“Games help a lot of us in ways that (most of us) don’t know,” declares Darren Goh, also known as MrUnknown or Zero Originality in the online world. A self-styled hardcore gamer, Darren is into gaming and eSports, but also owns a Youtube channel, which he uses to upload various gaming-related videos.
Darren started gaming when he was about 6 years old with arcade games, later graduating to Metal Slug X on the computer and Counter Strike 1.5. “It was a lot of fun for me, even though I played it in a weird way, like setting SV_GRAVITY (Editor’s Note: A custom setting in the game that messes with game gravity – see http://www.wikihow.com/Adjust-Gravity-on-Counter-Strike) around the hundreds or so to fool around with the bots.” Be it playing for fun, playing with friends competitively, or making videos and streams, all Darren wants in the end is to have a good time, and he balances this well with all his other responsibilities.
And, as with all things in life, usually, this entails some discipline. Darren says, “I tend to plan ahead and follow a schedule like coming back from work, having dinner, doing some exercise, and then going on to video recording, editing, streaming, or prepping for his stream.”
Naturally, given the dedication, we asked Darren about his gaming dreams. “I have many to fulfill, to be honest,” he says. “There are tons of things I want to do. I want to be an entertainer in the gaming community because I like making people laugh. You don’t really want to see someone sad, right?” he added, laughingly.
Just like many of our previously interviewed gamers, Darren also notes that gaming could be a potential career path for him. “In my opinion, anything is possible if you work hard enough, because hard work always wins,” he notes. “Even the sharpest knife in the world will become blunt if it’s not sharpened!”
However, he, too admits that gamers who want to achieve such dreams would need to overcome some problems. The biggest problem in his opinion? “Complaints from parents,” he tells us. “I would understand if a parent doesn’t like his/her child playing their favourite game 24/7 because that’s not really the best thing in the world. At the same time, most parents don’t agree with their children working in the gaming industry, because they want us to do well in life in other things as well.”
Darren in action, reviewing the Armaggeddon Molotov 5 earned for free from Fundeavour’s adventures
When we asked him how he thought we could solve it, he paused.
“We need to have more discipline,” he said finally. “I don’t think making a name in the gaming community is all one would do 24/7, right? We need to prove our parents wrong by giving them proof that we can actually do this.”
To illustrate his point, he describes many instances and examples of such “proof” already occurring in the world. “There are people who make video games (and who start off from a simple love for gaming), and many others who work for the community such as Youtubers and so on – all of them make a living by playing or making video games, or videos from games.”
“And that’s just the surface! There are people who have businesses related to gaming like Dota2 skin sellers and cybercafés. All of these require a certain amount of time in gaming to know about games and to be inspired by it.”
And of course, gaming allows people to meet new people and make new friends. “It also helps us relieve stress, because it’s like a world we can dive into and be someone else, or something else – depending on what kind of game you play,” Darren smiles.
However, Darren cautions aspiring gaming entertainers to not do it for the money, but to do it for the dream. “When you wake up, you’re going to work hard at it! Don’t let your dreams be dreams, so just do it!” he says laughingly, quoting the famous Shia LeBeouf meme. “Jokes aside, try your best and think about what your core is – if you want to make your viewers laugh, or help them with guides. There are lots of ways you can entertain people, so you just gotta find which one suits you best.”
“Lastly, I know you’re probably going through a hard time, but always remember: things are always going to get better! It might not seem like it, but it will. So, till then, work hard and good luck!”
We wish Darren all the best – and to all of you readers as well 🙂
Darren can be found on Fundeavour at: https://fundeavour.com/mrunknown
This feature was written as part of a partnership with Fundeavour, a site that helps aspiring gamers around the world to get a head start on beginning their journey as content creators, streamers and eSports players. Want to be featured and share your stories with over 20,000 readers? Check out more info here or sign up with Fundeavour.com!