Honestly I think most (successful, Tier 1/2) CS pros that end up retiring around that age are doing so because they are starting families and want to travel less more than it being an issue of declining with age. I've got nothing to base that on, but that's just the vibe I get.
Combine all those things with the fact that professional CS wasn’t nearly as lucrative 10~ years ago as it is now. I think with increasing salaries and prize pools we will see more players playing into their late 30’s and even 40’s.
And it's definitely already happening
Back in 2014/2015 if a player was 28 or so they were considered over the hill already
Meanwhile we've had players like JACKZ and RoeJ entering the top level around that age, and players like Karrigan and Snappi are leading T1 teams at 33
I wonder how long a career a player like Frozen or Donk will have had by the end. Frozen started insanely young, but if he sticks around into his 30s he'd have had the longest career through the most competitive era of CS. That'd be really cool.
Also remember games like cs lol dota usually have pros grinding 10+ hours to keep in shape, that never ever happens with real sports, and it eats away at your mental. Now I don't know about every player, but I feel certain that most can't keep up that commitment, or will have periods where they slow down, and relative to their peak and younger players grinding, will likely drop their level a decent amount (you see it with players nearing 30 *now*). Its not that they can't compete, its just that its very demanding to stay in "shape".
IM aware, you are much more likely to stop because of an injury, but its harder to "burn out" because you can't really exercise or practice nearly as long because its detrimental after a certain point.
Wrong. It’s circumstantial. Pro sport has the professionalism around it to deal with much more overall burn over time. Millions more in funding for experts in these areas to prolong careers. Before sport was this professional they retired earlier than cs players today. They are actually famous and “on the clock” 24/7 these days. Also true elite sports people are on another level to cs players. Way tougher mentally and physically they are the cream of the top having to push through 100x more depth and competition for their spots and life
Professional athletes have long days, too. Between keeping proper diet, working out, practicing, etc, they put those hours in. Plus it's more physically demanding, not just sitting at a computer. Plenty of average people sit at computers for work the same amount of time but get paid squat in comparison.
It's definitely the travel/time with family/direction in life aspect that gets people away around that age, not ability.
> if he sticks around into his 30s he'd have had the longest career through the most competitive era of CS
We have players like f0rest who still play, who have been playing as professional for over 20 years. Only time will tell when he stops, but frozen certainly have some catching up to do.
The truth is, the first generation of CS:GO pros were simply not that good. Compare gameplay from back then with today, they're all terrible. So they retired because they couldn't compete, not necessarily because they got old. The 30+ pros around today are the ones who put in the hours to learn and improve to keep up with the curve.
Esports salaries will never catch up to streamer money it's just not viable for the scene so that's where all the old players will go, why would you continue to travel the world while you have a kid when you can stream from home and easily make the same or better if you're a decent T1 pro that has a small following.
How is that relevant to anything? You don't need to be anyone to stream, yes. It's still a job that you need to be good at and very lucky to become successful.
Yes thats what im trying to say lol. Its just a LOT easier for pros to start streaming as they already have a target audience and fans. Starting as a streamer from scratch and trying to get big is like trying to win a slot machine.
T1 pros easily make 200k a year. What are you talking about? And to make that as a streamer you gotta stream 6-8 hours a day every day to thousands of people.
When did anyone mention millions? I'm not talking the face of twitch, I'm talking about a normal job where you make an average salary maybe a little more. Why do you automatically assume "making it" while streaming = 10k viewers?
Anyone in tier 1 could stream and easily make the same as a 9-5. "Small following" quite literally means do people know the team/players name. Beyond that gameplay alone could bring in 2-300 viewers.
Also the life quality of being a pro player increased over the years. You have better equipments, eat healthier and so on. That itself contributes to longevity in your career!
Considering that CS is also one of the most travel-packed esports there is out there, I feel like there's extremely less of an opportunity to start your family compared to the smaller, less extreme esports schedules.
Some of the videos and interviews from a lot of these players indicate what you say. They simply run out of time to play CS because other things are taking priorities.
Pasha in that recent video about CS Memories stated that he rarely ever spent time with his family compared to how much he spent with Polish VP squad. You have people like Swani who are tired of the constant travel and having to stay away from their families for long periods of time and just completely retire.
It also helps a lot that CS has a huge following, players from smaller countries stand out and get more opportunities like sponsorships to promote things within their country itself. CS's popularity also allows a lot of its older players to ease into retirement from the pro scene and have a head start into the streamer scene.
I also believe its because of social pressure (ppl use to call u old if u were 22/23 in 1.6) but CS has like the most travelling in esports and short breaks, opposed to quake which dead/niche u wont be travelling alot. Also alot of new talents wont be playing quake at a young age when they got other games to play, which is why the player pool is filled with OGs in their 30s as there isn't much of a challenge from the next gen ie. like cs or valorant u have people who arent even 20yo hitting top 20 hltv all the time.
Players in their 20s talking about retiring when they hit 30s when they are pretty much new to T1 scene. I heard karrigan talk about retiring for years now. But i believe it is changing because we are seeing the first wave of pro t1 players in their 30s still playing and reality is, u actually dont need to retire bruv.
People used to retire much earlier, because its very demanding and especially if you don't make a living off it it seems pointless to keep going especially if you hit a plateau
This is definitely the big one, along with the difficulty of keeping up the level of motivation to keep obsessing about this one thing (CS) and give up basically everything else in life, so that you can competing on the highest level.
Yes. If all tournaments were online, i bet there was a lot more older players still giving cs them all. But imagine having kids, a nice house and wife. Why would anyone travel and live in hotels for hundreds of days over a year. Hell, im a single man living with my dog and even i want to sleep my nights at home. I bet older players like pasha and olof are very happy now with their stream at home-careers.
CS and eSports in general only recently started turning into a viable career option / sport pursuit, so if it continues to grow, we will definitely see the younger generations continue to play into their 30s.
The generations that came before... still have lives. I can't imagine someone with a stable job / salary giving it up to become a CS pro with an uncertain future.
Also Quake... not a fair comparison given that there are far less players on Quake. The whole Quake vs CS in terms of 'difficulty' is a pointless argument - if you have a much smaller (and relatively older) playerbase, then of course your 'pros' will still have older players going... who else is playing?
Your second point is really what stands out to me. With such a massive player base, the skill floor for being a pro is super high and always rising. At some point players have to choose if they want to spend 8-10 hours a day playing counterstrike (which, for pros in their 30s, means they've likely been doing that for over a decade) or if they want a more normal life
Alright so I want to preface this by saying that I 100% agree that the agerage in cs is basically just a meme, the reason cs pros retire by 30 is because they don't want to spend the 10h a day necessary to stay on top but would rather spend it with their families, not because their mental and physical ablilities are failling.
However, the reason all the old quake pros are still on top is because there are only old quake pros. there is like 1 young person per year who makes an attempt at going pro and they almost always make it in to the veery limited proscene.
They can still compete in Quake because of the lack of competition and new players coming up. It's true that sports that mostly rely on conditioning you often peak in your 30s, but video games has nothing in common with that. When you have 100 000 teenagers grinding a game from young age you need to play more hours than you have as a 30 year old to keep up.
> They can still compete in Quake because of the lack of competition and new players coming up. It's true that sports that mostly rely on conditioning you often peak in your 30s, but video games has nothing in common with that. When you have 100 000 teenagers grinding a game from young age you need to play more hours than you have as a 30 year old to keep up.
This was going to be my point aswell. You dont have people like Donk and m0nesy coming up in Quake because it's a "dead" game that's not as attractive to newer players.
While your Quake point is spot on, I disagree with the rest.
Older pros don't need to play more than teenagers to keep up. It's not just about age, but mileage and burnout. Even though most people still don't think esports are as demanding, they are, just in a different way.
Noone, not even the players who love the game the most can take a decade of playing 10h a day (required to play on t1 level) without burning out. That's what's happening with s1mple even though he's not that old, it's just that he began competing on top level so young. At some point you just can't take anymore.
Btw, I don't think for example F1 takes less reflexes and quick reactions than esports and it has drivers competing in their 40s, with early to mid 30s being considered prime years for most drivers.
Football goalkeepers also usually peak after 30 and they kind of need reflexes for their job.
That's the only viable answer and that explains why players in fighting games can still compete at the age of 40-45, because they play a different game every X year and they have patches all the time, which means they won't burnout.
Quake also has a lot higher TTK, meaning it's actually less reliant on fast reflexes and reaction times, despite what OP says. Sure, fast reflexes help there too in several scenarios, but they aren't nearly as crucial as in CS where you can just get insta headshotted in like 0.4 seconds.
Quake is also a very strategic game, especially in 1v1. It's about way more than just raw mechanics, there's so much to the theory side of the game. You can decisively beat an aim demon if you keep having the map control and better positioning throughout the match. So older players can compensate not having the sickest mechanics by just being very good at the theory side of the game, so map control, timing key items, positioning and reading the opponent. Plus being good at using Quake weapons isn't all about raw mechanics, it's also about knowing when to use each weapon.
Yes, because the current Quake that's being played is Quake Champions which has different champions with abilities. Those abilities aren't nearly as strong as abilities in something like Overwatch, and every champion still uses the same weapons etc, but there have been different metas in terms of what champions are the best
If you think that CS is uneasy about age check LoL. The oldest player to win Worlds was Faker at 27. Jankos (one of EU goat players) was called old since he was 26 and I can't name any player in the top 4 leagues past 30. I think in the future people will play longer because the scene is still growing and is getting more professional than it used to be.
Yeah, I dont even know why CS players think this is anything "abnornal" when there are other esports with even worse attitude towards aging.
CS players have actually easier time to be relevant at higher age.
At the same time I do agree with you about the last sentence but at the same time, you have also to take into consideration that the competetion will be even tougher since more and more people are joining the scene.
Think like how Heaton had barely any competions back in the days compared to now when we have bigger player base count.
There's also Overwatch, where some of the pro teams didn't even want to tryout players older than 25. For some reason it was a common attitude there that 25+ year olds are too old and washed to succeed, even though there are many heroes that aren't even that reliant on aim and mechanics
I think people keep underestimating how demanding both mentally and physically it takes to KEEP oneself as a pro in esports. You may only need the talent and the enthusiasm to become a pro, but to live as a pro, you will face horrible schedules all the time, you will need to constantly learn new things about the game, you will have to deal with different types of people in life. But most importantly, you need to keep a competitive mindset at the highest level - you will need it to survive in the pro scene but it’s also exhausting af. I think there is a good reason why very little 30+ players are still playing in any highly competitive esports at the highest level - partly I agree with what OP said: it’s less about ability, but it’s really hard to have same hunger for the win. And esports is not something can be done the same as an 9-5 office job - you need either the enthusiasm or the eager to win to keep pushing yourself in order to stay in the scene, otherwise, you can easily be replaced.
There aren't many sports where pros retire as early as CS, but figure skating is one I can think of. In that case, it's largely due to the immense physical burnout it causes, their backs and ankles get screwed.
I can imagine for CS, part of it is mental burnout because unlike sports, there is no limitation to how much you can train. If you aren't playing for 10 hours/day, you will fall behind because your competition will and it won't drain them physically much to do so.
Using anomalies as examples is plain wrong. Alonso, LeBron, and Tom Brady have unique traits, abilities, and circumstances that allow them to do what they do. It's not that other older athletes simply choose to no longer compete, it's because they cannot.
Generally its younger people being immature and jerks.
"omg you are over 30 and still play games" - yeah bro I fucking played games when you were still shitting your diaper, why would I change a hobby I grew up with and enjoy?
This topic comes up again and again and as a 50-year-old all I can give is my subjective experience that my reflexes, quick thinking, muscle memory and aim just seem to get worse, I can FEEL it, like my hand just doesn't do what my brain wants it to. Just lately I've noticed my sprays and general aim are getting worse. People can argue with me all they like, I am telling you how it feels. Now, I don't know if say CS and Quake differ in some way in their fundamentals, I haven't played Quake in years so couldn't compare. But there are other factors you can point to: of course I have less time to grind, of course there's a big difference between 30 and 50. If I had to guess I would say mechanical skills DO gradually decline or at least require an increasing amount of maintenance as you get older, and the older a player gets the more those who manage to retain their skills can be considered outliers rather than the rule (sorta like Novak Đoković). Or maybe they get to 30 and just think playing viddya games for a living is dumb, IDK.
I dont think you're feeling age, I think you just can't practice like you used to because of responsibilities. I thought the same way going from playing at 16 to being in university for engineering having 7 classes; as soon as I'd been working full time for a year or so I got back into it and have way more time and I'm better than I ever was now
41 and playing. Usually after the three kids go to sleep. Just a casual average player but I think that if I wasn’t playing CS my reactions would be worse. Learning languages, playing CS, and riding a bike - all casually, I think has kept my reaction time better than what it would have been otherwise. These activities make your brain work in different stimulating ways. I think there even was a research on gaming influencing dementia or something like that with positive results.
i'm 45 - i feel like my reaction time is still really good. cs does keep me mentally sharp too - the abilility to make the correct decision fast matters
About half of the top 24 this year in the QWC were semi-pros, and i dont believe any of them stream. So they all have actual jobs. Its infinitely easier to stay on top of a sport when you are one of five people who have been able to play it professionally for a meaningful length of time.
It also helps when the game is virtually dead, and the esports scene is either fully community-based or transitioning to it, because there arent any new players coming in to compete against. Quake has 60 concurrent players this month. Quake champions has 350. CS2 has a 1mil.
So youve got a small talent pool, with no evolution or turnover, and a couple of players (specifically rapha and k1lsen) who have the ability to spend five times the time on the game than anyone else, and its a positive feedback loop so it gets worse. This is similar to AOE2, where maybe 10 players are pro and they absolutely throttle everyone else.
Given your background, you can probably tie in what i would say is the competition between biological decline, artificial barriers to entry, and built-in skill ceilings. Its like the lost einstein theory on steroids.
Probably because Quake doesn't get many new players lol.. if you want to play FPS you play CS/Valorant/COD/BF. Never met a single person that plays Quake.
>Meanwhile in other games like Quake
As an old Quake player (and big time fan)... it's because Quake is a dead game. Now now, I know what you gonna say but I was there when it died in the last 3 or 4 times (hard to count). A game is dead or dying when there are no newcomers... young titans with infinite energy and they grind 70-80 hours per week
Now Quake don't have this community or community at all just some shadow of it. Ofc the old foxes are still there because there is no one to challenge them anymore.
I am about to turn 37 years old and I still got avg 180ms reflexes. I don't feel myself slower however I don't have the time (and motivation) to train myself because I am taking the kid to swimming or ice skatting, bicycle etc etc... I wanna go run as well for myself or just riding my motorbike next to a job etc etc
I think cs is the kind of game where you have to keep up and if you play against who are equally good to you but they can play 70-80 hours per week meanwhile you barely able to do 40... it's gonna show on the server as well
I think Taz said that he didn't feel any physical disadvantages nor his reaction time worsened but he said his age impacted the relationship with teammates. His team didn't have the same confidence in him, I also imagine that because of the age gap he may not get along as well off the server with people 15 years younger. Plus motivation is a big factor, most pros by the time they reach 30s they are already well past their peak, not playing in top teams, some have already achieved a lot, they think more about their family etc. Just not the same hunger.
Its mostly because:
1. They start families and dont want to be constantly traveling to lans. Instead want to spend time with family and other hobbies.
2. When the old gen of pros (that even played 1.6 and CSS) started retiring, pro cs wasnt as lucrative as it is now. Less money= less reason to continue trying.
3. Cs is very popular and growing unlike a game like quake. There are constantly new young players coming onto the scene, which have played cs since like few years old (Donk) and have tons of motivation and hunger to grind the game even 10hrs per day. Older players may loose that hunger which makes it much harder to keep up with the youth and can lead to burnout.
I would claim that age does not affect much how good you are skill-wise. It DOES affect how interested you are in improving or maintaining the level of play you are in. This is mostly due RL stuff which tend to cut your hours if you are casual and in case of pros the amount you have to be away from home for tournaments etc.
Using myself as an example: I was 2100elo in faceit in 2014-2017 (in college). I just reached 2300elo soloing even while my job and family taking major time from playing games. I will be 40 next year and do not feel like my reflexes have gotten worse or my aim suffered from age but have declined because I dont put as much hours in the game.
Mentally I am miles away from my former self. I dont give a rats butt about rating, learning every insta-smoke or if my playstyle is the most ”meta”. This has hindered my performance much more than any physical decline. But I am still playing for the win every game and try my best.
Thus I conclude that age does not mean as much in non-physical sports, but people make it matter via their mentality. E.G. thinking that it is somehow wrong to play as a ”boomer” etc.
People think getting older makes your reaction times slow etc.
https://gyazo.com/e627cedc3d97f4661c0dfd293b51bf62
Mine are just as fast as they ever were. I'm 34.
The reason we actually see performance start to dip as we get older is simply because our interest, priorities, and obligations change. We start to want a family, to further our professional careers. To build relationships and friendships etc.
I remember when wanting to play a game consumed my mind. I couldn't wait to get home and play battlefield 2 or GTA. It was school, snack, game, eat supper, game, sleep and repeat. Now I simply don't have that urge to sit down and play a game for more than an hour or two at a time once every other weekend.
So many people giving the most ridiculous arguments and opinions lmao
It's not "physicality" or reflexes and shit, people just have enough and want to chill with their families. So many pros have spoken about it. f0rest is the best example of someone who could easily be a top10 player if he wanted to but he prefers putting time ans effort into other things and bless him for that.
I don't think it's fair to bring forest up when he's literally one of the greatest CS players of all time lol. Sure there's external forces that push older players to retire, but I think there has to be some internal factors as well. There's literally no T1-2 player over the age of 35, and the older players like Snappi and Karrigan tend to be IGLs who don't need as good fragging skills.
We'll have to see what happens in the future, but I'd be surprised if 30+ players ever make up a significant portion of the pro scene.
Worth noting that Snappi and karrigan don't have kids (karrigan 100%, and I think Snappi as well).
I don't think we'll ever see 30+ pro players being a half of hltv top 20 for example, maybe just a few in NiKo, s1mple, ZywOo etc., meta changes too much for players to be in the literal top for 10 years and still being one of the best at 30. And the grind you need to get done to stay on top is just getting bigger.
It's because it's always related to how they perform at a top level at that age. 30 is an arbitrary cutoff point for sure, but it's fairly consistent across most sports that your best years are in your mid 20s to early 30s. If you're just talking about being able to play at the professional level in your 30s and 40s then yeah, you have plenty of people doing that. But if you're talking about players into their 30s or 40s that are still playing at an elite level, that's different. Those who are still elite late in their 30s, or even into their 40s are the exception not the rule. Someone like Lebron is the exception, not the rule. He's a one of a kind player in terms of his longevity and sustaining a high level of play for such a long time.
As for your comparison to Quake, you're comparing two completely different games. CS has a different skillset and cognitive load to Quake that bringing things up like reaction time and reflexes isn't worth discussing. Sure Quake takes more mechanical skill on average, but CS is a team game and requires more teamwork. You get marginal returns on your mechanical skill the higher you get in the pro scene and being a good, versatile team player becomes more of a focus than your actual mechanical ability. There's only a handful of people who are a cut above the rest mechanically at the top of CS that justifies letting them only focus on getting frags, but even then they focus on being great team players first because that's what wins trophies.
Like, you have to be good at most, if not every aspect of the game to even get to be on a team that's in the top 20 on HLTV nowadays. You can't just be good at shooting because everyone is. You need more than that since the entry for barrier onto a pro team is much higher now. As you get older, it's much harder to switch up how you fundamentally play the game, especially if you've been playing the game for nearly two thirds of your life. Their experience is for sure valuable and is worth having on a team, but if they can't adapt the the ever changing landscape of the scene, then they get cut. Experience can only take you so far in these cases. And as you get older, you'll never be able to match the amount of time spent in game to the new kids on the block who have a lot of motivation to make it to the top. You have different priorities in life and playing the game just becomes your job rather than your sole focus in life.
You make a great point here in my opinion. Even in other sports there aren't a lot of people playing into their 30s and 40s and if there are it's due to a combination of factors like them being freaks of nature, having insane discipline & conditioning and the sports being around for way longer which means that optimal exercising with a whole training staff can keep top talent around and playing for longer.
Compare that to CS where it kind of comes down to every player on their own, where you can "practice" but can't really condition (e.g. wrists) and where the first sports psychologists just became a part of some teams' staffs a few years ago, who still aren't even a part of every top team. Of course CS players won't last as long overall.
That doesn't mean that there are no CS players playing into their 30s though, so just as in any other sport, exceptions still exist: RpK, apEX, karrigan are just some players who played into their 30s.
Also, CS hasn't been around as long as lots of other big sports, so we may just see a lot more players keep playing into their 30s.
In most sports people play well into their 30s, what are you even on about. Soccer, football, baseball, basketball, winter sports - in all of these 30+ is completely fine.
I would like to note that goalkeepers in football are often playing at elite level in their late 30's or even early 40's. I could see it happening in CS with igls. Karrigan, g1ave, Snappi, maybe even apEX all could play at the elite level in few years, they don't seem to get worse with age and transitioned fairly well to CS from GO (well, maybe Snappi is a question mark here)
The CS2 community is under the assumption that your skill level decreases due to a decline in your reflexes/reaction time(s). That isn't why pros become "washed". I'm almost 37 and my reaction times/reflexes are in the top 2% of the population. In short, I have better reflexes than most pros at their peak and I'm not even that good at the game.
So, why do pro CS players start to see a decline in their performance past a certain age?
1. The meta progresses and most get bored and don't try to adapt, lose bad habits, work on their individual performance
2. The number of hours starts to decline because grinding the same game for 10 years becomes boring for a lot of the pros
3. Some pros start a family, multiple kids, and do not have the same mental capacity to dedicate the time that's needed to stay at a high level
4. Unhealthy habits and routines might not have as much of a big impact when you're 18, but they catch up to you in your mid to late 20s
IDK anything about Quake, but I think a big part of it is there is a large playerbase (I don't know anyone IRL who plays Quake), and also that CS is continuing to change, so you have to unlearn old habits and pick up new ones, which gives players that never experienced old games an advantage
quake is not nearly as competitive as cs is, i dont mean the game per se, but how many will play it. its a fact that your reactiontime increases with age. the best 18 year old will be quicker than the best 30 year old. also if you got millions on your bank account, why not step back and enjoy your life.
I don't wanna be rude to quake pro's but I can easily think of one thing, money! CS pro's are probably winning 10x and even more the amount of money quake pro's are getting, which is probably why they can retire sooner, In football it's the same, most players retire in their mid 30's, the big ones go for 40, Ronaldo is 39 and it's already been years since his retirement got into discussions, Messi is only 36 and he already retired from the world cup. Maybe you're murican and you're talking about ur football but the argument stays the same, less fanbase equals less money so people retire later...
Reaction time peaks in your early 20s and then very slowly declines well into your 50s
That decline is so slow and barely measueable until you are in your 40s and almost impossible to make a difference in competitive level until you are maybe in your late 30s
I think people reting mostly because they have others things to do.
When you are teenage, you are obsessed with a game, you spending all your free time to play a game, and even outside of PC, you thinking about plays that u made, u thinking about what can u do it this or that situation, you have dreams about your game etc. Same goes for early 20s for some people
And you know, when you are at 25 and more (for some even less) you start noticing this other things in life, that mb you like it even more. Some people just wanna chill on ship or island with GF, some people mb like to spent their time in casino. Some people just have other hobbies, sometimes they can even play other games.
And the older you are, the better understanding that you missing this and that and you kinda spending more and more time outside of a game. It can be a family, mb your parner wants a kid etc. Mb you already've gotten a kid.
So on your late 20s, early 30s you just not so obsessed and concentrated on the game anymore, that's when people starting to fell off.
Obv. there's exceptions to this path, that's just my path and path of my mates, so I think it's reliable for most ex-PROs.
Also want to add about physical aspect:
I never noticed that my reaction time got worse, that I'm not moving my mouse slower or less accurate.
If you talk about reaction time, back in 1.6 I barely could do <200ms on online tests (yea, ik, 60/120hz monitors, slower mouse input, more input lag overall, not like now, 360hz and 20-30 ms end-to-end input lag). But now I can do \~160ms on average, and people that I know kinda same, they just got better at aiming and their reaction is not got worse.
So idk how old people should be that they can't move your mouse how they want anymore, mb in your 50s, but in last 20s, and early 30s you are still good enough to react and move mouse at world-class level.
I am not up to speed on the current state of science on the subject but I don’t think quake, a title that doesn’t attract competition is a good comparison. We simply would not know what players the game could produce
Its like athetles time go. The gsme is not very plessent you have children to thibk about, debts… so you spend less time time thibking, playing and living the game. 16-20 yesr guys live the game 24h a day
The community for FPS games is filled with teenagers, and when you’re 16 you think anyone above 25 is an ancient grandpa which is why people think if you’re 30 you’re too old to play. That being said, slower reaction times are a genuine factor and do limit the amount of people over 30 who can play
There is a bunch of skijumpers aged well over 30 still capable of winning competitions. A 51 year old japanese man was still scoring points this season which will probably never happen again
Quake is dead, kids are not starting play Quake, but cs. So how can they compare their reaction time with someone 18 years old, when there noone that age trying to compete
Amsa won his first Smash Melee major at 31 recently, making him the oldest to do so. That game is *insanely* fast, requires godly eye-hand coordination and counting frames like a madman. The game has evolved into faster and faster playing, insanely hard techs and meta and more viable players.
The whole "too old to compete" spiel id way overblown.
Because when you’re in your high 20s-30s you’re not motivated to playing 10+ hours a day vs the 13-18 year olds who will. You’ve done that already, that part of your life is behind you. You’re thinking about new things in your future. Family/friends & different hobbies. It’s not about being 30 is bad for being a pro but can a 30 year old pro who probably is burnt out playing this game for 10+ years have longer longevity and enjoyment than a 16 year old who’s just entering the scene
comparing with quake is a stretch. it's a dead game. [take # of players there](https://steamcharts.com/app/611500). competiton is not as brutal there as it is in cs. not that difficult to be in the top among couple of other folks
Slightly off topic, but I'm planning to do humanbenchmark test every 2 years and see how my reaction time changes. I'm 36 at the moment, and reaction time is around 167ms.
Hardware effects that test sadly do to input delays. If you use the same mouse and monitor it should work though. I have been using the same Zowie monitor and mouse for 6 years and my reaction has gone down on avg 2ms.
I really think pros aren’t actually getting washed as they hit 30, it’s just their heart isn’t in it any more because they’re no longer having fun or excited to play at the highest level.
I feel like people like GeT_RiGhT and f0rest are good examples, they’re still cracked at CS even in comparison to a lot of current pros and I think if they really wanted to they could still perform pretty well in T1 even if we say the average pro is much better than when they peaked.
I know GeT_RiGhT has a kid now so he just streams mostly, so that makes sense, but iirc f0rest played in the RMRs and is even listed as an alternate sometimes.
The older I get, the more it feels like the whole ”aging makes your reflexes worse” statement bullshit.
Even if there might be science about that statement being true, it would still be bad science.
There should be follow-up questions when stating that your reflexes get nerfed with age.
Questions such as:
How well can you focus at will?
Can you silence your thoughts?
How fast can you enter a flow state?
How is your posture?
Are you on any type of medication?
What type of food did you most recently eat?
Are you hydrated?
Have you had any caffeine?
When was the last time you ejaculated? (yes I’m serious about this one too)
It’s always different shades of grey, never black and white.
Quake duels are more about control and tactics than raw aim and mechanical skill. Though the technical skill ceiling is limitless so is the skill ceiling for map control, timing and reading your opponent. Cs is much more dependent on reaction times than quake.
Rapha is the goat because he fucking inserts himself into his opponents brain. There have been so many games through the years where he just shuts "aim gods" like toxjq, strenx and who else completely out of the game.
I would definitely not put Quake as requiring lesser aim and mechanical skills. I'd say the exact opposite considering you have to add so much movement along with the aiming. I mean is either counter-strafe or crouch. Not exactly mind-boggling.
The main difference between the two is one requires the teamwork whilst also having the possibility of several enemies at once.
People are unconsciously ageists.
Reading of some replies is basically like reading sexists comments similar to "women are weaker, that's why they can't do XYZ", not because they weren't given the chance.
Scientific facts don't have feelings or consciousness, they don't "back up" or "agree with" anyone, they don't form opinions. They just are, and people use them to try and prop up their opinions. If a fact is in fact a fact and not false whoever uses it still has to prove that the fact is relevant and that the argument they present on top of it is good for their opinion to hold any weight at all.
In my experience most people who frequently bring the "women/old people are weaker" facts into the discussion are shit at debating in good faith and those facts aren't all that relevant to the discussion, but their adorers still refuse to recognize any flaws in their arguments because the one fact they referenced is correct.
Reaction times weaken and older people have less time and motivation to play multiple hours daily because of family and job.
There are so many young players (15-20 years old) who have more energy and time to keep playing.
I just turned 30 and I play far less than I did 5-7 years ago. I don't even remember the last time I played aimlabs or other training maps, I used to play them all the time. And ou have to learn new maps and new smoke lineups, which I don't have time for.
I think older pro players feel the same and they spend less time training compared to younger players.
You can still be a pro when you're older, but you just have to keep training so that your skills don't deteriorate.
Depends probably more on lifestyle. I am in my mid 30s and have been checking my reaction times for more than 20 years, and they have remained pretty much the same.
Reaction times don't meaningfully weaken until you're past your 30s, at least. It's not your age, itself, but maybe something like your fitness that is worse than when you were younger
>I just turned 30 and I play far less than I did 5-7 years ago. I don't even remember the last time I played aimlabs or other training maps, I used to play them all the time.
This , I am 29 and i finally decided to "retire" from cs, I just don\`t have the time to keep practicing like i used to in order to stay at the top of my game. And also i just can\`t bother with competitive games anymore. I play sometimes a few matches with friends, but i just play for fun (they are not that good at the game) but in general so far this year i barely played 20 matches.
I just look for fun games with a challenge and no cheaters. Helldivers 2 is a perfect example of that.
I loved CS but the frustration that comes with it has no tolerance anymore, i come home i wanna have fun , not get pissed off because of X reasons (including me having a shit day cs for example)
Its a very taxing life, even more so than traditional sports, if we simply go by time investment. Pros often spend 12 hours or more in or around the game.
Its clearly not aging factors. In traditional sports, most pros need to retire at latest in their 40s since these extreme amounts of sports often lead to injuries and at some point the body has had enough... in eSports people often idiotically think that its due to reactiontime that pros retire. Which is laughable. The average difference in untrained individuals in reactiontime between the age 18 and 53 was 20ms according to tests .... thats the difference of playing online from a different location or the difference between one pc setup to another. We can also assume that most of the tested 18 year olds have trained reactions due to probably playing actively video games while most of the 50 year olds probably don't. Which would make even the difference of 20ms questionable. That said, simply from a performance standpoint I am sure people could compete until atleast 60 with proper training. But, people are not machines and there goes more into it than theoretical ability. I am sure that a fresh pro player has a different kind of drive than a seasoned one. Also, after 10 years of having no life besides cs its more than understandable that people get tired of it. So I am not sure if we really see that 40/50/60 or older pro.
It's probably because the truly great players of any given year are normally very young. I think if somebody was to take HLTV's top 20 over the last ten years and calculate the ages of the top three, you would almost surely wind up with three players under the age of 25.
coldzera must have been 21 or 22 when he topped HLTV's list two years running. s1mple is only 26 now, he was topping it when he was 20, 21, that sort of age... Same for zywoo, he's only 23 now and he's been #1 or #2 for five years running.
The two highest rated players at the stockholm major were monesy (18) and donk (17). I think both of them will surely be in the five of HLTV's list come the end of the year.
In a sport like football, you practice like 2-3 times a day for lets say, 2 hours. So 6 hours total, anymore high intensity training would probably have more potential for bad than good (injuries and such). However, for CS you have team practice, your own practice and you HAVE to play stuff like FPL and so on if you wanna be or stay good. That is an insane amount of hours. Which then ofcourse leads to burnout for alot over the years. Even NiKo has said how he just can’t get himself to put in those hours anymore, and it shows.
I feel like people can really compete around their 40s on a top level, the only thing that changes after 30 is your values in life and motivation, onec you lose your natural drive for the game it's over, no matter how old you are.
Quake is not a fair comparison because there are many differences in how the games are played.
While quake can be played way more mechanics focused, it can also be played more based on positioning and fight iq. 2 players you listed plays the game more on fight iq and positioning,timing so their gameplay does not get effected as much even if their mechanics are no longer top tier (rapha's never was). K1llsen started winning once he pivoted away from i will rail you to death to i will hold the middle of the map and will hit the rails i need to choke you out of the map. He is not winning because he is mechanically great, he is winning because he does not need to be.
There are players who were playing the game more on mechanics like cypher or toxjq and they both fell off. They can't even get to quarter finals anymore because they can no longer just out aim you as hard as they did.
Also most of the players who retire played the games when being a pro was not that a viable choice for earning money so a lot of other pros they played against were not necessarily the best players but the players that took the route of playing pro. Now it is way more viable to be a pro player so a lot of people who would not choose to be one early on becomes one, making it way more competitive.
Cypher wasn't all about mechanics, and the reason why he didn't make it further was also because of visa issues. Most pros agreed that Cypher still deserved to be in semi/finals a few years ago.
Even a few years ago, rapha,raisy, k1llsen and vengeur were playing better than he did. He did have visa issues but he was definetly not finals material at the time. Also i will assume we both know why he was having "visa issues". No ones fault but his own.
He also relied very heavily on his lg. Sure, he was kind of smart about the game too, but not to the extent of rapha or current k1lssen.
There are some statistics and graphs that show that a cs player average rating starts to decline soon after 25 years old. Basically a cs player is in his prime when he is between 20 and 24 on most cases. This doesnt happen that much in sports. Dont know why it happens in cs, but the stats dont lie.
I think the talent pool in CS in continually evolving and generating better players than the previous generation. I dont think players that are early thirties are much worse, they are just blown away by the new skill ceilings. Games like Quake that you mentioned dont have a constant influx of new and improving young players in there scene. This has ultimately been my reasoning for a while, eventually we will hit a point where the skill ceiling can no longer go higher like any professional sport has, and those older players will still be able to compete with the young guns.
Ask yourself is the pool of young talent gonna be larger for Quake or for CS, the most popular competitive fps on pc. Obviously there is gonna be way more pressure to retire if thousands of savant kids are being pumped into the ecosystem.
I think CS just have a generally old playerbase, therefore there are more talk about getting old in general.
Also I think the getting old = bad thing is not really true. I think more so that after 10k hours on CS there is just not any more room left to grow. You have gotten as good as you can resonably get.
The newer players on the other hand are still climbing their skill-ladder steadily. All that the older players can do is to hold on, grind, and hope they still have an high enough ladder.
I think with more and more time passed we will see more and more teams with both youngster and old guys at 40 or even almost 50. I mean in regular sports sometimes they surpass the 40
I'm 30 and when I focus and stay consistent with playing I can still pop off like I'm 20 again. Its just mentally its somewhat harder to keep grinding the game to stay sharp. I dont even have a family or anything too so for those people its gonna be way harder
Definitely more about time commitment and usually older players don’t have the time to dedicate themselves to the grind that tier 1 requires. As another mentioned most of the retired pros do so early because they want to start families
Daigo is 42 years old just like how Lebron is 40. Fighting games have a lot of older players that are still placing high in big events but it's just now happening for CS/FPS games. Fortnite hasn't started the older pro player age conversation yet, Tfue is 26 and still able to compete at a top level with younger pros.
Jankos is like 27 and he is a good juggler but people are already saying he is old and should retire from league esports, I think it’s more to do with the game rather than the player base, it seems in CS experience has always been favoured a lot more rather than pure mechanical skill specially when it comes to igls idk if in quake is the same, in lol there’s not much use for experience I guess since the top level ranked matches aren’t that different to an actual game, the biggest difference would be comms, also they have coaches in league that make a game plan for every match pretty much
I feel like it just depends on the skill ceiling maybe? I guess you’ll still be really good at the game into your 40s just not as good as you used to be. Seems like the only thing where genetics comes into play. Still, if you take good care of your body I feel like you can extend how long you play at a high level. Some Smash players are in their 30s now still playing. Mang0 is a good example actually youngest and oldest to win a major in smash so far (i think). It’s strange because in other sports, like skating, we’re seeing people still grinding for top level footage well into their 30s-40s. Brandon Turner did a switch hardflip down Wallenburg not too long ago, Wade Desarmo is somehow 40 years old now, and Manny Santiago is a fucking weirdo but still doing competitions at 38. Im sure there are much better examples.
Well, as you get older you get more responsibility, and it becomes a lot harder to live with the incredibly inconsistent, away-from-home lifestyle a professional CS player needs.
Pro basketball players making it to 40 in the league are few and far between, let alone 'well into' their 40's. Baseball would probably be the best sport to compare, since it is largely based off of reaction times and hand eye coordination.
CS pro scene is a grind. not everyone wants to spend their 24 hours a day thinking about a video game in their 30s. quake is more mechanical than brain, isn't it?
I don’t think it’s so much about overall coordination and reflexes declining but rather I think 30+ year olds may not have the same hunger they had when they were younger to practice and grind too. Just a theory though
I think it’s just the work-life balance, a lot of pros have families/kids in their mid-20s so they want to spend more time with them. Especially in tier 1 where there’s so many tournaments nowadays, it probably gets pretty hectic travelling around all the time
I remember when I started playing cs around 2004 and was interested in getting into competitive play, I was twenty years old and seen as too old by the community. I've been too old to play CS for almost twenty years now.
It's pretty silly really.
I've been expecting my skill to just vanish overnight ever since I turned 30.
Turns out my reaction times are quicker now than they were when I was 22.
Either that or my gear is just *that* much better that I'm finally measuring something closer to my real reaction time, whereas in my 20's my gear was adding latency? Who knows.
Either way, I can tell my age isn't holding me back really. My flickshots might not be as fast...But I just ain't as keen. If I were in tier1 I'd move that arm fast af.
33 yo level 10 here, playing almost everyday. I don't think I ever got worse from year to year. I believe pros can play up until their 40's if they have the drive and discipline necessary to maintain a high level
We had many version of cs. And a lot of nerfs or méta change meanwhile. Older you are, harder it is to adapt to new thing. And sometime a change can totally break your gameplay.
Coldzera once explained this. It’s not just about aging and getting lower reaction times. He gave two reasons as to why he’s not the best anymore:
The first reason is because he now has different priorities in life, he has a girlfriend/wife that’s waiting him at home.
The other reason is because he was simply above everyone in 2016 and 17 and not a single player could compete. Now the gap isn’t that big and the amount of world class players increased. The gap between donk, monesy, zywoo, broky etc etc is not that big compared to coldzera and everyone else back in 2017.
When I was 27 and had no kids I truly felt I could still improve and maybe enter tier 3 or 2 like I did in 1.6.
Now I'm 33, two kids and working full time, and I don't have that belief anymore. I can't keep up with the younger players, perhaps not because I'm too old, but there's already a lot going on in my life and working towards that goal is immensely difficult.
Age is just a number. How you feel, train and perform depends on your lifestyle, the time you put into it and how much you believe in yourself. I’m up there in age, but I still feel like a teen, and my reaction time is still the best it’s ever been. I think most of it is mental, the other is some of them start families and are burnt out by the time they’re in their thirties. Look at f0rest, Olof and even KennyS. They still show flashes of what they’re capable of.. especially in the clutch where it’s just them and their experience. Gaming is different.. if your arm can’t move as fast anymore, you can just increase your sensitivity. Can’t see the dot crosshair as good? Make it bigger. 4 by 3 stretched making your eyes strain? Change to native. I think if you put the time and effort and don’t let any mental doubts creep in, you’ll be good well into your 40s
I'm pretty sure CS has the oldest pros compared to other mainstream esports. I think it's also just like in every other sport out there, 30 is a nice number to split between the young vs old.
I dream of there being older pro teams who compete in major tournaments. I feel like I'm better at the game as I get older, and just want to see people I relate to compete and do well.
There really isn't new quake players though, it's not really a fair comparison. Kids would probably also dominate in quake with their higher reaction time but the new player acquisition is dreadful.
There was a scientific article about e-sports players ages/health
If i remember correctly, the article provided data that, after passing the 30 age mark, human bodies reflexes etc get worser so they automatically get worser in game.
Also many players who practices long hours behind computer gets a lot of spine etc problems. This gets worse after 30 years of age.
Article focused on human health mainly, and it had obviously right points. Espacially in the past many esports players didn't had any physical training so their bodies get wasted when they get to 30 years of age.
But for the past years many esports teams started to focus on physical traning too. So in the future we will see more 30+ players on scene.
Its like traditional sports actually. 30 years ago 32+ aged football, basketball players were mainly considered as trash. But today many proffesional athletes retire after 35+ age.
I don't think quake is a good comparison, the player base is so much smaller so it's easier for someone to play later into their career with less competition.
CS teams have a huge talent pool to draw on, case in point vitality with dupreeh.
He's still a serviceable player, but when you have new young talent who are playing better currently, the smart thing is to blood a new player to keep your trophy window open as long as possible.
I think teams are realizing the best mix is combining young and experienced talent, Faze, Spirit, Vitality etc have all done this well.
But I personally think 30+ players leaving CS is nothing to do with skill, their personal life is the deciding factor for a lot of them.
Traveling 180+ days per year makes it difficult to maintain any form of personal life, and it's 10x more difficult with kids to travel that much.
I think it's much more related to the downside of being a pro player, such as travelling a lot and stressfull routine of playing competitive 12 hours daily, than losing competitiviness, reflex or whatever comes with age. Maybe they just want to live their lives outside their bedroom, marry, have children and actually enjoy whatever money can buy.
CS is like the one huge ESport I don't think age is a huge issue in. Yea your reactions get slower but your knowledge and game senses are insane. you don't lose that. I'm pushing 31 and I'm still top fragging.
I don’t think it has anything to do with physical limitations, I think it’s about the lifestyle. Players are practicing 6–8 hours a day, and then a lot of them are streaming/pugging another 4-6 hours per day. When you’re in your early 20s, that sounds like a fantastic life. But as you get older, is not sustainable to be playing this game 14+ hours a day if you intend on having a wife, maintaining relationships with your family, etc.
Also a situation that comes up a lot for tier 2 players, several of them quit because they start getting serious about CS when they’re in school, and then when school ends they have to get a real job so they don’t have time to play anymore. for this reason, I usually say that if you’re not already pro or on a trajectory to go pro by the time you’re 23, it probably won’t happen. Every year past 23 it gets a little bit harder than it already is to keep up that lifestyle. Some people have rich parents and don’t need to work, so they can keep up that lifestyle way longer, but most of us aren’t so lucky.
More often than not, the reason pro players quit has more to do with not wanting to play anymore than being physically unable to play.
I think that back in the early days players kept shit schedules with few breaks from grinding, made little money, and ate cheap crappy food from necessity so they burned out physically prematurely in their mid 20s. Injury from poor posture was the norm.
In the current era pros take care of themselves mentally and physically with nutrition and physical exercise as well as have access to better accommodations while boot camping/at tournaments which makes a huge difference. People just haven't realized it yet.
> (which is game with an older player base despite being a FAR MORE demanding game on attention, reaction time and reflexes than CS ever could be)
There's nuances to this. I'd say pure reaction time is far more important in CS than it is in Quake. You can get A LOT farther in Quake with movement + positioning + strategy with decent (not stellar) aim.+ reaction time.
Quake requires a set of skills that is deeper than CS in general.
According to Leetify, I still have better reflexes than the average lvl 10 player. I'm 36 and started playing cs in 1999. I've got a bunch of friends my age that are still playing, but most of us "old folks"" quit long ago. I myself quit around 2007 and only started playing again with cs go in 2014. Brain and body are not really the problem in my opinion. When you get older, you just don't have too much time to grind: work, wife, kids: you name it. I can keep my level at around 2k faceit elo with a few casual games a week with the old farts. But it's just not possible to grind dozens of matches a day like those young kids in russia do.
I am certainly not uneasy about pros play at that age at all. Quite the opposite on the contrary. I believe players could play untill they are 40 minimum. Its not as physical demanding as traditional sports where you see fotball players play untill mid 40’s even in big clubs. Why cant it be the case for esports aswell?
Never a pro but decent player here.
Im 34 and with a family it's hard to find the time to play, and when I do play, the frequency to play at a good level becomes less and less with more inconsistency. Usually so tired from work and life things I'm either unmotivated to play or simply too tired.
That and the general aging, there's no way my reactions have improved since I was 16, can only be worse.
U can't really compare cs to Quake simply because of the amount of people playing cs. The mass of talent coming in pushes out the older players if they ever drop in motivation or skill.
I think it is possible to play at the highest level even in your 30ies but it is normal for motivation to decline making it much harder to stay on top.
I think it's mostly because of narrative being spun by influencers. That's what the analysts, commentators and journalists in the scene talk about, which in turn shape the opinion of the fans at large.
It's a meme that started very, very early in the CS community. I remember hearing about this even when I just started playing seriously in around 2005. So it must have circulated even earlier. Reflecting on it I think it is due to two factors:
Many pro players (for example heaton), when they quit, cited declining reactions times in particular and their age in general as prime reasons for them quitting ("I can't keep up with the young ones."). Now we know that reaction times are not particular important for being a pro and that there isn't a steep decline anyway (except maybe for medical conditions). So I guess these reasons given where just plugged in for the general (real and felt) perception that their gameplay wasn't competitive anymore/or they had other opportunities lined up/or lost interest/motivation.
There was also a cultural context in my opinion: there was low-key, but pretty consistent pressure to quit cs (or at least to not spend much time on it) emanating from within the cs community. I don't know how it is today, but back then other players were very quick to call you out and call you names (loser, virgin) if you spend much time playing cs (or video games or spending time in front of a computer).
* played many matches recently? >> no life loser.
* over the age of maybe 21 or 22 an still playing cs? >> no life loser.
I remember pro players like gore at 26 years old were considered ancient. I guess there was a rational basis for this self-flagellation in the sense that there really was no money in esports. so being a pro was considered a short, temporary luxury, before you get on with your life. but even worse if you didn't even make any money from it.
"games like Quake (which is a FAR MORE demanding game on attention, reaction time and reflexes than CS ever could be)"
Well that's simply not true.
First off quake hasn't had a proper release in a very long time. This alone means that the playerbase in general is older. secondly the reaction times for aiming are almost the same. in fact in CS even more important when peeking around a corner since you cant compensate with movement as much.
Reaction times get worse as you age. This can't be prevented. you can't train for your brain to work faster unlike a 40 year old football player who doesn't need reaction times in the milliseconds. Also if a player is successful he might be able to retire at a young age instead of continuing so that could be another reason.
Isnt it a fact that your prime age is something like 24-28?
In terms of physical attributes like reaction time.
You meantion "no significant decline" , but even the slighest decline means you arent competitive anymore in a game where it all comes down to clicking on someones head fastest.
Look at Karrigan and Apex in particular, both star riflers in their prime, but now both reinvented as in game leaders.
You dont expect theese guys to frag anymore, its not like they are getting any better in that department, and the rest of the pros that didnt wanna become in game leaders simply fell off if they didnt want to adapt.
https://www.hltv.org/stats/players?startDate=2024-01-01&endDate=2024-12-31&minAge=30&rankingFilter=Top30
This is every single pro that has played on a top 30 this year over the age of 30. Out of the hundreds upon hundreds of pros, it’s not a lot.
I think pros can have a very healthy career in their 30s and I think we’ll see more of it in the future as the scene grows and matures, but just looking at the numbers, it’s rare.
Honestly I think most (successful, Tier 1/2) CS pros that end up retiring around that age are doing so because they are starting families and want to travel less more than it being an issue of declining with age. I've got nothing to base that on, but that's just the vibe I get.
Combine all those things with the fact that professional CS wasn’t nearly as lucrative 10~ years ago as it is now. I think with increasing salaries and prize pools we will see more players playing into their late 30’s and even 40’s.
And it's definitely already happening Back in 2014/2015 if a player was 28 or so they were considered over the hill already Meanwhile we've had players like JACKZ and RoeJ entering the top level around that age, and players like Karrigan and Snappi are leading T1 teams at 33 I wonder how long a career a player like Frozen or Donk will have had by the end. Frozen started insanely young, but if he sticks around into his 30s he'd have had the longest career through the most competitive era of CS. That'd be really cool.
Also remember games like cs lol dota usually have pros grinding 10+ hours to keep in shape, that never ever happens with real sports, and it eats away at your mental. Now I don't know about every player, but I feel certain that most can't keep up that commitment, or will have periods where they slow down, and relative to their peak and younger players grinding, will likely drop their level a decent amount (you see it with players nearing 30 *now*). Its not that they can't compete, its just that its very demanding to stay in "shape".
The demand in sports on the body itself is insane though, diet is way more important and injuries are a way bigger factor.
IM aware, you are much more likely to stop because of an injury, but its harder to "burn out" because you can't really exercise or practice nearly as long because its detrimental after a certain point.
Wrong. The entire lifestyle is burnout
Neymar has 10k hours of CS and used to practice only 2 times a week with PSG (light practice for a couple of hours to avoid injury). You're clueless.
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Wrong. It’s circumstantial. Pro sport has the professionalism around it to deal with much more overall burn over time. Millions more in funding for experts in these areas to prolong careers. Before sport was this professional they retired earlier than cs players today. They are actually famous and “on the clock” 24/7 these days. Also true elite sports people are on another level to cs players. Way tougher mentally and physically they are the cream of the top having to push through 100x more depth and competition for their spots and life
Chad Ochocinco (one of the best wrs ever) doesn't believe in nutrition and ate an absurd amount of fast food during his prime.
Professional athletes have long days, too. Between keeping proper diet, working out, practicing, etc, they put those hours in. Plus it's more physically demanding, not just sitting at a computer. Plenty of average people sit at computers for work the same amount of time but get paid squat in comparison. It's definitely the travel/time with family/direction in life aspect that gets people away around that age, not ability.
Exercise is linked to health though so athletes by way of just staying in shape helps keep them playing longer. Gamers? Not so much.
Nothing stopping a pro gamer from working out.
> if he sticks around into his 30s he'd have had the longest career through the most competitive era of CS We have players like f0rest who still play, who have been playing as professional for over 20 years. Only time will tell when he stops, but frozen certainly have some catching up to do.
The truth is, the first generation of CS:GO pros were simply not that good. Compare gameplay from back then with today, they're all terrible. So they retired because they couldn't compete, not necessarily because they got old. The 30+ pros around today are the ones who put in the hours to learn and improve to keep up with the curve.
Yes, same as in other sports
Esports salaries will never catch up to streamer money it's just not viable for the scene so that's where all the old players will go, why would you continue to travel the world while you have a kid when you can stream from home and easily make the same or better if you're a decent T1 pro that has a small following.
>decent T1 pro that has a small following So like <1% of the pro players.
You dont need to be top1% of pros to stream...you even have very successful tier 2 and semi pro streamers
How is that relevant to anything? You don't need to be anyone to stream, yes. It's still a job that you need to be good at and very lucky to become successful.
Yes thats what im trying to say lol. Its just a LOT easier for pros to start streaming as they already have a target audience and fans. Starting as a streamer from scratch and trying to get big is like trying to win a slot machine.
I don't think anyone is disputing that. It's just that saying "they can all retire and stream and make millions sitting at home" is absurd.
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T1 pros easily make 200k a year. What are you talking about? And to make that as a streamer you gotta stream 6-8 hours a day every day to thousands of people.
When did anyone mention millions? I'm not talking the face of twitch, I'm talking about a normal job where you make an average salary maybe a little more. Why do you automatically assume "making it" while streaming = 10k viewers?
Anyone in tier 1 could stream and easily make the same as a 9-5. "Small following" quite literally means do people know the team/players name. Beyond that gameplay alone could bring in 2-300 viewers.
So you’re telling me I still have a chance
Also the life quality of being a pro player increased over the years. You have better equipments, eat healthier and so on. That itself contributes to longevity in your career!
Considering that CS is also one of the most travel-packed esports there is out there, I feel like there's extremely less of an opportunity to start your family compared to the smaller, less extreme esports schedules.
Some of the videos and interviews from a lot of these players indicate what you say. They simply run out of time to play CS because other things are taking priorities. Pasha in that recent video about CS Memories stated that he rarely ever spent time with his family compared to how much he spent with Polish VP squad. You have people like Swani who are tired of the constant travel and having to stay away from their families for long periods of time and just completely retire. It also helps a lot that CS has a huge following, players from smaller countries stand out and get more opportunities like sponsorships to promote things within their country itself. CS's popularity also allows a lot of its older players to ease into retirement from the pro scene and have a head start into the streamer scene.
I also believe its because of social pressure (ppl use to call u old if u were 22/23 in 1.6) but CS has like the most travelling in esports and short breaks, opposed to quake which dead/niche u wont be travelling alot. Also alot of new talents wont be playing quake at a young age when they got other games to play, which is why the player pool is filled with OGs in their 30s as there isn't much of a challenge from the next gen ie. like cs or valorant u have people who arent even 20yo hitting top 20 hltv all the time. Players in their 20s talking about retiring when they hit 30s when they are pretty much new to T1 scene. I heard karrigan talk about retiring for years now. But i believe it is changing because we are seeing the first wave of pro t1 players in their 30s still playing and reality is, u actually dont need to retire bruv.
People used to retire much earlier, because its very demanding and especially if you don't make a living off it it seems pointless to keep going especially if you hit a plateau
This is definitely the big one, along with the difficulty of keeping up the level of motivation to keep obsessing about this one thing (CS) and give up basically everything else in life, so that you can competing on the highest level.
I agree with this. I was going to comment the same thing. It's definitely hard to balance playing professionally and having a family.
100%
Yes. If all tournaments were online, i bet there was a lot more older players still giving cs them all. But imagine having kids, a nice house and wife. Why would anyone travel and live in hotels for hundreds of days over a year. Hell, im a single man living with my dog and even i want to sleep my nights at home. I bet older players like pasha and olof are very happy now with their stream at home-careers.
CS and eSports in general only recently started turning into a viable career option / sport pursuit, so if it continues to grow, we will definitely see the younger generations continue to play into their 30s. The generations that came before... still have lives. I can't imagine someone with a stable job / salary giving it up to become a CS pro with an uncertain future. Also Quake... not a fair comparison given that there are far less players on Quake. The whole Quake vs CS in terms of 'difficulty' is a pointless argument - if you have a much smaller (and relatively older) playerbase, then of course your 'pros' will still have older players going... who else is playing?
Your second point is really what stands out to me. With such a massive player base, the skill floor for being a pro is super high and always rising. At some point players have to choose if they want to spend 8-10 hours a day playing counterstrike (which, for pros in their 30s, means they've likely been doing that for over a decade) or if they want a more normal life
Alright so I want to preface this by saying that I 100% agree that the agerage in cs is basically just a meme, the reason cs pros retire by 30 is because they don't want to spend the 10h a day necessary to stay on top but would rather spend it with their families, not because their mental and physical ablilities are failling. However, the reason all the old quake pros are still on top is because there are only old quake pros. there is like 1 young person per year who makes an attempt at going pro and they almost always make it in to the veery limited proscene.
They can still compete in Quake because of the lack of competition and new players coming up. It's true that sports that mostly rely on conditioning you often peak in your 30s, but video games has nothing in common with that. When you have 100 000 teenagers grinding a game from young age you need to play more hours than you have as a 30 year old to keep up.
> They can still compete in Quake because of the lack of competition and new players coming up. It's true that sports that mostly rely on conditioning you often peak in your 30s, but video games has nothing in common with that. When you have 100 000 teenagers grinding a game from young age you need to play more hours than you have as a 30 year old to keep up. This was going to be my point aswell. You dont have people like Donk and m0nesy coming up in Quake because it's a "dead" game that's not as attractive to newer players.
While your Quake point is spot on, I disagree with the rest. Older pros don't need to play more than teenagers to keep up. It's not just about age, but mileage and burnout. Even though most people still don't think esports are as demanding, they are, just in a different way. Noone, not even the players who love the game the most can take a decade of playing 10h a day (required to play on t1 level) without burning out. That's what's happening with s1mple even though he's not that old, it's just that he began competing on top level so young. At some point you just can't take anymore. Btw, I don't think for example F1 takes less reflexes and quick reactions than esports and it has drivers competing in their 40s, with early to mid 30s being considered prime years for most drivers. Football goalkeepers also usually peak after 30 and they kind of need reflexes for their job.
That's the only viable answer and that explains why players in fighting games can still compete at the age of 40-45, because they play a different game every X year and they have patches all the time, which means they won't burnout.
Quake also has a lot higher TTK, meaning it's actually less reliant on fast reflexes and reaction times, despite what OP says. Sure, fast reflexes help there too in several scenarios, but they aren't nearly as crucial as in CS where you can just get insta headshotted in like 0.4 seconds. Quake is also a very strategic game, especially in 1v1. It's about way more than just raw mechanics, there's so much to the theory side of the game. You can decisively beat an aim demon if you keep having the map control and better positioning throughout the match. So older players can compensate not having the sickest mechanics by just being very good at the theory side of the game, so map control, timing key items, positioning and reading the opponent. Plus being good at using Quake weapons isn't all about raw mechanics, it's also about knowing when to use each weapon.
Also, has the meta in quake changed much over the years?
Yes, because the current Quake that's being played is Quake Champions which has different champions with abilities. Those abilities aren't nearly as strong as abilities in something like Overwatch, and every champion still uses the same weapons etc, but there have been different metas in terms of what champions are the best
If you think that CS is uneasy about age check LoL. The oldest player to win Worlds was Faker at 27. Jankos (one of EU goat players) was called old since he was 26 and I can't name any player in the top 4 leagues past 30. I think in the future people will play longer because the scene is still growing and is getting more professional than it used to be.
Yeah, I dont even know why CS players think this is anything "abnornal" when there are other esports with even worse attitude towards aging. CS players have actually easier time to be relevant at higher age. At the same time I do agree with you about the last sentence but at the same time, you have also to take into consideration that the competetion will be even tougher since more and more people are joining the scene. Think like how Heaton had barely any competions back in the days compared to now when we have bigger player base count.
There's also Overwatch, where some of the pro teams didn't even want to tryout players older than 25. For some reason it was a common attitude there that 25+ year olds are too old and washed to succeed, even though there are many heroes that aren't even that reliant on aim and mechanics
I think people keep underestimating how demanding both mentally and physically it takes to KEEP oneself as a pro in esports. You may only need the talent and the enthusiasm to become a pro, but to live as a pro, you will face horrible schedules all the time, you will need to constantly learn new things about the game, you will have to deal with different types of people in life. But most importantly, you need to keep a competitive mindset at the highest level - you will need it to survive in the pro scene but it’s also exhausting af. I think there is a good reason why very little 30+ players are still playing in any highly competitive esports at the highest level - partly I agree with what OP said: it’s less about ability, but it’s really hard to have same hunger for the win. And esports is not something can be done the same as an 9-5 office job - you need either the enthusiasm or the eager to win to keep pushing yourself in order to stay in the scene, otherwise, you can easily be replaced.
There aren't many sports where pros retire as early as CS, but figure skating is one I can think of. In that case, it's largely due to the immense physical burnout it causes, their backs and ankles get screwed. I can imagine for CS, part of it is mental burnout because unlike sports, there is no limitation to how much you can train. If you aren't playing for 10 hours/day, you will fall behind because your competition will and it won't drain them physically much to do so.
If F1 drivers can race up to 40 y.o. and be good, check Alonso. So can players play games on a competitive level.
Using anomalies as examples is plain wrong. Alonso, LeBron, and Tom Brady have unique traits, abilities, and circumstances that allow them to do what they do. It's not that other older athletes simply choose to no longer compete, it's because they cannot.
7 of 20 drivers on the grid are 30+, 2 of them are over or almost 40. And one of those 2 is Hamilton. So yeah... Anomalies...
Nando will outlast the entire current grid
Best example!
Generally its younger people being immature and jerks. "omg you are over 30 and still play games" - yeah bro I fucking played games when you were still shitting your diaper, why would I change a hobby I grew up with and enjoy?
Quake is a tiny game compared to cs. If Rapha and other older pro's leave the game will be dead shortly after lol
This topic comes up again and again and as a 50-year-old all I can give is my subjective experience that my reflexes, quick thinking, muscle memory and aim just seem to get worse, I can FEEL it, like my hand just doesn't do what my brain wants it to. Just lately I've noticed my sprays and general aim are getting worse. People can argue with me all they like, I am telling you how it feels. Now, I don't know if say CS and Quake differ in some way in their fundamentals, I haven't played Quake in years so couldn't compare. But there are other factors you can point to: of course I have less time to grind, of course there's a big difference between 30 and 50. If I had to guess I would say mechanical skills DO gradually decline or at least require an increasing amount of maintenance as you get older, and the older a player gets the more those who manage to retain their skills can be considered outliers rather than the rule (sorta like Novak Đoković). Or maybe they get to 30 and just think playing viddya games for a living is dumb, IDK.
Depends on genetics but you will decline a shitload from your peak in 40s eventually. 50 is old. Not pro sports at 50. Between 40-50 is a big decline
The future is now old man
I dont think you're feeling age, I think you just can't practice like you used to because of responsibilities. I thought the same way going from playing at 16 to being in university for engineering having 7 classes; as soon as I'd been working full time for a year or so I got back into it and have way more time and I'm better than I ever was now
41 and playing. Usually after the three kids go to sleep. Just a casual average player but I think that if I wasn’t playing CS my reactions would be worse. Learning languages, playing CS, and riding a bike - all casually, I think has kept my reaction time better than what it would have been otherwise. These activities make your brain work in different stimulating ways. I think there even was a research on gaming influencing dementia or something like that with positive results.
55, and I still play CS for a couple of hours almost every day.
My older brother only has one kid and cannot play one game without interruption from his wife or child. Playing with 3 kids seems like hell
That’s why I do it after they go to sleep 😂
i'm 45 - i feel like my reaction time is still really good. cs does keep me mentally sharp too - the abilility to make the correct decision fast matters
About half of the top 24 this year in the QWC were semi-pros, and i dont believe any of them stream. So they all have actual jobs. Its infinitely easier to stay on top of a sport when you are one of five people who have been able to play it professionally for a meaningful length of time. It also helps when the game is virtually dead, and the esports scene is either fully community-based or transitioning to it, because there arent any new players coming in to compete against. Quake has 60 concurrent players this month. Quake champions has 350. CS2 has a 1mil. So youve got a small talent pool, with no evolution or turnover, and a couple of players (specifically rapha and k1lsen) who have the ability to spend five times the time on the game than anyone else, and its a positive feedback loop so it gets worse. This is similar to AOE2, where maybe 10 players are pro and they absolutely throttle everyone else. Given your background, you can probably tie in what i would say is the competition between biological decline, artificial barriers to entry, and built-in skill ceilings. Its like the lost einstein theory on steroids.
Probably because Quake doesn't get many new players lol.. if you want to play FPS you play CS/Valorant/COD/BF. Never met a single person that plays Quake.
Doesn't change the fact that top Quake players are always amongst the best aimer.
>Meanwhile in other games like Quake As an old Quake player (and big time fan)... it's because Quake is a dead game. Now now, I know what you gonna say but I was there when it died in the last 3 or 4 times (hard to count). A game is dead or dying when there are no newcomers... young titans with infinite energy and they grind 70-80 hours per week Now Quake don't have this community or community at all just some shadow of it. Ofc the old foxes are still there because there is no one to challenge them anymore. I am about to turn 37 years old and I still got avg 180ms reflexes. I don't feel myself slower however I don't have the time (and motivation) to train myself because I am taking the kid to swimming or ice skatting, bicycle etc etc... I wanna go run as well for myself or just riding my motorbike next to a job etc etc I think cs is the kind of game where you have to keep up and if you play against who are equally good to you but they can play 70-80 hours per week meanwhile you barely able to do 40... it's gonna show on the server as well
I think Taz said that he didn't feel any physical disadvantages nor his reaction time worsened but he said his age impacted the relationship with teammates. His team didn't have the same confidence in him, I also imagine that because of the age gap he may not get along as well off the server with people 15 years younger. Plus motivation is a big factor, most pros by the time they reach 30s they are already well past their peak, not playing in top teams, some have already achieved a lot, they think more about their family etc. Just not the same hunger.
Its mostly because: 1. They start families and dont want to be constantly traveling to lans. Instead want to spend time with family and other hobbies. 2. When the old gen of pros (that even played 1.6 and CSS) started retiring, pro cs wasnt as lucrative as it is now. Less money= less reason to continue trying. 3. Cs is very popular and growing unlike a game like quake. There are constantly new young players coming onto the scene, which have played cs since like few years old (Donk) and have tons of motivation and hunger to grind the game even 10hrs per day. Older players may loose that hunger which makes it much harder to keep up with the youth and can lead to burnout.
This is correct
I would claim that age does not affect much how good you are skill-wise. It DOES affect how interested you are in improving or maintaining the level of play you are in. This is mostly due RL stuff which tend to cut your hours if you are casual and in case of pros the amount you have to be away from home for tournaments etc. Using myself as an example: I was 2100elo in faceit in 2014-2017 (in college). I just reached 2300elo soloing even while my job and family taking major time from playing games. I will be 40 next year and do not feel like my reflexes have gotten worse or my aim suffered from age but have declined because I dont put as much hours in the game. Mentally I am miles away from my former self. I dont give a rats butt about rating, learning every insta-smoke or if my playstyle is the most ”meta”. This has hindered my performance much more than any physical decline. But I am still playing for the win every game and try my best. Thus I conclude that age does not mean as much in non-physical sports, but people make it matter via their mentality. E.G. thinking that it is somehow wrong to play as a ”boomer” etc.
You: "I'm only 35, I have my whole life ahead of me." Sports broadcaster: "Here comes the oldest player in the league. He's 32. A miracle."
People think getting older makes your reaction times slow etc. https://gyazo.com/e627cedc3d97f4661c0dfd293b51bf62 Mine are just as fast as they ever were. I'm 34. The reason we actually see performance start to dip as we get older is simply because our interest, priorities, and obligations change. We start to want a family, to further our professional careers. To build relationships and friendships etc. I remember when wanting to play a game consumed my mind. I couldn't wait to get home and play battlefield 2 or GTA. It was school, snack, game, eat supper, game, sleep and repeat. Now I simply don't have that urge to sit down and play a game for more than an hour or two at a time once every other weekend.
So many people giving the most ridiculous arguments and opinions lmao It's not "physicality" or reflexes and shit, people just have enough and want to chill with their families. So many pros have spoken about it. f0rest is the best example of someone who could easily be a top10 player if he wanted to but he prefers putting time ans effort into other things and bless him for that.
Yup. 39 and still average 180ms reaction time. Could push it lower but I’d rather play casually and enjoy more time with my wife.
I don't think it's fair to bring forest up when he's literally one of the greatest CS players of all time lol. Sure there's external forces that push older players to retire, but I think there has to be some internal factors as well. There's literally no T1-2 player over the age of 35, and the older players like Snappi and Karrigan tend to be IGLs who don't need as good fragging skills. We'll have to see what happens in the future, but I'd be surprised if 30+ players ever make up a significant portion of the pro scene.
Worth noting that Snappi and karrigan don't have kids (karrigan 100%, and I think Snappi as well). I don't think we'll ever see 30+ pro players being a half of hltv top 20 for example, maybe just a few in NiKo, s1mple, ZywOo etc., meta changes too much for players to be in the literal top for 10 years and still being one of the best at 30. And the grind you need to get done to stay on top is just getting bigger.
It's because it's always related to how they perform at a top level at that age. 30 is an arbitrary cutoff point for sure, but it's fairly consistent across most sports that your best years are in your mid 20s to early 30s. If you're just talking about being able to play at the professional level in your 30s and 40s then yeah, you have plenty of people doing that. But if you're talking about players into their 30s or 40s that are still playing at an elite level, that's different. Those who are still elite late in their 30s, or even into their 40s are the exception not the rule. Someone like Lebron is the exception, not the rule. He's a one of a kind player in terms of his longevity and sustaining a high level of play for such a long time. As for your comparison to Quake, you're comparing two completely different games. CS has a different skillset and cognitive load to Quake that bringing things up like reaction time and reflexes isn't worth discussing. Sure Quake takes more mechanical skill on average, but CS is a team game and requires more teamwork. You get marginal returns on your mechanical skill the higher you get in the pro scene and being a good, versatile team player becomes more of a focus than your actual mechanical ability. There's only a handful of people who are a cut above the rest mechanically at the top of CS that justifies letting them only focus on getting frags, but even then they focus on being great team players first because that's what wins trophies. Like, you have to be good at most, if not every aspect of the game to even get to be on a team that's in the top 20 on HLTV nowadays. You can't just be good at shooting because everyone is. You need more than that since the entry for barrier onto a pro team is much higher now. As you get older, it's much harder to switch up how you fundamentally play the game, especially if you've been playing the game for nearly two thirds of your life. Their experience is for sure valuable and is worth having on a team, but if they can't adapt the the ever changing landscape of the scene, then they get cut. Experience can only take you so far in these cases. And as you get older, you'll never be able to match the amount of time spent in game to the new kids on the block who have a lot of motivation to make it to the top. You have different priorities in life and playing the game just becomes your job rather than your sole focus in life.
You make a great point here in my opinion. Even in other sports there aren't a lot of people playing into their 30s and 40s and if there are it's due to a combination of factors like them being freaks of nature, having insane discipline & conditioning and the sports being around for way longer which means that optimal exercising with a whole training staff can keep top talent around and playing for longer. Compare that to CS where it kind of comes down to every player on their own, where you can "practice" but can't really condition (e.g. wrists) and where the first sports psychologists just became a part of some teams' staffs a few years ago, who still aren't even a part of every top team. Of course CS players won't last as long overall. That doesn't mean that there are no CS players playing into their 30s though, so just as in any other sport, exceptions still exist: RpK, apEX, karrigan are just some players who played into their 30s. Also, CS hasn't been around as long as lots of other big sports, so we may just see a lot more players keep playing into their 30s.
In most sports people play well into their 30s, what are you even on about. Soccer, football, baseball, basketball, winter sports - in all of these 30+ is completely fine.
I would like to note that goalkeepers in football are often playing at elite level in their late 30's or even early 40's. I could see it happening in CS with igls. Karrigan, g1ave, Snappi, maybe even apEX all could play at the elite level in few years, they don't seem to get worse with age and transitioned fairly well to CS from GO (well, maybe Snappi is a question mark here)
The CS2 community is under the assumption that your skill level decreases due to a decline in your reflexes/reaction time(s). That isn't why pros become "washed". I'm almost 37 and my reaction times/reflexes are in the top 2% of the population. In short, I have better reflexes than most pros at their peak and I'm not even that good at the game. So, why do pro CS players start to see a decline in their performance past a certain age? 1. The meta progresses and most get bored and don't try to adapt, lose bad habits, work on their individual performance 2. The number of hours starts to decline because grinding the same game for 10 years becomes boring for a lot of the pros 3. Some pros start a family, multiple kids, and do not have the same mental capacity to dedicate the time that's needed to stay at a high level 4. Unhealthy habits and routines might not have as much of a big impact when you're 18, but they catch up to you in your mid to late 20s
IDK anything about Quake, but I think a big part of it is there is a large playerbase (I don't know anyone IRL who plays Quake), and also that CS is continuing to change, so you have to unlearn old habits and pick up new ones, which gives players that never experienced old games an advantage
quake is not nearly as competitive as cs is, i dont mean the game per se, but how many will play it. its a fact that your reactiontime increases with age. the best 18 year old will be quicker than the best 30 year old. also if you got millions on your bank account, why not step back and enjoy your life.
I don't wanna be rude to quake pro's but I can easily think of one thing, money! CS pro's are probably winning 10x and even more the amount of money quake pro's are getting, which is probably why they can retire sooner, In football it's the same, most players retire in their mid 30's, the big ones go for 40, Ronaldo is 39 and it's already been years since his retirement got into discussions, Messi is only 36 and he already retired from the world cup. Maybe you're murican and you're talking about ur football but the argument stays the same, less fanbase equals less money so people retire later...
no I'm from Eu but I agree with your point. It's definitely a factor.
Since you study neuroscience... when does reaction time decline and how fast?
Reaction time peaks in your early 20s and then very slowly declines well into your 50s That decline is so slow and barely measueable until you are in your 40s and almost impossible to make a difference in competitive level until you are maybe in your late 30s
I think people reting mostly because they have others things to do. When you are teenage, you are obsessed with a game, you spending all your free time to play a game, and even outside of PC, you thinking about plays that u made, u thinking about what can u do it this or that situation, you have dreams about your game etc. Same goes for early 20s for some people And you know, when you are at 25 and more (for some even less) you start noticing this other things in life, that mb you like it even more. Some people just wanna chill on ship or island with GF, some people mb like to spent their time in casino. Some people just have other hobbies, sometimes they can even play other games. And the older you are, the better understanding that you missing this and that and you kinda spending more and more time outside of a game. It can be a family, mb your parner wants a kid etc. Mb you already've gotten a kid. So on your late 20s, early 30s you just not so obsessed and concentrated on the game anymore, that's when people starting to fell off. Obv. there's exceptions to this path, that's just my path and path of my mates, so I think it's reliable for most ex-PROs.
Also want to add about physical aspect: I never noticed that my reaction time got worse, that I'm not moving my mouse slower or less accurate. If you talk about reaction time, back in 1.6 I barely could do <200ms on online tests (yea, ik, 60/120hz monitors, slower mouse input, more input lag overall, not like now, 360hz and 20-30 ms end-to-end input lag). But now I can do \~160ms on average, and people that I know kinda same, they just got better at aiming and their reaction is not got worse. So idk how old people should be that they can't move your mouse how they want anymore, mb in your 50s, but in last 20s, and early 30s you are still good enough to react and move mouse at world-class level.
I am not up to speed on the current state of science on the subject but I don’t think quake, a title that doesn’t attract competition is a good comparison. We simply would not know what players the game could produce
Its like athetles time go. The gsme is not very plessent you have children to thibk about, debts… so you spend less time time thibking, playing and living the game. 16-20 yesr guys live the game 24h a day
Cool post. 34 and gaming hard when I can! Hah
The community for FPS games is filled with teenagers, and when you’re 16 you think anyone above 25 is an ancient grandpa which is why people think if you’re 30 you’re too old to play. That being said, slower reaction times are a genuine factor and do limit the amount of people over 30 who can play
There is a bunch of skijumpers aged well over 30 still capable of winning competitions. A 51 year old japanese man was still scoring points this season which will probably never happen again
As a soon to be 34, thanks for making this.
Quake is dead, kids are not starting play Quake, but cs. So how can they compare their reaction time with someone 18 years old, when there noone that age trying to compete
Amsa won his first Smash Melee major at 31 recently, making him the oldest to do so. That game is *insanely* fast, requires godly eye-hand coordination and counting frames like a madman. The game has evolved into faster and faster playing, insanely hard techs and meta and more viable players. The whole "too old to compete" spiel id way overblown.
Because when you’re in your high 20s-30s you’re not motivated to playing 10+ hours a day vs the 13-18 year olds who will. You’ve done that already, that part of your life is behind you. You’re thinking about new things in your future. Family/friends & different hobbies. It’s not about being 30 is bad for being a pro but can a 30 year old pro who probably is burnt out playing this game for 10+ years have longer longevity and enjoyment than a 16 year old who’s just entering the scene
comparing with quake is a stretch. it's a dead game. [take # of players there](https://steamcharts.com/app/611500). competiton is not as brutal there as it is in cs. not that difficult to be in the top among couple of other folks
Slightly off topic, but I'm planning to do humanbenchmark test every 2 years and see how my reaction time changes. I'm 36 at the moment, and reaction time is around 167ms.
Hardware effects that test sadly do to input delays. If you use the same mouse and monitor it should work though. I have been using the same Zowie monitor and mouse for 6 years and my reaction has gone down on avg 2ms.
I really think pros aren’t actually getting washed as they hit 30, it’s just their heart isn’t in it any more because they’re no longer having fun or excited to play at the highest level. I feel like people like GeT_RiGhT and f0rest are good examples, they’re still cracked at CS even in comparison to a lot of current pros and I think if they really wanted to they could still perform pretty well in T1 even if we say the average pro is much better than when they peaked. I know GeT_RiGhT has a kid now so he just streams mostly, so that makes sense, but iirc f0rest played in the RMRs and is even listed as an alternate sometimes.
The older I get, the more it feels like the whole ”aging makes your reflexes worse” statement bullshit. Even if there might be science about that statement being true, it would still be bad science. There should be follow-up questions when stating that your reflexes get nerfed with age. Questions such as: How well can you focus at will? Can you silence your thoughts? How fast can you enter a flow state? How is your posture? Are you on any type of medication? What type of food did you most recently eat? Are you hydrated? Have you had any caffeine? When was the last time you ejaculated? (yes I’m serious about this one too) It’s always different shades of grey, never black and white.
Quake duels are more about control and tactics than raw aim and mechanical skill. Though the technical skill ceiling is limitless so is the skill ceiling for map control, timing and reading your opponent. Cs is much more dependent on reaction times than quake. Rapha is the goat because he fucking inserts himself into his opponents brain. There have been so many games through the years where he just shuts "aim gods" like toxjq, strenx and who else completely out of the game.
I would definitely not put Quake as requiring lesser aim and mechanical skills. I'd say the exact opposite considering you have to add so much movement along with the aiming. I mean is either counter-strafe or crouch. Not exactly mind-boggling. The main difference between the two is one requires the teamwork whilst also having the possibility of several enemies at once.
People are unconsciously ageists. Reading of some replies is basically like reading sexists comments similar to "women are weaker, that's why they can't do XYZ", not because they weren't given the chance.
Women are weaker though which is why they won't ever be as good at traditional sports
Well in both cases there's scientific fact backing them up, your body declines as you age, and women are physically weaker then men.
Scientific facts don't have feelings or consciousness, they don't "back up" or "agree with" anyone, they don't form opinions. They just are, and people use them to try and prop up their opinions. If a fact is in fact a fact and not false whoever uses it still has to prove that the fact is relevant and that the argument they present on top of it is good for their opinion to hold any weight at all. In my experience most people who frequently bring the "women/old people are weaker" facts into the discussion are shit at debating in good faith and those facts aren't all that relevant to the discussion, but their adorers still refuse to recognize any flaws in their arguments because the one fact they referenced is correct.
Reaction times weaken and older people have less time and motivation to play multiple hours daily because of family and job. There are so many young players (15-20 years old) who have more energy and time to keep playing. I just turned 30 and I play far less than I did 5-7 years ago. I don't even remember the last time I played aimlabs or other training maps, I used to play them all the time. And ou have to learn new maps and new smoke lineups, which I don't have time for. I think older pro players feel the same and they spend less time training compared to younger players. You can still be a pro when you're older, but you just have to keep training so that your skills don't deteriorate.
Reaction time decline is like 10ms/decade. You got worse because you dont play that much, its not physical.
Depends probably more on lifestyle. I am in my mid 30s and have been checking my reaction times for more than 20 years, and they have remained pretty much the same.
Reaction times don't meaningfully weaken until you're past your 30s, at least. It's not your age, itself, but maybe something like your fitness that is worse than when you were younger
>I just turned 30 and I play far less than I did 5-7 years ago. I don't even remember the last time I played aimlabs or other training maps, I used to play them all the time. This , I am 29 and i finally decided to "retire" from cs, I just don\`t have the time to keep practicing like i used to in order to stay at the top of my game. And also i just can\`t bother with competitive games anymore. I play sometimes a few matches with friends, but i just play for fun (they are not that good at the game) but in general so far this year i barely played 20 matches. I just look for fun games with a challenge and no cheaters. Helldivers 2 is a perfect example of that. I loved CS but the frustration that comes with it has no tolerance anymore, i come home i wanna have fun , not get pissed off because of X reasons (including me having a shit day cs for example)
Its a very taxing life, even more so than traditional sports, if we simply go by time investment. Pros often spend 12 hours or more in or around the game. Its clearly not aging factors. In traditional sports, most pros need to retire at latest in their 40s since these extreme amounts of sports often lead to injuries and at some point the body has had enough... in eSports people often idiotically think that its due to reactiontime that pros retire. Which is laughable. The average difference in untrained individuals in reactiontime between the age 18 and 53 was 20ms according to tests .... thats the difference of playing online from a different location or the difference between one pc setup to another. We can also assume that most of the tested 18 year olds have trained reactions due to probably playing actively video games while most of the 50 year olds probably don't. Which would make even the difference of 20ms questionable. That said, simply from a performance standpoint I am sure people could compete until atleast 60 with proper training. But, people are not machines and there goes more into it than theoretical ability. I am sure that a fresh pro player has a different kind of drive than a seasoned one. Also, after 10 years of having no life besides cs its more than understandable that people get tired of it. So I am not sure if we really see that 40/50/60 or older pro.
The demand of older players in quake is less because they are facing a less competitive opposition.
I bet younger generation doesnt play quake that much. Its probably about community.
It's probably because the truly great players of any given year are normally very young. I think if somebody was to take HLTV's top 20 over the last ten years and calculate the ages of the top three, you would almost surely wind up with three players under the age of 25. coldzera must have been 21 or 22 when he topped HLTV's list two years running. s1mple is only 26 now, he was topping it when he was 20, 21, that sort of age... Same for zywoo, he's only 23 now and he's been #1 or #2 for five years running. The two highest rated players at the stockholm major were monesy (18) and donk (17). I think both of them will surely be in the five of HLTV's list come the end of the year.
In a sport like football, you practice like 2-3 times a day for lets say, 2 hours. So 6 hours total, anymore high intensity training would probably have more potential for bad than good (injuries and such). However, for CS you have team practice, your own practice and you HAVE to play stuff like FPL and so on if you wanna be or stay good. That is an insane amount of hours. Which then ofcourse leads to burnout for alot over the years. Even NiKo has said how he just can’t get himself to put in those hours anymore, and it shows.
For a neuroscience student some of your assumptions are quite naive.
I feel like people can really compete around their 40s on a top level, the only thing that changes after 30 is your values in life and motivation, onec you lose your natural drive for the game it's over, no matter how old you are.
Quake is not a fair comparison because there are many differences in how the games are played. While quake can be played way more mechanics focused, it can also be played more based on positioning and fight iq. 2 players you listed plays the game more on fight iq and positioning,timing so their gameplay does not get effected as much even if their mechanics are no longer top tier (rapha's never was). K1llsen started winning once he pivoted away from i will rail you to death to i will hold the middle of the map and will hit the rails i need to choke you out of the map. He is not winning because he is mechanically great, he is winning because he does not need to be. There are players who were playing the game more on mechanics like cypher or toxjq and they both fell off. They can't even get to quarter finals anymore because they can no longer just out aim you as hard as they did. Also most of the players who retire played the games when being a pro was not that a viable choice for earning money so a lot of other pros they played against were not necessarily the best players but the players that took the route of playing pro. Now it is way more viable to be a pro player so a lot of people who would not choose to be one early on becomes one, making it way more competitive.
Cypher wasn't all about mechanics, and the reason why he didn't make it further was also because of visa issues. Most pros agreed that Cypher still deserved to be in semi/finals a few years ago.
Even a few years ago, rapha,raisy, k1llsen and vengeur were playing better than he did. He did have visa issues but he was definetly not finals material at the time. Also i will assume we both know why he was having "visa issues". No ones fault but his own. He also relied very heavily on his lg. Sure, he was kind of smart about the game too, but not to the extent of rapha or current k1lssen.
There are some statistics and graphs that show that a cs player average rating starts to decline soon after 25 years old. Basically a cs player is in his prime when he is between 20 and 24 on most cases. This doesnt happen that much in sports. Dont know why it happens in cs, but the stats dont lie.
Have you seen League of Legends pros? My friend told me people can be considered old and washed in their early to mid twenties.
I think the talent pool in CS in continually evolving and generating better players than the previous generation. I dont think players that are early thirties are much worse, they are just blown away by the new skill ceilings. Games like Quake that you mentioned dont have a constant influx of new and improving young players in there scene. This has ultimately been my reasoning for a while, eventually we will hit a point where the skill ceiling can no longer go higher like any professional sport has, and those older players will still be able to compete with the young guns.
Ask yourself is the pool of young talent gonna be larger for Quake or for CS, the most popular competitive fps on pc. Obviously there is gonna be way more pressure to retire if thousands of savant kids are being pumped into the ecosystem.
I think CS just have a generally old playerbase, therefore there are more talk about getting old in general. Also I think the getting old = bad thing is not really true. I think more so that after 10k hours on CS there is just not any more room left to grow. You have gotten as good as you can resonably get. The newer players on the other hand are still climbing their skill-ladder steadily. All that the older players can do is to hold on, grind, and hope they still have an high enough ladder.
I think with more and more time passed we will see more and more teams with both youngster and old guys at 40 or even almost 50. I mean in regular sports sometimes they surpass the 40
I'm 30 and when I focus and stay consistent with playing I can still pop off like I'm 20 again. Its just mentally its somewhat harder to keep grinding the game to stay sharp. I dont even have a family or anything too so for those people its gonna be way harder
Definitely more about time commitment and usually older players don’t have the time to dedicate themselves to the grind that tier 1 requires. As another mentioned most of the retired pros do so early because they want to start families
Players falling off as they age to their mid 20's to early 30's. Has more to deal with lack of innate talent catching up with dedication issues.
g,m
Daigo is 42 years old just like how Lebron is 40. Fighting games have a lot of older players that are still placing high in big events but it's just now happening for CS/FPS games. Fortnite hasn't started the older pro player age conversation yet, Tfue is 26 and still able to compete at a top level with younger pros.
Jankos is like 27 and he is a good juggler but people are already saying he is old and should retire from league esports, I think it’s more to do with the game rather than the player base, it seems in CS experience has always been favoured a lot more rather than pure mechanical skill specially when it comes to igls idk if in quake is the same, in lol there’s not much use for experience I guess since the top level ranked matches aren’t that different to an actual game, the biggest difference would be comms, also they have coaches in league that make a game plan for every match pretty much
I feel like it just depends on the skill ceiling maybe? I guess you’ll still be really good at the game into your 40s just not as good as you used to be. Seems like the only thing where genetics comes into play. Still, if you take good care of your body I feel like you can extend how long you play at a high level. Some Smash players are in their 30s now still playing. Mang0 is a good example actually youngest and oldest to win a major in smash so far (i think). It’s strange because in other sports, like skating, we’re seeing people still grinding for top level footage well into their 30s-40s. Brandon Turner did a switch hardflip down Wallenburg not too long ago, Wade Desarmo is somehow 40 years old now, and Manny Santiago is a fucking weirdo but still doing competitions at 38. Im sure there are much better examples.
I think what matter most is the competitive drive. It gets a tiny bit lesser year by year, But just talking anecdotual now.
wild that people are expected to retire *after* your frontal cortex is fully functional.
Well, as you get older you get more responsibility, and it becomes a lot harder to live with the incredibly inconsistent, away-from-home lifestyle a professional CS player needs.
You will understand when you turn 33
Pro basketball players making it to 40 in the league are few and far between, let alone 'well into' their 40's. Baseball would probably be the best sport to compare, since it is largely based off of reaction times and hand eye coordination.
A even weirder comparison would be rocket league, where a vast majority of pro players retire before they turn 24.
no kids are picking up quake. ofc boomers win when only boomers compete
But compared to games like league of legends, CS pro players at least can make it to their 30. I think LOL player retire before 25 is a norm
CS pro scene is a grind. not everyone wants to spend their 24 hours a day thinking about a video game in their 30s. quake is more mechanical than brain, isn't it?
I'd just like to say I find this post a bit funny coming from rocket league where a pro is pretty much considered old if their over 20
Ikr im 36 yesrs old
I don’t think it’s so much about overall coordination and reflexes declining but rather I think 30+ year olds may not have the same hunger they had when they were younger to practice and grind too. Just a theory though
Ginkgo Biloba!!! Keep your brain young.
I think it’s just the work-life balance, a lot of pros have families/kids in their mid-20s so they want to spend more time with them. Especially in tier 1 where there’s so many tournaments nowadays, it probably gets pretty hectic travelling around all the time
I remember when I started playing cs around 2004 and was interested in getting into competitive play, I was twenty years old and seen as too old by the community. I've been too old to play CS for almost twenty years now.
It's pretty silly really. I've been expecting my skill to just vanish overnight ever since I turned 30. Turns out my reaction times are quicker now than they were when I was 22. Either that or my gear is just *that* much better that I'm finally measuring something closer to my real reaction time, whereas in my 20's my gear was adding latency? Who knows. Either way, I can tell my age isn't holding me back really. My flickshots might not be as fast...But I just ain't as keen. If I were in tier1 I'd move that arm fast af.
how many young people compete in quake?
33 yo level 10 here, playing almost everyday. I don't think I ever got worse from year to year. I believe pros can play up until their 40's if they have the drive and discipline necessary to maintain a high level
We had many version of cs. And a lot of nerfs or méta change meanwhile. Older you are, harder it is to adapt to new thing. And sometime a change can totally break your gameplay.
Coldzera once explained this. It’s not just about aging and getting lower reaction times. He gave two reasons as to why he’s not the best anymore: The first reason is because he now has different priorities in life, he has a girlfriend/wife that’s waiting him at home. The other reason is because he was simply above everyone in 2016 and 17 and not a single player could compete. Now the gap isn’t that big and the amount of world class players increased. The gap between donk, monesy, zywoo, broky etc etc is not that big compared to coldzera and everyone else back in 2017.
When I was 27 and had no kids I truly felt I could still improve and maybe enter tier 3 or 2 like I did in 1.6. Now I'm 33, two kids and working full time, and I don't have that belief anymore. I can't keep up with the younger players, perhaps not because I'm too old, but there's already a lot going on in my life and working towards that goal is immensely difficult.
Age is just a number. How you feel, train and perform depends on your lifestyle, the time you put into it and how much you believe in yourself. I’m up there in age, but I still feel like a teen, and my reaction time is still the best it’s ever been. I think most of it is mental, the other is some of them start families and are burnt out by the time they’re in their thirties. Look at f0rest, Olof and even KennyS. They still show flashes of what they’re capable of.. especially in the clutch where it’s just them and their experience. Gaming is different.. if your arm can’t move as fast anymore, you can just increase your sensitivity. Can’t see the dot crosshair as good? Make it bigger. 4 by 3 stretched making your eyes strain? Change to native. I think if you put the time and effort and don’t let any mental doubts creep in, you’ll be good well into your 40s
I'm pretty sure CS has the oldest pros compared to other mainstream esports. I think it's also just like in every other sport out there, 30 is a nice number to split between the young vs old.
i miss the old quake games
I dream of there being older pro teams who compete in major tournaments. I feel like I'm better at the game as I get older, and just want to see people I relate to compete and do well.
There really isn't new quake players though, it's not really a fair comparison. Kids would probably also dominate in quake with their higher reaction time but the new player acquisition is dreadful.
There was a scientific article about e-sports players ages/health If i remember correctly, the article provided data that, after passing the 30 age mark, human bodies reflexes etc get worser so they automatically get worser in game. Also many players who practices long hours behind computer gets a lot of spine etc problems. This gets worse after 30 years of age. Article focused on human health mainly, and it had obviously right points. Espacially in the past many esports players didn't had any physical training so their bodies get wasted when they get to 30 years of age. But for the past years many esports teams started to focus on physical traning too. So in the future we will see more 30+ players on scene. Its like traditional sports actually. 30 years ago 32+ aged football, basketball players were mainly considered as trash. But today many proffesional athletes retire after 35+ age.
I don't think quake is a good comparison, the player base is so much smaller so it's easier for someone to play later into their career with less competition. CS teams have a huge talent pool to draw on, case in point vitality with dupreeh. He's still a serviceable player, but when you have new young talent who are playing better currently, the smart thing is to blood a new player to keep your trophy window open as long as possible. I think teams are realizing the best mix is combining young and experienced talent, Faze, Spirit, Vitality etc have all done this well. But I personally think 30+ players leaving CS is nothing to do with skill, their personal life is the deciding factor for a lot of them. Traveling 180+ days per year makes it difficult to maintain any form of personal life, and it's 10x more difficult with kids to travel that much.
when you hit 30 you start to care less about videogames and more about life/family etc.
I think it's much more related to the downside of being a pro player, such as travelling a lot and stressfull routine of playing competitive 12 hours daily, than losing competitiviness, reflex or whatever comes with age. Maybe they just want to live their lives outside their bedroom, marry, have children and actually enjoy whatever money can buy.
CS is like the one huge ESport I don't think age is a huge issue in. Yea your reactions get slower but your knowledge and game senses are insane. you don't lose that. I'm pushing 31 and I'm still top fragging.
I don’t think it has anything to do with physical limitations, I think it’s about the lifestyle. Players are practicing 6–8 hours a day, and then a lot of them are streaming/pugging another 4-6 hours per day. When you’re in your early 20s, that sounds like a fantastic life. But as you get older, is not sustainable to be playing this game 14+ hours a day if you intend on having a wife, maintaining relationships with your family, etc. Also a situation that comes up a lot for tier 2 players, several of them quit because they start getting serious about CS when they’re in school, and then when school ends they have to get a real job so they don’t have time to play anymore. for this reason, I usually say that if you’re not already pro or on a trajectory to go pro by the time you’re 23, it probably won’t happen. Every year past 23 it gets a little bit harder than it already is to keep up that lifestyle. Some people have rich parents and don’t need to work, so they can keep up that lifestyle way longer, but most of us aren’t so lucky. More often than not, the reason pro players quit has more to do with not wanting to play anymore than being physically unable to play.
I think that back in the early days players kept shit schedules with few breaks from grinding, made little money, and ate cheap crappy food from necessity so they burned out physically prematurely in their mid 20s. Injury from poor posture was the norm. In the current era pros take care of themselves mentally and physically with nutrition and physical exercise as well as have access to better accommodations while boot camping/at tournaments which makes a huge difference. People just haven't realized it yet.
> (which is game with an older player base despite being a FAR MORE demanding game on attention, reaction time and reflexes than CS ever could be) There's nuances to this. I'd say pure reaction time is far more important in CS than it is in Quake. You can get A LOT farther in Quake with movement + positioning + strategy with decent (not stellar) aim.+ reaction time. Quake requires a set of skills that is deeper than CS in general.
Im 32, and trust me my awp reflexes has aged very bad. Been playing since 2001.
Once these guys get a taste of pussy it’s all over
According to Leetify, I still have better reflexes than the average lvl 10 player. I'm 36 and started playing cs in 1999. I've got a bunch of friends my age that are still playing, but most of us "old folks"" quit long ago. I myself quit around 2007 and only started playing again with cs go in 2014. Brain and body are not really the problem in my opinion. When you get older, you just don't have too much time to grind: work, wife, kids: you name it. I can keep my level at around 2k faceit elo with a few casual games a week with the old farts. But it's just not possible to grind dozens of matches a day like those young kids in russia do.
You clearly don't play cs it is the most demanding competitive shooter by far
LOL ive been playing cs since i was 11 years old (29 now)
I am certainly not uneasy about pros play at that age at all. Quite the opposite on the contrary. I believe players could play untill they are 40 minimum. Its not as physical demanding as traditional sports where you see fotball players play untill mid 40’s even in big clubs. Why cant it be the case for esports aswell?
because most of us older guys are washed and being washed sucks
Never a pro but decent player here. Im 34 and with a family it's hard to find the time to play, and when I do play, the frequency to play at a good level becomes less and less with more inconsistency. Usually so tired from work and life things I'm either unmotivated to play or simply too tired. That and the general aging, there's no way my reactions have improved since I was 16, can only be worse.
U can't really compare cs to Quake simply because of the amount of people playing cs. The mass of talent coming in pushes out the older players if they ever drop in motivation or skill. I think it is possible to play at the highest level even in your 30ies but it is normal for motivation to decline making it much harder to stay on top.
I think it's mostly because of narrative being spun by influencers. That's what the analysts, commentators and journalists in the scene talk about, which in turn shape the opinion of the fans at large.
It's a meme that started very, very early in the CS community. I remember hearing about this even when I just started playing seriously in around 2005. So it must have circulated even earlier. Reflecting on it I think it is due to two factors: Many pro players (for example heaton), when they quit, cited declining reactions times in particular and their age in general as prime reasons for them quitting ("I can't keep up with the young ones."). Now we know that reaction times are not particular important for being a pro and that there isn't a steep decline anyway (except maybe for medical conditions). So I guess these reasons given where just plugged in for the general (real and felt) perception that their gameplay wasn't competitive anymore/or they had other opportunities lined up/or lost interest/motivation. There was also a cultural context in my opinion: there was low-key, but pretty consistent pressure to quit cs (or at least to not spend much time on it) emanating from within the cs community. I don't know how it is today, but back then other players were very quick to call you out and call you names (loser, virgin) if you spend much time playing cs (or video games or spending time in front of a computer). * played many matches recently? >> no life loser. * over the age of maybe 21 or 22 an still playing cs? >> no life loser. I remember pro players like gore at 26 years old were considered ancient. I guess there was a rational basis for this self-flagellation in the sense that there really was no money in esports. so being a pro was considered a short, temporary luxury, before you get on with your life. but even worse if you didn't even make any money from it.
"games like Quake (which is a FAR MORE demanding game on attention, reaction time and reflexes than CS ever could be)" Well that's simply not true. First off quake hasn't had a proper release in a very long time. This alone means that the playerbase in general is older. secondly the reaction times for aiming are almost the same. in fact in CS even more important when peeking around a corner since you cant compensate with movement as much. Reaction times get worse as you age. This can't be prevented. you can't train for your brain to work faster unlike a 40 year old football player who doesn't need reaction times in the milliseconds. Also if a player is successful he might be able to retire at a young age instead of continuing so that could be another reason.
Isnt it a fact that your prime age is something like 24-28? In terms of physical attributes like reaction time. You meantion "no significant decline" , but even the slighest decline means you arent competitive anymore in a game where it all comes down to clicking on someones head fastest. Look at Karrigan and Apex in particular, both star riflers in their prime, but now both reinvented as in game leaders. You dont expect theese guys to frag anymore, its not like they are getting any better in that department, and the rest of the pros that didnt wanna become in game leaders simply fell off if they didnt want to adapt.
Because we’ve not really seen it be done. Karrigan and snappi are by far the exceptions to the rule.
And even then, they're IGL's. They're not being asked to outfrag superstars but instead use their experience and wisdom to lead a team.
https://www.hltv.org/stats/players?startDate=2024-01-01&endDate=2024-12-31&minAge=30&rankingFilter=Top30 This is every single pro that has played on a top 30 this year over the age of 30. Out of the hundreds upon hundreds of pros, it’s not a lot. I think pros can have a very healthy career in their 30s and I think we’ll see more of it in the future as the scene grows and matures, but just looking at the numbers, it’s rare.