Last week, Counter-Strike interviewer Anastasija “Heccu” Tolmačeva shared a heartfelt video that resonated deeply with esports professionals across our industry.

In her video, Heccu opened up about her struggles to find freelance opportunities in the CS tournament landscape and how this has drained her emotionally and financially. What followed was a wave of support from the CS community, along with several stories from esports professionals reporting similar experiences in their careers.

Heccu’s video resonated so strongly because she gave voice to the many challenges esports professionals face in the current ecosystem. Job insecurity, a competitive market, and unpaid labor… How realistic is a sustainable esports career nowadays?

When I started out in esports, I thought getting an esports degree would be the best way to go about it. Now, let’s not get into the quality and importance of esports degrees. I’m just mentioning that because a former classmate brought up the term “passion tax” back then, and it’s stuck with me ever since.

What did she mean by “passion tax,” specifically in relation to working in esports? Our industry is largely built upon passion. It’s what motivated gaming fans to host the first-ever tournaments and advocate for better infrastructure and professionalization at the advent of our industry. And still to this day, passion is a hard requirement for the majority of esports roles. It fuels professionals to hone their craft, and it makes our product – the competitions, teams, and storylines – more entertaining in the eyes of esports audiences.

At the same time, esports professionals tend to make additional work commitments out of their passion for their field. This includes watching relevant tournaments for eight or more hours per day across different time zones, or attending on-site events at one’s own expense. 

This level of commitment has, to some degree, become an unwritten expectation, for example, in volunteer work. Unpaid entry-level opportunities remain the starting point for many esports careers. A large portion of Tier 3 and even Tier 2 projects still rely on unpaid or underpaid workers, making well-compensated roles a rarity. 

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but passion does not pay my rent. Quite the opposite – choosing to commit 100% to esports is often a choice against more stable sources of income, because balancing esports work and a traditional job can be impossible for some job profiles in the scene. Moreover, the passion tax can make any critique of the esports job infrastructure sound like entitled complaining.

After all, it is a privilege to work a fulfilling job in a field that you’re passionate about. 

“It’s so fascinating how in the 10 years I’ve been TOing, there has been no change to this culture of expected sacrifice,” remarked FGC personality KhalilTheSeer in a recent X (formerly Twitter) post. “In fact, I feel it’s gotten worse. People being compensated for their time/effort does not take away the passion.”

And many of us choose to enter or stay in the scene, well aware of the financial insecurity and mental drain associated with it. In her video, Heccu describes this perhaps irrational loyalty to her field, despite insufficient compensation, as a “one-sided affection for the CS scene.”

However, she also emphasized: “No one promised me anything, and no one forced me into this commitment. It was my decision, and it was I who chose to enter the freelancing environment, okay? No one owes me anything at all. With all of this in mind, I am not demanding anything. I’m also not asking for a favor.” 

So what if you pay the passion tax in full? Well, Heccu is an interviewer with years of experience in the CS scene, a track record of Tier 1 on-air work, bilingual interviewing skills, and good relations with her peers.

And yet, she struggles to get hired for CS events, to the point where she currently lives off her savings rather than esports income. 

It paints a daunting picture and raises the question of why someone with her skill set isn’t being hired. In both her video and a guest appearance on the CS podcast, Feed The Trolls, Heccu discussed how this question has eaten away at her mental well-being. On-air talent, such as Heccu, might check all the boxes, and it’s still not enough in a job market as competitive as esports. 

“Something I have realized over the last five years doing talent work is that hard work doesn’t pay off, and passion doesn’t get noticed or matter. Heccu is probably the best example of this, as she has just done nothing but GRIND, and her passion is infectious,” commented CS on-air talent Freddie “GrimyRannarr” Pritchard.

“And as she says, as a talent member, you never have any idea why you didn’t get hired for an event, or even why you do get hired for an event. Real feedback is very hard to come by, and it makes everything 10x harder when you have no idea what you are doing well or badly.”

The lack of transparency not only makes talent development more challenging. It also exacerbates self-doubt in an already competitive environment. “Why am I not being hired over this person? Why am I less successful?” These are thought patterns that easily creep in against one’s will. 

“I think it’s worse for women,” highlighted CS host Sam “Tech Girl” Wright on Feed The Trolls. “HLTV almost always, like once every three months, has someone start a forum post about rating the women in esports and who they’d wanna do at the top. And like, whatever, that’s what you wanna do. But I never see them making the same lists about the boys.”

While even factors such as charisma and personality can be relevant for esports talent, some roles simply have a significantly smaller pool of job opportunities than others. For instance, dedicated interviewers are rarely hired at events below Tier 1 due to budget reasons. Why recruit an additional personality when your host or analyst can cover the same task? 

In recent years, this role consolidation has become more common even within Tier 1, as tournament organizers downsize production amid budget cuts and business pivots. In other cases, we’ve seen popular esports content creators prioritized over long-standing specialized talent alongside an overall shift in audience viewing preferences, namely the rising popularity of co-streaming. As our industry ages, flexible, adaptable talent is increasingly sought after over specialized roles.

On-air personality Eefje “Sjokz” Depoortere, for example, has long been open about the importance of building a personal brand and establishing potential sources of income outside of esports in case her role becomes obsolete in the future. 

“It’s definitely one of the reasons why I am working so hard as a freelancer on all my options,”  explained Sjokz on her personal TikTok. “And also options specifically outside of esports in terms of the TV work that I’ve done and the consultancy work and the brand work that I do, specifically. Because tomorrow is not promised.”

Given the current and future career challenges esports offers, how can established and up-and-coming talent find some degree of stability? 

“Either work multiple titles or focus on one and do full-time content and casting (if Tier 1). Have a day job or background work you can do in the off time and not have to rely solely on net 30+ contracts to pay your bills,” advised caster Nick “Vodible” Ambrozic on X.

Heccu herself is now venturing into additional esports titles after seven years of exclusive CS work. But not all the options listed by Vodible work for everyone. For example, freelancing demands high flexibility in scheduling and travel, which is incompatible with many traditional jobs. Similarly, co-streaming can only cover your bills if you reach a certain audience size or score deals with brands and esports organizations. Otherwise, content creation moreso serves as a tool for brand building and skill development. 

“My current financial income from the three months I did this year of watchparties it barely covered my trip to Cluj-Napoca [CS tournament],” revealed Heccu in her video.

Interestingly, Tech Girl theorized on Feed The Trolls that co-streaming could unlock new ways of utilizing esports talent, despite its reputation as direct competition with broadcast talent. According to the CS host, co-streams could hire dedicated on-site interviewers or even set up exclusive analyst desks in addition to the official broadcast.

However, such pathways would need to be discussed with tournament organizers and publishers to resolve broadcasting rights.