I was recently in a discussion regarding volunteering in esports and as one of the people that managed to use the volunteer route to make a career within esports a reality, I wanted to talk about my experiences and my thoughts on the importance of voluntary work.

I’ll start by outlining my journey. I started volunteering for a small organisation called Adversity in 2010 after going off to University and not having time to play competitively anymore. I received absolutely nothing from the org and I was involved in managing all teams on the PC side of things. During the 6 months I was with the team I signed a sponsorship deal with Thermaltake. I was eventually offered a position to come over and manage the Starcraft 2 and Team Fortress 2 teams for Team Thermaltake. Now this org was run by Thermaltakes European marketing director, so did have some money behind it, however I was unpaid. The org didn’t really work out for me and I was quickly moved to Team Infused, the UK flagship team of Thermaltake. Again unpaid. I managed the PC teams for Team Infused and began to travel to international events, mostly with the SC2 team. Due to a financial issue which left me out of pocket I took the SC2 team to the new global level organisation Western Wolves, an offshoot of LowLandLions. Some of the players I brought with me received a small salary but I was still unpaid. I worked with the team for a couple of years until I decided that esports was going nowhere for me and it was time for me to say goodbye. I will also graduating University. Around 6 months later I was approached by Mousesports to work on their SC2 team which was struggling at the time. I was tired of being unpaid so I requested a small salary, which they agreed upon. I worked for Mousesports for a year and eventually thanks to a combination of references from members of my esports past I was hired by FACEIT to produce their online broadcasts, which I have been doing since 2014. I’ve traveled the world, worked on some of the biggest esports events to ever take part and I feel if I hadn’t spent my time volunteering and grinding, that i’d never have made it here.

An Alternative argument that I also feel bares some weight is that smaller orgs simply cannot afford to salary staff members. Every org I worked for in my career (bar Mouz) worked to a shoe-string budget. Even the teams that had sponsors spent all they had on players, by paying staff it would only slow the orgs progress and reduce results needed to secure more sponsors. Many small to medium orgs exist in a very specific place. They fill a space in the market needed to develop talent and grow playerbases. A young player from London who’s decided he is a decent Counter-Strike player will never become a pro without being a member of the smaller orgs and attending local LAN tournaments. These teams can only exist on the backs of the passionate people willing to spend their time and in lots of cases their own cash to fund them. A sliver of these teams will ever grow to household names and most will fail, but they are important stepping stones for everyone involved, the players and the staff… none of which will have been paid.

This post may seem a little rambly, but I hope it offers an argument on why I feel voluntary work is important to esports and can work, it doesn’t always have to go nowhere. However I am a strong supporter of always paying people what their worth (if you can afford to do so!)