When it comes to esports, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) is one of the leaders. In fact, Counter-Strike has been one of the mainstay first-person-shooter drivers since the birth of esports. This is what makes the Intel Extreme Masters Dallas tournaments all the more interesting and fulfilling at Dreamhack Dallas 2023. At the convention, we spoke with Sean Clark, Senior Director of the Counter-Strike ecosystem at ESL Faceit Group (EFG), about the longevity of Counter-Strike, the importance esports has in Dallas, IEM’s history, and how a player can have a career in esports beyond the competition.
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Endemic to esports for 15 years, Sean Clark’s growth from player to Director at EFG is one of the most exciting career trajectories I’ve ever heard, and it’s one many players should hear. A scary point for players is thinking about what comes after the tournaments. Clark shared his experience. “That was a scary point for me, too,” Clark started, “It did happen naturally, though. I was a professional in 2005-2006. I remained a professional for about four or five years…In 2010, live streaming kicked off for the first time; it is the creation and the dawn of Justin TV, which then later became Twitch TV around this time. And it was also at the same time the launch of a couple of huge esports titles in Starcraft II and League of Legends. And at the time, in 2010, a lot of tournament organizers were looking for someone or anyone that could do the live commentary for the esports events. And so, for me, being English, they were like, “Hey, you can speak into a microphone, right? And so that was the next step.”
“Then someone said, ‘Hey, can you can kind of do some guest speaking’ and it just slowly transitioned. Initially, it was 90% playing and 10% doing commentary, and then slowly but surely, that ratio flipped over until I became full-time and switched to commentary. I was a commentator in eSports for another five years, and then I transitioned [again]. I was actually working very closely with ESL. And so they hired me, and I became a full-time commentator for them. And so that’s kind of the next step into getting my foot through the door into having a professional career.”
But commentating can only go on for so long. Clark continues, “The next step in turning it into, let’s say, more of a non-playing and non-commentator role was I was exposed to the broadcast a lot more as a commentator, and I could see the flaws in the show, from a broadcast perspective. And so I was giving them suggestions on improving the show…And that then slowly transitioned into a producer role. All of a sudden, you’re in the third phase of evolving a career in eSports. And then the final phase to kind of fast forward to where I am today is being exposed with the broadcast you start to be exposed to the product. When you’re exposed to the product, you start to see the organization behind it. And then I got more interested in that side of the business. And that’s kind of when I made the jump into the organizational side of the site to build the ecosystems that we have today.”
What Sean Clark showcases in his career story from player to Senior Director of EFG’s CS:GO ecosystem is that the love of a game can translate directly into a career in the game. In fact, many fans of video games aren’t too aware of how many ways there are to get involved in games, and there are many. And when your expertise of CS:GO, the stars align thanks to the longevity of the game. The premiere first-person shooter for esports, with fans anxiously waiting for CS:GO 2, we asked Clark why he thinks the game has lasted as long as it has.
Clark dove right in, “So for me, there are different, let’s say, eSports genres. You know you’ve got your fighting games, you’ve got your first-person shooters, you’ve got your strategy games for me. I’ve thought about this a lot. The very first game that strikes through I call an original esport, and for me, Counter-Strike is the original first-person shooter game that cannot be toppled very easily. It is an amazing, perfectly created game. And there have been so many games that have come out that have tried to rival it over the years or even we don’t even know about that wanted to try to take it on the never-even surface.”
Those standard bearers of esports continue today, as Clark explains, “It’s very difficult to topple an original title, and I think that that thought is shared across other genres as well. I feel that when you look at the MOBA space, you can say that DOTA and League of Legends are kind of leaders too, and it’s very difficult to overcome them. I feel like Rocket League is created a genre of its own. And now that’s the original. I think in strategy games, the original bear is probably Starcraft, and it’s still probably the best strategy game there is out there—and so I feel like when you become that, number one, it’s very difficult to topple…I think that the level of care that Valve has, as the publisher of CS:GO, looked after the game for so many years that the number of eSports tournaments that have continued to give the game life for many years. All these things, I think, just positioned Counter-Strike in such a strong and powerful position where it’s been around for 20 years, and it’ll be around for the next one.”
As we look back on who started certain genres of esports, Dreamhack Dallas 2023 is like esports coming home. Clark shared how he learned about the city and its esports history, “I knew about Dallas as a city because of its roots in esports. There was an esports tournament circuit called Cybersports Professional League. CPL was the shortened version of it. And it was an organization founded in 1997 in Dallas…You can say the birthplace of esports was here. And it was also [CPL] that hosted the very first international Counter-Strike tournament in Dallas.”
He continued, “I was speaking to the city of Dallas yesterday, and it was such a beautiful moment to be talking to them about what we’re trying to build here. And they’re so enthusiastic about it, and I took a moment to step back and say, like, it is awesome. To be in the same room as you talking about how we’re going to be building, you know, the future of esports and gaming and DreamHack here for many years to come. But it all started here at the same time, and there’s just this beautiful irony about that—that they didn’t know that.”
This is only a small portion of our conversation with Sean Clark, and trust us; there is so much more to hear. Click play on the player below to dive deeper into CS:GO, Dallas, and the future of esports from the Intel Extreme Masters tournament.
We spoke with Sean Clark about CS:GO and more on-site at Dremhack Dallas 2023, which took place from June 2 – 4, 2023. The quotes included have been edited for length and clarity.
