FOG [e-sport]

Chapter 42

After all the contracts were signed, the team began their normal operations. The next day, Zhou Huo issued the work schedules, training requirements, and management rules to everyone. These were no different from the previous FS’, and they were virtually the same as those in Sacred Sword and IAC. Everyone took a look at it and had no objections.

“A lot of the time, I want to send these details for the sprayers to see.” Zhou Huo held a work schedule, as he shook his head and sighed. “Who the f*ck said professional players were paid to play games for free? If I were to show this schedule to them, no one would want to go pro.”

During the normal training period, you must be at your computer by 2 pm every day and group training ends at 10 pm. During this time, you can’t play with your mobile phone, you can’t play any other games, or watch any shows, etc. You can only play FOG. During those 8 consecutive hours, you can only be away from the training room for one hour and that already includes dinner.

What do you do after the group training? You can’t rest. You have to do another four hours of personal training. You can only rest once you finish at two o’clock in the morning.

During those last four hours, players can generally do live broadcasts, but they can only play FOG. They can never play any other games. When you add that all up, there are at least ten hours for training per day. Of course, this is only the basic training time. If they were in the preparatory period, it was even more uncertain how many hours there would be. 12 hours may be possible, 14 hours may also be possible, even more than that is also possible.

There are no weekends and holidays, and each person only gets one day off per month. The specific day is subject to the team’s arrangement. This day is often mixed up. Other times, only the Mid-Autumn Festival and the New Year’s is given to the players as holidays, provided that there is no competition during this period. If there is, then any festival or holiday is useless. There is no vacation for eSports.

Each training match is scheduled first thing for that day. So you can’t be absent or late. After the training match, you’ll have to watch the game replay. If you played well or played ok, you will be told so. If you played badly then you’ll be scolded the entire way. After you’ve been scolded to within an inch of your life, then it ends. Finally, the next time you get the chance to take a look at your phone, you can be certain that the sprayers have come right on time to pay their respects to your parents and to sneer at how much you suck at this. You could very well imagine the psychological pressure this brings.

During the competition period, the requirements for the players may be relaxed. Players can set the times themselves but they still need to guarantee at least six hours of practice. Even during the New Year or the holidays after the competition, every day, everyone must play eight high-level games. In the club, they have a person specifically assigned to check on the player account’s situation. Playing less games or playing them badly wasn’t acceptable. The monetary penalty was just a small matter. If the management determines that the player hasn’t played well enough or if he wasted away his time, they may ask the player to make up for those lost hours.

In this respect, players were training almost all year round.

Old Qiao sighed. “This schedule’s really not that harsh. Now, there are a lot of clubs where players have to ask for permission before they leave the training room. They have to clearly state what they’re going to do, when they’ve coming back. Whether it’s do go eat or go to the toilet. They can’t even be the slightest bit late. They have absolutely no privacy.”

“It’s plenty harsh.” Zhou Huo laughed in spite of himself. “There are a lot that are stricter than this; some even to the point that they’d have to clock in and out every time they go out. But there’s no need for that with us. They’re all old players. They know self-discipline. We don’t need to supervise them that much.”