How League/Video Games Have Changed My Life

I dont really know where to begin. Like most of you I had my first introduction to video games at a young age, the Playstation 2 was my first ever console. Starting up on the thrills of adventuring with Jak and Daxter, Sora and the crew, Ratchet and Clank, and a large assortment of characters i knew video games were meant for me. I finally started playing my first online game at the age of 10, Runescape was my entrance to the wonderful world of MMO's. While i was only ten and the idea of talking to a bunch of strangers all over the world was kind of mindblowing at the time, i'd never felt like more of a part of a community than while i was playing. I discovered myself finding more time in my day to play, it was really the beginning of development for my time management/planning skills. I reached out more to random players attempting to help those i could and bringing friends into the community. While it sounds great, there were some dark sides too. This is where i learned about scamming. To me personally i found it quite ridiculous to "steal" pixels for a game to get yourself a little bit ahead. This is also where i learned about catfishing, phishing, and the importance of not sharing your personal information i.e, email password etc, with others. Like most MMORPGs it was a grind, it was important to put the time in before you were truly at your pinnacle of power. Runescape however, was not a very competitive game, i truly understood what gaming was with the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. This was a complete win in my books. This game really took my care for gaming to the next level. Everything was a competition, a competition between teammates to have the best score, a competition between two teams on a victor the other a loser, and a personal competition between you and your friends to post the best stats. This was the beginning of me completely putting myself into something. KD was everything, i never really cared to much about winning the game, i just had to get a higher KD than my friends. Probably one of the happiest moments of my childhood was hitting 10th prestige and 100% the game. This was the first time however i learned that people will exploit a game if given the opportunity, myself included. I wont deny that i looked for hacked lobbies to enjoy the 100% reload speed and no gravity, amongst the COD timeline there has always been people looking for ways to exploit and ruin the game for others.
When i finally started playing league i had no idea what kind of game it was and i got wrecked real fast. It was my friends birthday and we went to a place called Howie's Game Shack. Its basically a place with 50 computers and a couple consoles where you pay around 13 dollars to play all day. My first game was in a 3v3 tournament, here i was level 1 with my main man Shen and my two friends,both of which were level 30, going up against three other players. Of course we lost, but that wasn't the point. It was the most fun i'd ever had, but more importantly it was with my friends. I sat there for the rest of the night (8 more hours) playing games over and over. The leveling process was a grind but i'd already learned how important the grind was, especially in a game like this. But unlike most of the other games, i got to do it with my friends, and even though it was against other players, it wasn't a hostile environment. I was lucky enough to start playing in the middle of season two and this may attribute to the low amount of hostility in the game. While a lot of other games had been very important in my life, League was at the forefront. I played Runescape for about 5 years, and still dabble occasionally. COD and most console games i played for a long time but it has slowly been dying down for me. League however is just continuing to be a huge part of my life. I constantly find myself thinking about what i could of done in an old game to prevent me from a loss or what i could of done to do better. It's what got me a job at SDCC, if i hadn't been a part of the league community i would of never had that amazing opportunity. It's helped me jump on a career path and know what i want to do in my future. As i sit here now, a 19 year old male in college i'd like to thank Riot. You have really influenced my life in so many positive ways.

Just want to also say. I am not saying drop your life to play video games, i've played soccer for the past 14 years of my life. School is ALWAYS the most important focus for anyone that is enrolled. I do believe however, that video games are a healthy part of life, so jump on the train and come join us.

Thank you,