In an earlier blog post, in fact my first ever blog post, I wrote about my experiences trying to become a pro gamer. An interesting brief segment of that was living in a professional gaming house. I figured I'd write a more in-depth post about this as it was probably one of the most major events. I stayed for little over a month, the house was located in Warsaw, Poland and could hold about 12 people excluding staff. It's an experience that Is certainly once in the lifetime and I jumped at the chance but, lets start from the beginning
 |
| Credit to sett.fi. |
I was playing the game Starcraft everyday, watching it, thinking it. I was obsessed. I learnt that a gaming house had opened called the Ministry of Win through a promotional event. They were going to invite three players to the house who could stay, free of charge for three months. I contemplated entering this but after seeing some of the people who entered, which were famous within the Starcraft scene, I knew it was impossible to win so I just moved on and forgot about the house. Pro gaming houses until this point only really existed in Korea and were only reserved for those on the team that the house belonged to. The Idea of a house that was open to any player who fit the criteria was completely new which made the house pretty interesting and there was excitement around the scene about this house. A lot of people were curious to see if this business model could be run successfully.
I found out through a guy called Wilko the Skype name of Maciej who was the manager of the house. I didn't expect to actually be able to go to the house but I was curious so I decided I'd ask. I wasn't a known player like the other occupants, so I didn't have much hope. The manager was very detached on Skype, almost to the point it was suspicious, but he gave me all the information eventually about the house such as costs. It came to about £500 which, at first seems expensive but I decided it would be worth it, not only would I actually get to live in a pro gaming house, meet a bunch of internet celebrities and immerse myself in the pro gaming lifestyle, I would actually be living in a foreign country for a month.
In excitement I told my friend Reece, the one who actually bought me the game and he seemed interested in the idea too. It would be easier for just myself to get into the house because although I wasn't a pro gamer with sponsors and on a pro team I was almost at that skill level and was regularly playing against those players in the match making system. Reece was a casual player who was very far from passing off as a pro gamer. I had a month till I was due to leave for the house so we made a deal that I'd train him and he would play his heart out to improve and then come to Warsaw with me.
This is where tragedy struck. We booked the plane tickets after our agreement and then he began to train. After only 2-3 days his computer died, it wouldn't work and he was unable to play and would need to replace the computer with the money he initially had for the house. On top of this, his plane tickets were non refundable so he lost that money as well. I'd told my mother that he was going with me already but decided it would be best to let her keep thinking that, I've travelled alone before but not to a complete strangers house.
I wasn't really nervous about the trip, the few weeks before I just tried to play Starcraft as much as I could. I got a Ryanair flight which was pretty cheap and certainly value for money. Whilst on the plane It became apparent that I am indeed on a plane full of Polish people, going to Poland. It's interesting being the minority and not being able to understand what everyone around you is saying, the flight attendant for example.
When the plane touched down, the people on the plane clapped which was a first for me, I guess I've had a pretty snobby flight history mainly using only transatlantic flights. After I arrived, I grabbed my bag and went outside to call Maciej to let him know I had landed. I tried repeatedly but there was no answer. Even worse, my phone which was a terrible Blackberry had less than 5% battery.
The arrangement was that he would pick me up or send one of the staff to pick me up but there was no one. I told him repeatedly what time I would be arriving but he wasn't here. The taxi drivers kept pestering me If I wanted a taxi and at this point I started to become pretty worried, could this all be a joke? was I even speaking to the real house manager? How will I get home? I'll need to get a hotel! All this ran through my head but then finally, after 2 hours of waiting and dread, received a phone call. He was sending a taxi for me and roughly described the make of the car and where I should walk to get it. Unfortunately I know absolutely nothing about cars so that didn't help at all. I just wondered around the car park until I saw a man who looked as confused as I did, he looked at me and just said "Bailey?" and I was so happy. I got in and he drove for about 1 hour to the house. It was pretty late at this point, around 9pm and I was really tired.
 |
| Credit to Ministry of Win, if they still exist. |
After arriving at the post code he was given, I was pretty nervous. I had this huge fear all of a sudden that I would be exposed as not being a pro or good enough to be there. I met the manager who took my bags and then we went around the back of the house.
Ret was stood outside smoking. He is a veteran pro gamer and on one of the most prestigious foreign teams called Team Liquid. We shook hands and I moved on. I arrived at the gaming room where everyone was playing and practising, It was pretty insane to look at, 11 guys all sat playing Starcraft in a room. I awkwardly said Hi and then another notable player called Sjow asked me which race I play, after telling him Protoss he said "You will learn much in this house" with a laugh. I guess I over analysed this at the time, I couldn't tell if he was joking about the lack of Protoss players in the house or was being sincere.
I then met the player player manager of the house called Kevin, he was a French guy and was extremely nice and helped me get settled in. I was shown the rest of the house and where I would be sleeping. I was in a room with four others, TitaN, LiveZerg and within a few days desRow and an unknown player called Kamacho. The room was certainly big enough however, the corner which I was in was bigger than the bedroom I had at home so I didn't mind that at all. Kevin set a computer up which they provided with my keyboard and mouse. I noticed a funny trend that everyone in the house either had Razer Blackwidow keyboards or SteelSeries 6GV2. Clearly marketing was working. I was one of the Steelseries people.
After I let my girlfriend and mother know I was alive I went to bed because I was pretty exhausted. I woke up before everyone else and it was an interesting experience waking up and awkwardly trying to get dressed in the dark. Trying to walk out of the room without waking anyone. I went into the gaming room and began to practice. I was the only one there for a few hours and people gradually started to stumble in. I said good morning to the first few but mainly kept to myself playing my games of Starcraft, I wanted to know how the people in the gaming room interacted and handled themselves, to see what was socially acceptable and such.
I had heard stories about gaming houses being like a no talking environment where you're only aloud to play Starcraft and not aloud to alt tab out of the game for long periods. The coach came over and introduced himself and took me outside and gave me a little talk about what I want to achieve in the house and the schedule of the house, when to wake up and when to practice. It all seemed very professional and serious so I took it as such. The first day I didn't eat, I actually didn't eat the day I flew as well so this would make it 2 days without eating. I had heard Polish water isn't very clean but they had water coolers so that wasn't a problem.
On the 3rd day I felt I had gotten to know the people I was sat next to. One was Wilko who I had spoken to before and the other was a guy called Breathe. Breathe was strange, he seemed to completely ignore me. I think he looked down on me and I wasn't worth his time. He was also a very angry person but he was talented at Starcraft so I was in no place to say anything. As time went on I think we got a long a little better but he wasn't there for long. I got along with Wilko great, we were both Protoss players so we were able to talk strategy all the time. He showed me a lot of things I didn't know about the scene, such as daily tournaments and he also gave me lots of information about the back story to the Starcraft scene. He really is a great guy who certainly helped me get settled properly. On the 4th day I noticed that no one really seems to follow the rules. Breathe for example would play Diablo all day and only played Starcraft a little. I tried not to pay attention to this and kept on playing.
 |
| David, myself and Wilko on the left. Credit to Ministry of Win. |
A new player arrived at the house called Kamacho, although I'm not sure if that's still his alias. He didn't really have an online alias that he regularly used. When he came in and was shown around he looked pretty lost. He was from the US which I found amazing because of the cost of flights were crazy. I decided to befriend him and show him the ropes of what I had learnt so far. We enjoyed talking about the lack of professionalism from the staff in the house over the month I was staying, he was actually scheduled to stay 3 months.
Eventually everyone started to talk about the manager and staff in the house. We had our own Skype group pretty much just for this. The player coach didn't seem to do anything at all and the house manager who I already had a bad impression of, made it even worse by coming home drunk to the house with friends and waking a lot of people up with loud music. This is the stuff me and David (Komacho) would regularly talk about. We were similar in skill level and he was unknown just like me. Myself, Wilko and David started to walk to McDonalds every night together and made our own little friend group. We didn't talk about the manager of the house with Wilko as he seemed to be friends with him as Wilko was actually the first person to move into the house and had been there at that point for months.
I knew that the winners of the contest that the Ministry of Win held were arriving soon, Ret and Titan were already here, the last person was desRow. I had watched his stream a little before so I knew a little about him. When he arrived at the house, he seemed nice and everyone greeted him. He had caused some drama within the Starcraft scene a few times so some people seemed hesitant about him. Soon after him arriving, Destiny arrived. He was by far the most famous in the house, having a large following and making a living from being a professional streamer and professional Starcraft player.
The last player to arrive was a guy called Cryptic. He was also unknown within the scene and came from the US. He seemed much more confident than the typical person in the house. Some thought he was arrogant and big headed. I got along with him okay though. With him arriving it meant that the house was full capacity. There was TargA, Morrow, Sage, Fuzer, Wilko, Destiny, LiveZerg, desRow, TitaN, Ret, Sjow, Breathe, Kamacho and Cryptic.
Once the house was at full capacity, we had a meeting in the basement lounge with everyone there. Here we were told to sign a bunch of contracts and give our terms and conditions. One player in particular, Fuzer, made a large amount of drama in the house about the contracts, basically refusing to sign it till he had his lawyer read them first. His excuse for this was that English wasn't his first language and wanted legal council which is understandable. Almost instantly voices were raised between the manager and Fuzer.
He clearly disliked Fuzer, I later learned that he'd been a nightmare and was very messy and never cleaned after himself. It seemed like Fuzer was just trying to be as awkward as possible to exacerbate this. The majority of players in the house signed the contracts and that was that. Except Ret who had one of his teams management take care of it. Ret lived in the house with his girlfriend which was pretty strange, again making it even more apparent the house isn't very serious. He rarely played and seemed to spend most of his time procrastinating. Again he's much better at the game so who am I to question him but when comparing him to say Sage, a Korean pro gamer who had played in the most difficult and prestigious leagues in Korea, it was obvious everyone in the house was lazy compared to him.
After 2 days of Fuzer not signing the contract, the manager basically told him he has to leave and find a hotel that night. The day after from the hotel he made a comprehensive post on the most popular Starcraft forum about what happened. I wont go into too much detail but give you an overview, he had basically paid the manager of the house for this month but because he had been kicked out, he wanted the money back, the manager of the house claimed that it's in the contract that if you break the rules you forfeit the money.
Fuzers counter argument was that he didn't sign the contract, this is where the manager of the house got pretty dodgy and implied that Fuzer has no proof that he was paid, so he doesn't have to return the money. In this post he also decided to summarise his experience in the house. Some issues he had which a lot of us shared was the food situation. There was a cook who worked and made us 1 hot meal a day and 2 cold meals, generally sandwiches. I wasn't too bothered but some seemed to hate it.
 |
| The kitchen. The food might of been terrible but the actual building and furniture were amazing. Credit to MoW. |
He also mentioned the managers lack of professionalism, bringing people home drunk and waking everyone up. This post exploded with people trying to justify the cost and just overall reviewing the business model and area/country chosen. At the time I found it amazing being in the house when all this was happening. Everyone in the house just kept reading all the comments. This happened right as I arrived so a lot of the guests hadn't arrived yet. I started to think about if I had made the right decision about coming to the house. It seemed like a joke and I considered asking for my money back and just leaving but I didn't.
Things started to get progressively worse. The coach left the house and Kevin the player manager revealed that the coach hasn't been paid. Weeks later after I left the house it would become known that most people who had worked for the Ministry of Win hadn't been paid, the staff, the cleaning lady who was also the cook. this led to her quitting. She was replaced with a women who started stealing. The food issue was always a problem, it wasn't enough and people just didn't like it. It was similar to school lunches.
 |
| The Ministry of Win boss on the right, his assistant on the left. Not really sure what he did. Ctedit to desports. |
This is just a tiny bit of the drama that occurred in the house whilst I was there, a lot more happened after I had left and if you're interested in it with some google searches I'm sure you'll find it. Everyone in the house was pretty much in agreement that it was a joke. There was no schedule, we did whatever we want, any attempt to make rules by the manager failed. He implemented them in a very childish and petty way such as putting up signs rather than just telling us.
Despite this, we were settled in the house. Everyone kinda knew each other and it was nice, we would regularly go to McDonalds in the evening and get food generally because the dinner we had was poor. for the first 2 weeks I went to the gym every day and it was pretty nice, after any schedule went out the window I stopped. I pretty much completely stopped playing Starcraft at this point. It was during a period where a new expansion was in beta and a lot of the occupants were playing that. I didn't have access and it felt pointless playing the
 |
| The McDonalds we travelled to regularly. Credit to desRow |
original game so I spent most of my days watching TV shows or messing around playing other games.
After Breathe left the house David sat next to me and it was great, we decided to go out to the town one Saturday night, it was the Russians TitaN and Livezerg who suggested it and desRow and David wanted to go. I'm not someone who regularly drinks or goes to pubs/bars so I couldn't decide If I wanted to go or not but I agreed. We went to a bar which weirdly served food even though it was almost midnight. Titan got soup and we had cocktails and smoked from the Hookah. It's past midnight and we've only had 1 drink. DesRow gets the idea to go to a strip club which I have never been to.
I have nothing against them but I've been with my long term girlfriend holly for a few years and it just seems illogical but I was stuck, I had little to no money and I had a choice of trying to find my way back to the house and paying for a taxi or going with everyone. I decided it would be best if I just went with everyone else. We got home insanely late and it was great fun. This was pretty much the only time I went outside, other than to go to the shop or McDonald's.
This was a very long post, didn't expect that, I just kinda wrote whatever came to mind about the experience as I always do. I guess I had a lot to say on the matter. I'm overall very happy with my experience. I wouldn't do it again though, the cost was just too much. I met a ton of great people, experienced some cool things like living in Poland. Got to spend time with people who had the same passion as myself and just overall had fun. As for a practice environment the Ministry of win was terrible and I think I only got slightly better but with a better mentality you could certainly improve.
I believe if the house was better managed, it could easily be sustainable and workable business model. On my last day, a new guy showed up who was a staff member. He was incharge of managing the players I think. I woke up early and was sat in the gaming room and he spoke to me and asked me questions about everyone, I was due to leave that day so before I did, I gave him some warnings that I heard the manager doesn't pay people for their services. He obviously seemed pretty concerned about this but hopefully I stopped someone else getting screwed over. I got the flight home and continued playing Starcraft for almost a year, even competing at Dreamhack. Read more about that here but for now, that's it.