Welcome to another interview on the Grumpy Old Gamer!
Today we have an interview with Jordan Marzec, creator and mind behind the website GamersLook. The website is designed to bring a wide range of interviews of gamers from all areas of Esports. Ranging from Pro players to well known amateur players, Gamerslook represents great contact with people in the Esports scene.
Below Jordan gives us some insight as to how GamersLook started and future developments.
1.
What is your gaming background before you started GamersLook?
Very
good question! Well, I have been gaming since I was 5, with the very first
Nintendo. My whole life I have grown up with video games, owning almost every
system that’s ever been released. As the years
rolled on, as any gamer can tell you, the games gradually turn from just being
fun, to a competitive level amongst friends. At a competitive stand point, I
started when MLG first started LANing Halo 2. Being from Michigan, we had a
majority of the top players, in the world, for Halo; Walshy, Victory, Mackeo
ect. So, knowing that those players were in my own backyard, it prompted me to
try and become a professional Halo player. Later realising, that it took way
too much time, effort, concentration and money to get to the level that PRO
players achieved. Not to say I didn’t
used to game 14 hours a day and put gaming before school (which almost every
player did back then), but these guys I knew ate, slept and breathed this game.
Now, I just play games casually to enjoy, have fun and fool around.
2.
What prompted you to start GamersLook?
Back
during the Halo 3 days, I used to conduct interviews on the MLG forums called “MLG Community Interviews”. I would interview players who were
really active on the forums and in competitive gaming in general and post them
for everyone in the forums to read. It was a great way to involve everyone in
the community! I would always get a ton of positive feedback from players of
all levels. Soon, however, it started to become difficult juggling school,
work, hockey, gaming and doing interviews. Plus, as MANY gamers can relate, you
get to that point in your life where you have to make a choice of what parts
need to be let go, to make room for what you see yourself doing in the future.
So, being 20 at the time, I figured I missed my shot to pursue anything more in
the gaming industry and stopped all together.
Just
recently, a year or less, I started to get back into it because of the uproars
I kept hearing about COD. See, back in the old days, COD was a baby…no one played COD because everything was
invested in Halo. Once Halo 3 ended, that’s when I disappeared from everything…little did I know…COD
was going to take the world by storm! I never imagined COD growing into what it
is today. It’s absolutely AMAZING to see so much
passion and competitiveness in players again! When I saw this, it really pumped
me up and reminded me of the interviews I had done 5-6 years ago and how much
fun I had interviewing the players. From that point on, I knew I wanted to get
back into the gaming community because let’s face it…once
a gamer, always a gamer. The rest is history and GamersLook was born!
3.
What do you see as the important issues in COD Esports at the moment?
At the
moment, it definitely is the ability to change teams so quickly, without there
being consequences. Teams need to have players that can work out problems…not just throw them aside and substitute
them with another person. Back in the day, you NEVER saw teams changing like it
was going out of style. Especially two, three or even FOUR changes before the
next tournament. It’s ridiculous. There will
always be bumps on the road to success, but you have to learn to slow down and
analyse the situation at hand and turn it into a positive. Golden Boy said it
perfectly and I am paraphrasing when I say, if eSports is to be taken seriously
by major companies, at a professional level, then there needs to be contracts
set in place. If you are a professional gamer, this is your job and how you
support yourself with income, then a contract needs to be signed. Hopefully,
this will be implemented by next years season…especially if the changes continue drastically throughout this
season…which, sadly, I’m sure they will.
4. You’ll soon be attending GFG, tell us more
about it and how did that come about?
Yes! I
am extremely excited for Gamers For Giving! GFG is a charity event based in
Michigan. It is run all weekend (February 8th-9th) at the Eastern Michigan
University Center. Gamers from all over, come to play a variety of competitive
games from Halo to COD to LoL to Starcraft etc. It’s pretty much 48 hours of awesomeness! GFG is founded by,
one of my good friends, Zach Wigal. Anymore information can be found, in
detail, at their website www.gamersoutreach.org
How
this all came about: I was contacted by John Spiher, who is the PR Manager for
Gamers Outreach. He liked what he had seen so far with our interviews and the
growth/likeability we had already achieved within the community. He wanted to
know if we’d be interested in doing public
interviews, at GFG all weekend, with the gamers attending. Of course, I couldn’t say no to this awesome opportunity!
Especially, since the event is so close and it’s for such a great cause. I mean, we get to interview gamers
from all over the country AND interview some I used to play against so many
years ago…it’s going to be a BLAST! I can’t thank John enough for reaching out to us and providing this
opportunity. The event is just three weeks away and it can’t get here soon enough!
5.
What hopes/ideas do you have for the future for GamersLook and beyond?
This
is a great question. I’ve
actually been asked this multiple times, since our start just a month or so
ago. Right now, this a is small operation run by myself and co-founder, Alex. We
didn’t imagine how fast this all would take
off and what a blessing it’s
turned into. Our hopes are to one day have the chance to attend all of the
gaming events and interview gamers from around the world…LIVE. We will still always continue to
do online interviews, but it would great to travel around the world
interviewing gamers from all platforms. We hope to attend as many events, this
year, as possible. We’re
just happy that we have so much support, from so many gamers, worldwide. We can’t thank them enough for sticking with us
and wanting to be apart of it all!
Thanks
a lot to Jordan for his time in giving me this interview, and hope that
he, Alex and GamersLook goes from strength to strength in the future!
You can contact GamersLook on twitter at - @Gamerslook
Or at their website - http://www.gamerslook.com/
Let me know your thoughts people, and feel free to get in touch -
YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCS1bxmAaXM7WqtviRGp822g
Neil
