It’s depressing knowing that from here on out Halo is going to be made by AI and indentured third world servants Just when you thought the games couldn’t get any worse 🫣

Found this while I was cleaning Even though most of these people ruined Halo it was still nice to be recognized. I got halo 2 twenty years ago for my 13th birthday and like many players at that time I discovered the large online community that existed for Halo. I was an avid cyber athlete and competed in counterstrike 1.6 before getting an Xbox so I already had esports pro gamer ambitions. The thought that you could play video games, for your job, was mind blowing to me. I also saw the potential in the future of esports, It felt like witnessing the birth of pro football or baseball, and we were apart of it. I played H2 all day everyday, that summer I think I maybe went outside 3 times. I quickly found MLG customs, joined a few random online teams, and I felt confident that I was good enough to compete. I wanted to go to events but I was too young to go on my own, and my parents didn’t support me. I even wrote up sponsorship pitch letters but this was a pre-YouTube world, and I was a little ass kid. So unfortunately competing at Halo 2 seemed like an unattainable dream, it wasn’t meant to be. But that was okay, Halo 3 was right around the corner and H2 was Fortnite levels of culturally relevant. Surely I would get another chance, so I asked for Xbox 360 for Christmas, like most kids my age. But I didn’t get it. In fact shortly I wouldn’t even get a place to live, the economy collapsed and I would spend the next 4 years couch surfing and occasionally staying in roach hotels. I didn’t sleep in a bed again until my first day of college. But I still always loved Halo, and eventually years later, around 2013, I got a 360 and halo 4. And I loved it, despite all the flaws, despite all the valid criticisms, I loved it. Because it was halo and I was finally back doing what I always wanted to do. When I came back there was 250 people watching the grand finals of a Halo 4 “major” lan tournament. Halo went from being the biggest esport in North America to a complete after thought. 250 viewers… Fast forward a few years later and I’ll never forget this moment, I was sleeping in a friends closet when Halo MCC was announced. Finally Halo 2 would be back, I could maybe start again where I left off all those years ago. I bought an Xbox One, MCC and started practicing my ass off. HCS was founded shortly thereafter and get this, the first open tournament is going to be a Halo 2 tournament. I finally had my chance at proving myself and getting to experience what it’s like to play in the passion pit. But then they changed the first event to H2 Anniversary instead… I was devastated, because H2A isn’t halo 2… it’s H4 with lipstick slapped on it. So I quit trying to compete, even though I’m one of the few sickos who enjoyed Halo4 it’s not halo 2, not even close. But I still loved Halo and wanted to contribute, I thought to myself I could either be an average Halo pro or one of the best content creators, so I did that instead. I noticed that while Halo had an official esports league there were still a lot of gaps that needed to be filled. No one was sharing schedules, no one was posting scrim results, or stats, or any necessary shoulder content that every traditional sport needs to be successful. So I did all that, and I gained traction on twitter which motivated me to take on bigger projects. I started FantasyHCS, initially just with spreadsheets, until I joined up with a dev team and created a standalone fully functional fantasy halo website based on tournament stats. FanrasyHCS would later be acquired by Logitech who proceeded to do nothing with it lol… After that I eventually wondered, “who was the best halo player ever?” So I researched every major tournament result and compiled them into an easily digestible spreadsheet. It took me weeks to research, format, and proofread all the data. We finally had every placing for every player ever recorded, in one place. It was a big success and it even inspired a similar resource for the CoD community. This was HCS’s inspiration for the notorious “Top 25 players list.” The same list that 343 admittedly paid someone to plagiarize my work, but whatever, that’s standard operating practice in this industry apparently. Speaking of plagiarism gfinity would later go on to copy one of my tweets word for word lol… this lead to me getting the chance to start and run my own Halo esports website. We would have news, stats, fantasy, analysis all that good stuff. I would get paid a salary, I’d have a team of people who built a similar website in an adjacent game, it sounded like a really cool opportunity. So I took it, quit my job, and two months after Halo Infinite released less than 5k people were playing the game on steam. 343 did it again, they dropped another wet fart on everyone’s heads. 3/3 industries. We carried on for a year, or should I say I carried on for a year because my team disappeared and I was left to run an entire website by myself. I had to watch every tournament, write every article, produce all the social media content, record and manually input all the stats into the website, try and find partners, it was an unmanageable workload for anybody, but I tried my best, I would sit at my computer for 18 hours a day 7 days a week trying to make that shit work, but eventually I got burned out and stopped caring. It was like trying to run an entire cruise ship entirely by yourself, it wasn’t possible but I tried Once that was done I didn’t really want to make halo content, for free, anymore. No disrespect to anybody still in the trenches but what was the point honestly. I was already established and the potential juice for me wasn’t worth the squeeze. I’ve already made content solely for likes/retweets, and quite frankly in a lot of ways Halo is still in the same spot it was 10 years ago when I came back during the H4 era. We might have 50,000 viewers (totally legitimate btw) but in reality there’s maybe 3,000 people playing the game on steam and on a good day it’s the 30th most played game on Xbox. The halo franchise is in the same spot it was when Halo 4 released, the only real difference is now have an official esports league. I love watching halo esports, the talent our players display is incredible, and it was achieved through a lifetime of dedication to their craft. The players carry and have carried Halo esports for years and they are truly what make it special. Shoutout LVT for saving halo esports, literally, they keep our scene alive every week. If Microsoft had any sense they would hire them to produce all of their esports broadcasts. Also shoutout HaloDataHive, they really don’t get enough credit or praise for what they’ve built for the esports scene. So yeah that’s it, I haven’t tweeted in a few years and I honestly didn’t even realize it. This website is vile brain rot garbage so I try not to come here much, my timeline doesn’t even show me halo content anymore… the other issue is a lot of this websites engagement simply isn’t real, and I get zero dopamine trying to farm likes from robots posing as imaginary non existent people I appreciate everyone who read this, it’s cool being somewhat known in the gaming community, I can’t count the number of times people have recognized my name while playing other games and said hi, and that feels really good. When I see how stats are presented on stream, on social media, I can tell I had an influence on the scene. The fact that people I looked up to as a kid know who I am, and think I did some cool shit, means the world to me. In my mind those are my LAN wins, the impact I made on halo esports. I feel like I raised the bar and pushed the needle forward a liltle bit. So the plan for now is chill and see what happens with the next Halo game. If it’s good, if it’s worthwhile, I’ll be back making halo content again. If not I’m blessed enough to have other interests that I’ve discovered during this break and I’ll take everything I learned in halo and apply it there.

343 industries fucked up Halo so badly they had to change their name 🤣

I got permanently banned from Halo twitch chat for saying "Yooo they made the JPEG move" Incredibly petty stuff out of the @Halo community team but I expect nothing less from those people London was a complete dumpster fire of an event & you deserve every bit of criticism @HCS

It's pretty bizarre to see Halo discourse on Twitter devolve into straight-up corpo worship because we hit 15k players one time But I get we all love Halo and ultimately want it to succeed, surely things will be different this time

It’s sad seeing all these G1 people coming to defend the org when they haven’t even been paid in months People will do anything to “live the dream” and work in esports But in reality, you don’t have a dream, you have an illusion

Halo Infinite is the first game that EU has been really able to show what they’re capable of… and 343 starves them out with zero support What a shame, truly These orgs that leave the scene always mention the same thing, lack of communication I wonder who’s fault that is 🤔

The HCS format is laughable, we just played like 10 2k/4ks just to have those points mean nothing. Just another hilarious decision out of them

Hey guys, is it ethical to leverage your leadership position at a video game company to sell "coaching/mentoring" for $250 an hour? Call me crazy but that seems like exploiting your fan's goodwill (Also for the low cost of $750 you can be added to a private discord channel)

This is almost certainly the last year of HCS, so enjoy it while it lasts I also wouldn’t be shocked to see Microsoft pull the plug on Infinite entirely considering how badly it flopped Cope if you must but it’s game over y’all, plan accordingly and be prepared

LVT doesn't get enough credit for keeping halo esports alive and we shouldn't take their efforts for granted HCS refuses to stream anything but the major events so the people in charge can brag about how many viewers they average, it's self-serving and detrimental to our scene

I’ve been watching Halo esports since 2005 and its incredibly disappointing to see how much the scene has regressed over the past ~20 years HCS could have the biggest budget in esports and they would still fumble the bag because they make bad decisions We need better leadership

What will it take for people who still support 343 to change their minds? They've had 10 years, 4 chances, and over a billion dollars to make something good happen, and they've failed every time The decision-makers at that company don't understand Halo and that's why we're here

This event is a month away and people don't even know if they'll be able to compete yet and they expect people to book expensive flights and accommodations? HCS has literally zero respect for the people who keep this scene alive, they never cease to amaze me Year 9 of HCS btw

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Halo didn't die today, it died years ago for the average gamer you guys just don't realize it (or don't want to admit it) because you've invested the past 10 years of your life into the game

343's days are numbered, it's so obvious Loser company that hasn't met expectations on any level Hopefully, Halo will get stewards worthy of such an iconic video game franchise

🕹️ Today's the day gamers! 🕹️ #AGDQ2023

I see we are at the point in this Halo’s lifespan where people are blaming the pros for not streaming scrims The real people you should be mad at are HCS who’s schedule prioritizes their viewership metrics over providing the scene with an adequate amount of tournaments

Shoutout to 343 for causing the ever-growing divide between the casual and competitive halo communities Their complete misunderstanding of what Halo should be is the root cause of the tension and they've cultivated an environment where neither side feels heard or respected 🫡