Same! Heck yeah!!!

I have literally lost 1.5 years of college around 2001 - 2007 due to Counterstrike. We had a clan with several people in my dorm, and it was awesome. It was also around that time that I felt like I had a productive day if I did laundry, and I had to really force myself to remove it from my computer as I realised it was simply too addictive for me to start a few quick matches all day long.

In hindsight, I don’t really regret it, it was probably one of the last times in my life I could procrastinate like that and get away with it reasonably well.

It was also a much more pure game back then - there were no cosmetic items (besides free skins you installed yourself from people doing them for free - some of which were insanely high quality and others were just insanely ugly but also hilarious). There were no achievements. It was just skill and gameplay.

It is nice to hear these story, just to know I am not the only one with Gaming addition problem in Uni / College. And I think 3-4 years into the society I stopped all gaming completely. Working Life is exhausting.

Linux thinclient as my dormroom desktop: some of my best grades semesters

Windows gaming machine: some of my flakiest semesters

Incredible that shortly after many of us went through this, professional competitive gaming could later be a considered career.

Yeah but only 20-30 people in any region make it as a pro player. The odds are just about as bad as being an NBA player. You didn't miss out on anything.