of his nightly game, Esau has a moment of panic. His team is down but not out, and while looking at the map on his screen he thinks that he may not win this game.
What if this is the beginning of the end? What if all of the hard work and practicing day and night and all the sacrifices he's made, missing out on his high school prom and every single high school event for that matter, not making any friends outside of the guys he plays games with, not ever going on a date or being kissed—what if all that was for nothing? What if Team PentaSkill didn't end up wanting him after all?
A fleeting second and then the moment is gone, replaced by Esau's usual swagger. It's well after midnight when he takes out the inhibitor turrets and makes his way toward the Nexus. Only a few more minutes before he can finish the game and get some shut eye, until tomorrow, when he can do it all over again.