I had the privilege of playing CS from 2004-2007 on a sponsored team I led. These days, that would be "professionally" but back then, no one really took esports seriously, as it was all pre-Twitch and before broadband was widely available.

CS remains one of the deepest and most strategic games I've ever played, and a venue that allowed me to mix competition + computers. It's point-and-click distilled in its purest forms, and its 5-on-5 strategy is reminiscent of something like basketball. I met many friends, a few enemies, and even my first girlfriend, through the game, its LAN tournaments, and the forums that surrounded it. At my high school, I started the first computer club (where we mostly played 1.6). I even launched a startup a few years ago[1] which was still tangentially related to gaming and esports.

CS taught me how to lead a team, how to win (more importantly, also how to lose). How to look for qualities that matter in people (which I think made me pretty good at hiring), and how to pursue goals in spite of adversity. At my peak, my team was the top 5 teams in CS:Source in North America and we placed (I think) top 8 at CPL 2005. I'm still way better than the average first person shooter player, but my reaction time, which used to be ~150ms, is now a noticeably worse ~220ms.

I cannot emphasise how much impact Counter-Strike made on my personal life (for better or for worse). The real story is that I also played because we moved a lot, I had few local friends, and it also provided a great escape from the tough life of an immigrant kid in a strange new country. It's a silly, pointless, little game, but, like all games, it's also a metaphor for life. Happy 25th birthday, Counter-Strike!

[1] https://www.pcgamer.com/introducing-gameref-the-anti-cheat-h...

CS was weirdly like a dream. When waking up, it took some moments to grasp where you are now and what time of day it is.