There are 15 seconds before the round starts. Sophomore Eli Bork’s five man team just lost a decisive round that has put them one point away from losing the entire match. It’s been a close game so far, but now Bork’s team finds itself in a financial deficit. Only two members of the team have the money to buy all of their gear. The rest, including Bork, are forced to make due with inferior weapons and a lack of smoke grenades. One of Bork’s teammates calls for an “A-split” with a smoke grenade middle. Another team- mate disagrees and reminds them that the opposing team has played very well on A-Bombsite so far. Eli speaks up and proposes a rush up middle, while the bomb goes through tunnels to B-bombsite. The strategy is agreed on and the clock hits zero.

“It’s just like any other sport: you practice, you try new strategies, you play with a team of friends who you enjoy being around and who you know can make each other better,” Bork said.

Bork includes the competitive shooter, Counter Strike: Global Offensive, among his other hobbies such as theater, singing and guitar.

In Counter Strike, the terrorist team is tasked with planting and defending a bomb, while the counter-terrorist team attempts to defuse the bomb. Both teams have to buy weapons, armor and grenades at the start of every new round with in-game money they accumulated from the round before. What results is a game that takes several years to achieve skill at, let alone master.

What makes “eSports” like Counter Strike different from normal video games, is their focus on skilled, competitive play between human players and teams. The communities behind these games are distinctly students from high school to college, and the millennials. It’s hard to find anyone over the age of 35, and this is due to a couple key factors according to Bork.

One reason goes beyond just having fun, and goes into high schoolers usual desire to feel accepted: “anyone can play together. So you can have a team of completely different people, and that’s really special that it brings the community together like that, and it creates a very non-judgmental environment,” Bork said. Feeling accepted no matter who you are isn’t the only reason young people flock to these games.

“If you look at people between 20 and 30, they have grown up with computers in their homes, and spent a lot of their young lives with computers and technology around them,” Bork said. “Since they are more used to it, they embrace the idea of video games as an activity and important to their life.”