Attendees play Activision Blizzard’s Call of Duty: Black Ops III during the E3 Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, California.
Patrick T. Fallon | Bloomberg | Getty Images
A 25-year-old professional gamer has been forced to retire due to a thumb injury.
Thomas “ZooMaa” Paparatto has announced that he “takes a step back from the competitive Call of Duty” on Twitter.
“This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to write, I’m leaving office and I will no longer compete in a competitive Call of Duty for the foreseeable future,” he said in a separate blog post.
“It breaks my heart to move away from a game where I put my heart and soul into it every day for eight years,” he added. “Break just write this, but I don’t know what to do right now.”
Paparatto plays for a sports team called the New York Subliners and has won $ 387,019 in 87 tournaments, according to Sports Earnings. His biggest single-tournament prize came in April 2018, when he won $ 53,125 in a Call of Duty: Cold War II competition.
A few years ago, the American player struggled with the weakness of his thumb and wrist while playing a game called FaZe Clan. As a result, he had to be operated on.
“Going through this process to get back to being healthy was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do both physically and mentally, which caused a lot of stress and anxiety,” he said. “Unfortunately, the injury has returned and it makes it very difficult for me to compete at the highest level against some of the best players in the world.”
He said playing with pain in his hand is “no longer possible” and that he doesn’t like to compete when he can’t be the “ZooMaa that everyone knows and loves.”
Fans and playmates shared their support after his announcement.
Many professional players train or compete for more than 10 hours a day, and some of them earn more than a million dollars a year during the process. However, physical and mental stress in the body can sometimes cause health problems.
Sam Matthews, founder and CEO of Fnatic, told CNBC in December: “These people are in good shape, fit and healthy, but there is always an anomaly in the norm.”