'I'm the Highest Earner in Esports'

Johan "NOtail" Sundstein has won over $7 million but says, "I don't really crave that status.... I play for my own reasons"

- JOHAN "NOTAIL" SUNDSTEIN

MY EARLIEST GAMING MEMORIES ARE OF playing Mario on the Nintendo Game Boy. It was a big thing at school, and then after that came Pokémon. My mom even has a picture of me playing the Game Boy while on the potty.

I don't know how I got the Game Boy. I think everybody was riding the same wave and it was the new fad, but my parents weren't really gamers. They are into sports and traditional games, such as badminton, volleyball and cards.

I love gaming but I also like sports and I can see a natural correlation between the two. They're both about competing and reaching your potential, and breaking down how the game could and should be played to maximum effect.

The gaming was just a generational thing, I guess. All my friends at school were playing console games together, like connecting our Game Boys together to play Pokémon. And we advanced through games together, going to each other's homes to play each other's consoles, working together to defeat difficult puzzles, and so on.

In my early gaming years, there was some concern from my parents about how much I was playing. It could get a bit extreme where I would cut into my sleeping hours and I even developed facial tics, which often happens to people who play too much.

They were asking the stereotypical questions of kids who love to game a lot. What will my future look like? Who will I turn into? Will I be able to take care of myself? And can this really be a career? But my parents were always very supportive. There was never any crazy resistance to my gaming.

Then, when I got my first paycheck from gaming, even though I was very young and it was minuscule, it helped to calm their concerns. They felt this would all work out for me one way or another. I started to realize this could be a career for me in the very first game I played seriously, Heroes of Newerth. There were some tournaments where we were able to win a few thousand euros.