EPT
Anyways, writing blogs is about sharing stuff and being opened to whoever decides to invest her or his time reading. So this blog is about my struggles this summer. Struggles normally come from various reasons - lack of knowledge or ability as well as things just going wrong because of bad luck. We all enjoy moving forward and being successful, but struggles are particularly tiring cause you start feeling as if all your time is invested into solving problems instead of progressing in a certain direction. The summer is my least favorite season - I didn't have a proper vacation and time off for the last 4-5 years. By the time I'm done with my uni exams its already mid August so my only window to sea sand, music festivals and travels are mostly other peoples facebook accounts and the pictures they upload while I'm in the library studying something I don't like.
1. School
It's so easy to whine about school and exams, I guess over 75% of all students do not like their studies or straight up hate them. I envy everyone else who do love what they are doing, but for me studies in the last 5 years were a constant never ending struggle. It's not that I didn't find anything useful or interesting, but it was just never enough to hold my complete attention and to make me invest all my time and energy. Luckily this is my last semester before I write my thesis. I have only 2 or 3 exams depending on my last results which I'm still waiting for. I can feel the end coming, it makes me joyful and excited, but at the same time impatient as well. I just want to graduate already...
2. Dota
In order to revitalize my interest for esports I decided to start playing dota. That game is hard but surprisingly I find it very enjoyable and a lot less stressful than Starcraft. I fucking suck at the game and I only play Limited Heroes. In the past few days I went like 1-12 basically feeding in half of the games or losing close games whenever I play alright. For some reason people always blame their losses on me though, its been 2 weeks since I picked dota and this is starting to happen just now. I'm playing mostly Lion, trying to support my team mates, but whenever we lose everyone jumps on me 'fkn lion no items, I will report you' or 'cyka' and all the other russian words I actually laugh when people insult me with cause I like the russian language and russian guys in general. 'Why not tp for the fight' 'use your stun, I couldve survived the fight' and all that jazz but my favorite is 'fkn lion why no wards'. We all know you can only place that many wards and its really amazing how people complain about getting ganged while wandering alone in the dewarded side of the map... But all that aside I can't understand what people expect from teammates in a Limited Hero game ? I really don't know why anyone has to pretend they are good at the game while playing in match making mode designed for newbies who need to get used to a handful of heroes and the games basics.
Dota is amazing though, just as SC its very economical, not only in the sense of optimizing income and items but also purely from game theory's perspective. There are so many interaction models and theories finding application in Dota, its very fascinating. Maybe I can't last hit, pull creeps and so on, but I find the game interesting and enjoyable, at the end that's what matters. Dota is a struggle for me, but this time, for a change I like struggling.
3. Work
There are many things happening in the store behind the curtains. The most simple things take a lot of energy and effort to get right, especially when you depend on someone else to get the job done. Lately everything I do is marked by problems and unpredictable issues. I won't go in details, but I just wish we make a shirt or something else without a single problem once - that will be awesome. But I guess that's the defining part of this job, you can never be prepared for everything that can go wrong, unfortunately the learning curve is marked by a lot of mistakes and learning from them. It's a very dynamic environment this, but it's yet another struggle.
I have a very specific vision for the TL store. I was very much into skating back in the day, watched a lot of competition whenever those were available to watch, did some skating myself too. But the most fascinating thing about skating imo is the subculture it spawned - all the apparel companies and lifestyle. Brands like Globe Vans, DC and so on all have cult status now and are very much recognizable to people who don't skate. That said I see no reason why this can't happen with games and esports. I don't think there are more skaters out there than gamers, we just need to express ourselves. Apparel is one of the best things to do it. Why wearing a shirt with a skate board brand logo is ok, and more socially acceptable than wearing a shirt with a gaming artwork or esports organization logo ?
There's this fixation in the community that you are buying or must buy the merchandise of a specific esports organization to support them. Supporting is nice of course and the store side is very important for teamliquid as a business. But I think the sole motivation for buying a shirt or a hoodie ever is because you like it - simple as that. I want TL to make desirable items, products without a compromise in quality, products no worse than anything you are buying in the skate shop or anywhere else. My approach to doing TL products is always to make them as good as we possibly can, never to cut corners, cause that's the only way to create some brand confidence and to get people to buy TL stuff not only to support us, but because they like the product and want to express themselves with it. I really understand people's complains about some of our items being beyond their budget and what they are willing to spend for a TL product. But at the same time I realize the reason for the complains is that the products are not desirable enough. In my mind you will always buy a 20$ shirt if you like it, especially a shirt that is of fine quality and that you are going to wear almost every day. At the end I want people to make their choices based on weather they like something or not, but in order to get to a state where everyone buys esports apparel to express themselves we have to struggle creating brand identity and confidence...
I guess I can go on about esports lifestyle and apparel forever, its a useful discussion to have - one I really want to hear what the community thinks. Do you envision a world where people wear stylish TL polo shirts at work, or go out on a friday night with a cool EG hoodie on?
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/KpxeWtM.png)
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