We recently sat down with Petra from the CS:GO team Singularity to ask her a few questions. How do you get a career in playing eSports? What’s it like to play CS:GO for a job? Read on to find out.
Hi Petra, please introduce yourself for people who may not know you.
Hello, my name is Petra Stoker and I’m 24 years old from The Netherlands. I've been playing computer games since I was 10 and CS:GO professionally since December 2016
What's it like to spend your days playing CS:GO? It sounds like a dream job!
It has always been my dream to play computer games professionally. Doing something you are really passionate about is the best thing! Weirdly enough, I never get bored of playing, but sometimes it feels like I’ve played too much and my focus drops a bit. Then I just take a day break and then back into it.
What made you get into CS:GO?
To begin with I was playing Call of Duty 4 but eventually the competitive side of this game died and my friends moved on to CS:GO. I had no one to play with anymore so I tried out CS:GO and fell in love with it straight away!
The growth of eSports as a whole has been phenomenal, do you think the female scene will replicate the male scene? What needs to be done to make it happen
It will take a while for the female scene to be as big as the male scene but it’s growing for sure. If you just take a look at the Intel Challenge Katowice qualifiers, already 40 teams have been participating in the qualifiers. To get as big as the male scene, there needs to be way more females participating in the competitive CS:GO scene. There is also a bit of a gap in the overall skill level which needs to close.
Do you think we'll see bookmakers offer more markets for female CS:GO events in the future?
I guess it depends on how popular female CS:GO events are with the people who bet - the bigger the female scene gets the more people will want to bet on it. At the moment, I don't see a reason for them to offer more markets but the popularity of female eSports is growing and I hope it will continue.
What do you think helps you play your best CS:GO?
What helps a lot is confidence, this drives you to play at your best. Obviously, you need to train and work hard to get better too, but confidence is definitely one of the things you need to play at your best. Also, I think pressure helps me personally - if I’m playing on a team with a higher skill level or a really tough opponent, I seem to raise my game even more.
What factors affect your game the most when playing?
There are many factors that can affect your game! I find background noises very frustrating and they can affect my performance. This doesn’t mean noise in general - w hen my dad is in the garage building stuff (my room is in the garage loft) it has a negative impact but when I’m at an event, the louder the crowd the better! This kind of noise gives you a lot of energy and adrenaline and it really helps me perform well.
Do you notice certain things in a game that you know will work in your favour and other things that will have a negative impact on your chances of winning?
Whenever you analyse your enemy and adapt to how they play things can work out in your favour. However, if they do the same and no one is really playing their own game then it can turn out bad. Eventually, it’s important to play your own game, but with a bit of knowledge of what your opponent’s playstyle is so you can counter them.
Do you feel you perform at a higher level on LAN or online and why?
I feel like I perform way better at LAN. For some reason, the pressure on LAN has a good influence and I feel a lot of adrenaline which has a positive impact. Also, the team is listening to my calls more which motivates me and gives me more energy to play my own game as well.
Whenever we play at home, I feel like my teammates aren't always listening to my calls because they’re not 100% focused on the game as well. Maybe I just feel like that, I don't know.
Does the fact that people will be betting on how you perform add another element of pressure when you're competing?
It doesn't pressure me, but what I really don't like is when people message me stuff like: ''You better win this game otherwise I lose my skins/money.'' That is something that triggers me and makes me think why that person can’t understand that this can be really annoying. Even talking about this is frustrating.
Any last words you would like to say?
Yeah, I'm very excited about something and I would love to share this!
I’ve made a new team recently - we called ourselves Team Unknown at first because we didn’t have an organisation to represent but have since signed with Team Singularity and we are happy to represent them.
The players I added to the team are Kelly ''KllyVe'' Verhaegen, Madalina "iLLa" Gherman, Sophia "Kim" Benfakir and Alyona ''Candy'' Kuvaeva. Our first event together was the Intel Challenge in Katowice (we qualified after just 2 days of practising together). We finished 5th-6th at Katowice and the future looks promising!
After a small amount of practice, we attended the Copenhagen Games and made it to the grand finals. Our opponent was RES Gaming, which is our team’s (and especially mine) biggest rival. It was an intense final but we managed to go home with the trophy! You can also follow me on Twitter at @PetraCSGO.
