EPTHere's a link to the post. And here is his statement as a spoiler.
+ Show Spoiler +
forgive me, English is not my native language
Hi guys I am HTOMario and I am leaving starcraft.
I've been playing starcraft since I was 8 years old. I am almost 24 now and I have loved every minute of it. I shared my passion for starcraft with my wife who I have been married to for close to 4 years now. We watch blizzcons together and stay up late to watch WCS we love every piece of it. She's into zerg <.<
On october 2010 I was watching some tournament and I said wow, what I wouldn't do to play on stage and win just once. My wife Melayna told me I was quitting my job and practicing the following morning. So incredibly supportive and really was the only person in my family to believe in what I felt was reaching at straws for me.
Over the years I've played every race to high gm and truly developed a love for mechanical units. Eventually I only played mech and eventually wound up through echo(awesome people) who told me to take LYGF's offer when they approached me. Everything truly was great and they honestly did pay everyone every month, sometimes a little later but it came through. Yesterday was the 5th, normally I get payed every 5th and this would be the second time I wasn't (my salary wasn't being paid anymore). There was some recent drama in the team with some players and overall LYGF was becoming a source of stress for me.
It's my understanding that the "new" sponsor, who also is sponsoring the February 8th tournament wasn't paying us at all. I guess something struck me when I realized that everything is going forward and we're getting more and more people but we have no finances anymore? Running tournaments with no income for the prize? Besides sc2replaystats.com/ these guys to my knowledge paid on time every time and the owner is super fucking awesome. (only sponsor who I 100% know did)
To my knowledge genius has been paid but I don't know the details on that and I've heard that a few other players were in the same boat I was.
This morning I decided to cut the stress from my life and left LYGF. Moments after doing so I qued for another game and I questioned why I even play anymore. To be honest I already felt I accomplished more then I ever could. It may not seem like much in comparison to jeadong but I was happpy even getting GM, making guides, getting pretty far in WCS tournaments but I must say the best day of my entire attempt was day 9 casting me. I was so happy that day9 recognized me. (The part where he said you know this CC is greedy!) My wife and I busted out laughing because as I placed it on his stream I told her, man I think that CC was too greedy this game) All though I loved husky and HD casting me and it was really cool! I've followed day9 for as long as I can remember. He was/is kind of my e sports hero so it meant the world to me.
I have 2 children now. Jaymi who is 2 and Jordan who is almost 7 months. I think I got what I wanted from starcraft and I really feel I gave my best. Some days practicing up to 16 hours a day but very regularly playing 10+ most days of the week. Not many people can say they got to really try to go for their dream or have the support to do so. Now after nearly 4 years I've decided that it's time to move on with my life and dedicate the next years to my family.
I know a lot of people didn't like me, sometimes I could be a huge ass. Luckily I mostly grew out of that and devoted more time to helping and teaching people my passion.
Hope I didn't make anyone fall asleep. I just wanted to share my story before I fade away. Now that I typed this out I think I wanted to type out a good bye to starcraft for myself more then to share the actual story. ^ Maybe you'll see me in a custom game now and then as I'm not 100% done playing starcraft, but it would only be to kill a few minutes now and then.
<3 Geoffrey "HTOMario" van der Spek.
WoW top reddit, you guys legitimately made my day better. Thank you for your kind words. :D
Hi guys I am HTOMario and I am leaving starcraft.
I've been playing starcraft since I was 8 years old. I am almost 24 now and I have loved every minute of it. I shared my passion for starcraft with my wife who I have been married to for close to 4 years now. We watch blizzcons together and stay up late to watch WCS we love every piece of it. She's into zerg <.<
On october 2010 I was watching some tournament and I said wow, what I wouldn't do to play on stage and win just once. My wife Melayna told me I was quitting my job and practicing the following morning. So incredibly supportive and really was the only person in my family to believe in what I felt was reaching at straws for me.
Over the years I've played every race to high gm and truly developed a love for mechanical units. Eventually I only played mech and eventually wound up through echo(awesome people) who told me to take LYGF's offer when they approached me. Everything truly was great and they honestly did pay everyone every month, sometimes a little later but it came through. Yesterday was the 5th, normally I get payed every 5th and this would be the second time I wasn't (my salary wasn't being paid anymore). There was some recent drama in the team with some players and overall LYGF was becoming a source of stress for me.
It's my understanding that the "new" sponsor, who also is sponsoring the February 8th tournament wasn't paying us at all. I guess something struck me when I realized that everything is going forward and we're getting more and more people but we have no finances anymore? Running tournaments with no income for the prize? Besides sc2replaystats.com/ these guys to my knowledge paid on time every time and the owner is super fucking awesome. (only sponsor who I 100% know did)
To my knowledge genius has been paid but I don't know the details on that and I've heard that a few other players were in the same boat I was.
This morning I decided to cut the stress from my life and left LYGF. Moments after doing so I qued for another game and I questioned why I even play anymore. To be honest I already felt I accomplished more then I ever could. It may not seem like much in comparison to jeadong but I was happpy even getting GM, making guides, getting pretty far in WCS tournaments but I must say the best day of my entire attempt was day 9 casting me. I was so happy that day9 recognized me. (The part where he said you know this CC is greedy!) My wife and I busted out laughing because as I placed it on his stream I told her, man I think that CC was too greedy this game) All though I loved husky and HD casting me and it was really cool! I've followed day9 for as long as I can remember. He was/is kind of my e sports hero so it meant the world to me.
I have 2 children now. Jaymi who is 2 and Jordan who is almost 7 months. I think I got what I wanted from starcraft and I really feel I gave my best. Some days practicing up to 16 hours a day but very regularly playing 10+ most days of the week. Not many people can say they got to really try to go for their dream or have the support to do so. Now after nearly 4 years I've decided that it's time to move on with my life and dedicate the next years to my family.
I know a lot of people didn't like me, sometimes I could be a huge ass. Luckily I mostly grew out of that and devoted more time to helping and teaching people my passion.
Hope I didn't make anyone fall asleep. I just wanted to share my story before I fade away. Now that I typed this out I think I wanted to type out a good bye to starcraft for myself more then to share the actual story. ^ Maybe you'll see me in a custom game now and then as I'm not 100% done playing starcraft, but it would only be to kill a few minutes now and then.
<3 Geoffrey "HTOMario" van der Spek.
WoW top reddit, you guys legitimately made my day better. Thank you for your kind words. :D
Just wanted to make sure this was public knowledge. I did a few quick searches here but couldn't see anything about it.
HTO Mario was one of the few that dared to push the boundaries of mech back when everyone else was just going bio every game. It's always sad to see an innovative player leave the game, but it's good to see that he has a positive view of what he is doing.
C'mon, we need to keep our old guys...
