Sheever on working at events: “There was also a personal interest in it; I knew for sure that I no longer wanted to be in sales.”

My sisters, my brother, and I grew up in a neighborhood where life revolved around the street; playing outside was our main form of entertainment. We practically didn’t have a computer. I only remember that at some point, my older brother got a Nintendo 64—I don’t know if he was given it as a gift or if he bought it from a neighbor. I loved playing *Ocarina of Time*—it was incredibly fun. Just like everything else on that console. I especially liked *1080° Snowboarding*.

Those were probably some of the very first games I remember. Of course, there was no such thing as online play back then. Later, my dad got a computer for work. I’m old now, so it was an MS-DOS computer. We played Lemmings, Prince of Persia, and Snipes—a modest selection like that. And when I was about 12 or 13, we finally got a “computer” running Windows.

[How many arguments and fights did that cause?] Oh, so many. Just an endless number, and things got even worse when, I think, my younger sister got us hooked on Warcraft III with custom maps like DotA and tower defense.

I earned a degree in business economics and then found a stable job in The Hague—a regular nine-to-five job. The title was something like “sales manager” or “sales accountant”—something along those lines. Or, rather, a client relations manager. Overall, it all came down to sales, and, to be honest, I don’t even know how my life would have turned out if esports hadn’t come along.

The reason I got into this field in the first place was my belief in the possibility of applying game mechanics to real life to improve and simplify everyday work. Part of that idea was that gaming experience should actually mean something beyond the computer. I was really into World of Warcraft back then and thought, “I know how to raid—surely that must have some value in real life.” There was a personal interest in that, but most importantly, I knew for sure that I didn’t want to work in sales anymore.

I liked the idea of getting into event planning. At first, it had nothing to do with esports at all—just event planning, which I saw as a promising career path for myself. But all I had under my belt was sales experience, and I started thinking, “What do I actually have? Just World of Warcraft.” By the way, I still remember the story about how two candidates were considered for the position of CEO at Yahoo, and the one with a background in WoW won: a raid leader and guild master—it was precisely those qualities that gave him the edge. I once stumbled upon an article about this, and I still remember it to this day because it served as confirmation for me: see, I was right.

But aside from World of Warcraft, I had no experience, so I decided to create my own. I started looking for an opportunity to prove myself online. On Dota 2 forums, someone was looking for help organizing a tournament, and I offered my services as an administrator. I figured it would just be a line on my resume, but that’s exactly how my career began.