Device, Dupreeh and Cadian Talk About Player Stress and Burnout in Competitive CS:GO

Aditya Singh Rawat
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Device, Dupreeh and Cadian Talk About Player Stress and Burnout in Competitive CS:GO

Cover And Thumbnail Image Courtesy: DreamHack

  • Few Danish CS:GO players talk about player stress and burnout.

  • They have shared their personal experiences in order to spread awareness about the problem.

  • Recently a lot of veteran Counter-Strike players have taken a break from the game citing mental health issues. 

Player burnout and prolonged stress have recently seen a huge surge in the world of competitive Counter-Strike with many top-tier players like Markus "Kjaerbye" Kjærbye, Lukas "gla1ve" Rossander, Andreas “Xyp9x” Højsleth, and Olof "olofmeister" Kajbjer Gustafsson, taking a break from competitive CS:GO to better take care of their mental health.

A few Danish professional players like Nicolai "dev1ce" Reedtz, Casper "cadiaN" Møller, and Peter “dupreeh” Rasmussen who are still playing the game actively but have faced similar issues, shared their experiences recently in an interview with sport.tv2.dk.

Device who had taken medical leave back in 2017 for a solid 47 days, has already faced the consequences of not taking care of one’s body and mind. Revealing a bit about his current health the player states that,

“I still suffer from many of the stress symptoms myself. Every single time we finish a tournament, I have a day or a half where I'm lying and vomiting because the adrenaline is dropping. When I get home, it's just a weekday for me.”

The player says that these violent side effects are something he has now learned to live with and he is not worried about it being as hard as it was back in 2017 to deal with it. He reassures this fact by stating that he has an understanding of why it happens, when it happens and how to react in order to control it.

A more bizarre one-off incident was shared by cadiaN which was rather stressing and thought-provoking. The 24-year-old first revealed that he has been feeling more confused lately, as he shared his story,

“I don't tend to be clumsy. I remember going to subway recently but instead of going into the restaurant, I just saw it and passed by it. I had to go into the subway and take it, but instead of doing that I just drove right past it.”

Shifting the focus towards how an increasing number of tournaments might be contributing to the rapid burnout and elevated levels of stress, dupreeh points out that “There are tournaments on the right and left, and that's a problem. Organizers are just throwing the tournaments into the calendar and hoping it can go up.”

These were some raw statements by the players on the whole mental wellbeing situation that seems to have enveloped the CS:GO community. The problem is now being discussed more openly and maybe soon CSPPA might step in with some ground-level guidelines to ensure mental stability for all the players.


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Aditya is the in-house CS:GO writer at AFK Gaming. While his understanding of the esports space is not restricted by geographical borders, his current focus lies in the Asian region. Understands and follows almost all major esport titles.