The world of competitive, professional gaming is one dominated by players from “first world’ countries. It is a world where reaction time and experience can be negated by ones’ internet connection, handicapping players from “third world” countries where internet infrastructure is often years behind.
That is why the story of Mohaned Walied Dewedar, AKA Cherryo, is so good to hear. Living in Cairo, Egypt, Cherryo plays on European servers with an average ping of about 200ms, and an outdated computer lacking the power to play at 60 FPS, yet today is one of the world’s best at Smite.
Wearing his national flag with pride on his Team Jersey. Source : Youtube.com
How It Started
From the age of 9, Mohaned played computer games like most kids. He loved Call Of Duty and began to play online, competitive games exclusively from his early teens. Then in 2014 he began playing a recently-relased Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) game called Smite : Battleground of the Gods.
Like a lot of online games, Smite has Ranked gamemodes, ranking gamers into categories based on their track record in the game. With his natural talent for this genre of game, Cherryo quickly shot up the leaderboard of the European Rankings, playing in games featuring only the best players.
When HiRez Studios, developers of Smite, announced they were to create a Smite Pro League, teams quickly formed to enter qualifications. Players who managed to convince sponsors to back them to form a team recruited players they knew were talented from the games they had played together over the previous months.
That is when Cherryo received an email that would change his life.
In its’ first year of being professional, the World Champion Team shared a $1,3 million prize pool. Source : Hirez.com
How It Happened
Despite his obvious talent and weight of hours clocked up in the game, there were plenty of people beside his name on the leaderboard. To team captains forming brand-new teams, almost everyone was just another player hiding behind a username. How Cherryo managed to get noticed, and stay in the memory of his fellow players, was by playing really well, playing often, as well as one very clever move, outside of the game.
He found the gamers who were the top Twitch streamers of Smite and would make sure he queued at the same time as them so he could try get into their games. His internet connection wasn’t fast enough to support streaming himself, so playing in a game with a big streamer was the next best thing. This meant that not only did the streamer start to notice his name, but so did the audience. If you’re assisted / killed by the same player enough times, their name starts to stick.
So when the day came that Smite teams formed, Cherryo was already on the mind of most of the European team captains, all he had to do was say yes.
But That’s Where The Hard Work Began
Unfortunately for him, merely accepting the invitation to play didn’t catapult him to overnight success and wealth. Smite was still a small, relatively-unknown game so there was not a lot of money for the gamers; most of the money earned came from winning tournaments. Smite also played it’s regular season tournaments online, meaning Cherryo had to deal with his internet handicap, while every single other player in the league had internet at least 3 times faster than his.
He struggled at first to find his ideal role, or position, in the game too. In ranked games, Cherryo had made a name for himself as a multi-role player, filling in the gaps that other players left, but a professional team has set positions, and his initial role choice never proved successful. His first year in Smite did not go as planned, compounded by the withdrawal of sponsorship money from their parent company at the end of the first season, so Cherryo and his team were forced to look for new teams to play on.
Fortunately for him, he was a popular person within the Smite community so he was quickly signed to another team. Over the course of the next four years, Cherryo played as a substitute, switched roles a few times, and changed teams twice, but through all the change he continued to learn from his experiences and came back a better player every tournament, never letting defeat or adversity get in his way.
Finally, at the end of 2017, HiRez Studios announced Smite had signed a partnership with Mixer as well as Coca-Cola for the broadcast rights to the Smite Pro League, meaning a massive cash injection and with it the ability to guarantee players’ salaries at $30,000 excluding sponsorships, team bonuses, prizes or streaming revenue. Cherryo was picked as the only African player in any of the World Leagues.
Through all of this, and while being an active professional gamer, Mohaned is currently studying Engineering, something he maintains is more “in case this gaming thing fails”.
Are You Next?
Thanks to the recent influx of Fibre Optic Internet and some local servers, some South Africans specifically will be at an advantage, as they can start streaming more reliably in order to build their reputation and spread their “brand”, as well as playing with a slightly lower ping than usual meaning less of a handicap.
eSports as a whole is here to stay, and is constantly growing, with more money being injected into tournaments and competitions every year, as well as more and more games launching professional leagues and tournaments all the time. Microsoft has even introduced their competitor to Amazon’s streaming giant Twitch, as the market for a streaming platform constantly grows. Even DSTV has their own dedicated gaming channel broadcasting various eSports leagues from around the world.
The biggest eSports tournaments draw massive crowds and pay handsomely. Source : Geek.com
While it may be difficult for new players to become a professional in a game that has been out for a while and already has a very established competitive scene, new games are constantly being released that might end up launching a professional league. There are even already some South African teams that compete in various world tournaments, as well as locally-based tournaments for a variety of games to provide a taste of what competitive gaming is like.
Just remember, only the lucky few will become successes overnight. Most people, Cherryo included, worked hard to get where they are today. A combination of perseverance, hard work and a great attitude will get you a long way, not just in gaming, but in life too.
Work at it, practice your game repeatedly, make friends within the community and if you can’t stream your gameplay, try and make friends with people who do so you can play in their games. And who knows, you could be the next gamer from Africa to make a living playing video games. We really have no more excuses.
Smite: Battleground of the Gods will be one of this month’s Games with Gold, giving you the opportunity to join a game that has an established professional league and to possibly work your way up the ranks and, ultimately, become professional too.
I’ll see you on the battleground.
