tOfu on his parents and esports: "They're fully supporting me"

The BetBoom Dacha Dubai group stage is nearly over, and Gaimin Gladiators is sitting at the top of their bracket with a 5-3 score. It's an expected result for the team that dominated every Major in 2023.

Before the tournament began, Erik "tOfu" Engel sat down for a quick interview to discuss what it's like to play in Dubai, the support he gets from his parents, and what we should expect from the Gladiators in this event.

tOfu: "[my parents] perception changed a lot over the last year"

Gaimin Gladiators at The International 2023.
Image Source: Twitter. @GaiminGladiator

The interview began with tOfu echoing what Tal "Fly" Aizik said about Dubai. The city has been a hit with the players, with a beautiful resort and many attractions to check out during down time.

"I've only been here for a day but overall with memories from the last one it's been really fun. You guys also make sure that the players are comfortable they feel well, and that everything works smoothly. I have been to Dubai before and I have a really good impression of the city actually and this place is also so beautiful."

Playing video games for a living sounds like a dream job and it pretty much is. However, it does come with its share of challenges and uncertainty.

One of the biggest factors that impacts new players is whether or not they have support from their family and tOfu's parents were rather lukewarm at the start.

"Their perception changed a lot over the last one or two years. Because with parents they have no idea what's going on, you're kind of just playing games, they don't know if there's five people watching or 10,000."

Last year was the best year in tOfu's career. Gaimin Gladiators won all three Majors and placed second at The International.

Success come with many perks, money and prestige among them. But for tOfu it also meant the approval of his parents.

"I've kind of been playing games since I was small, so they always accepted it but not really in terms of job and growing up something but now they're like fully supporting me"

Gaimin Gladiators is ready to play after a two-month break

Gaimin Gladiators at TI12

The Gladiators haven't been participating in any tournament qualifiers due to automatically qualifying for the main event.

The team hasn't had a chance to showcase their understanding of the meta since the patch dropped, with BetBoom Dacha being their first event since December last year.

For tOfu he just wants his team to put up a solid performance and go as far as they can.

"I hope our plays are solid, there might be some heroes popping off where we haven't seen them for a while but we also didn't play tournaments so it's not like we can show anything."

The BetBoom Dacha playoffs will proceed on February 10th. Catch all the action live on Twitch.

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Featured Image Source: ESL.