Here at Escape Games Canada, we are lucky to have an amazing team and that team happens to include the awesome Celeste Anderson. For anyone who is unfamiliar with Celeste, she is a reality television personality and competitive gamer who happens to be one of the many friendly faces you’ll find when you visit us. Here is a little more about her, in her own words:
To begin with, give us some of your favourites: movie, game, band, food, etc.
My favourite band is Linkin Park, and I’m a big fan of Bollywood movies, especially Kal Ho Naa Ho. My favourite sport is baseball and my favourite colour is blue. I love the Harry Potter series and eating chocolate covered strawberries. As for my gaming favourites, my favourite Pokemon is Articuno, my favourite character is Yoshi and my favourite game should be obvious; Halo 2, 3, or 5.
What do you do in your spare time, other than gaming and escape games?
I love traveling and I love exploring. Last year, I really got into treetop trekking, hiking, and zip-lining. I also love watching sports, especially baseball. I play on a softball team as the pitcher and I rotate infield as well. Other than that, I like the usual stuff, watching movies, TV shows, playing board games and going to the arcade!
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How did you get into gaming?
My cousin Roderick was my best friend. I used to sit and watch him play games and eventually, I got involved. I started to play the same games he was to be better than him; in hindsight that was probably an early sign of seeing games as more than something casual, but as something competitive. I fell into gaming like it was a natural thing. One Christmas, my Dad got me an Xbox. I was watching TV one day and my Dad walked in and asked if I wanted to play a game with him. Of course, it was Halo.
Eventually, Halo 2 came out and Dad asked if I wanted to try Xbox Live out – I didn’t think much of it but I accepted and used his gamertag: “The Fish 13”. I became obsessed and addicted to Halo 2 and XBL. I was at Toronto Fan Expo in 2006 when I saw there was a Halo 2 FFA Tournament going on. I literally jumped with excitement! I entered the FFA tournament and placed 2nd. The organization that ran it asked me to come out to the monthly LAN tournaments and soon after, I started going every month practicing with other locals. My first major tournament was MLG Chicago 2007.
What motivated you to go pro?
I didn’t even have to think about it. I feel like I have always been competitive in nature. Whether in sports, school, or games… I always wanted to beat my own expectations. There is a thrill to trying to be the best at what you really enjoy. Halo was the first competitive game I got into and the first game I truly fell in love with for multiple reasons; I dedicated the last 10 years of my life to Halo eSports.
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What is it like being a girl on the pro circuit? What are some of the challenges?
It’s always been a tricky road to walk on. Being a girl on the pro circuit has its positives and negatives, like you would expect. When I first entered the gaming circuit, I was 16 and I was unsure of how to deal with the social challenges that going pro presented. Aside from it being extremely difficult to succeed in the pro circuit, specifically for console shooters or team-based games, I think the biggest challenges come from the insular social behavior of the community. You get a lot of hate for being a girl but then at the same time you receive a lot of praise for being a girl playing games. It’s how you take that hate and love, how you choose the behaviour you want to have in the gaming community that defines you in the community. Sometimes you don’t know whether to get angry at how you are being treated and sometimes you can lose focus because you are receiving more attention than the average male player. There is a lot of pressure to do well as a girl in competitive gaming. If you don’t do well, people are not afraid to voice that you, as a girl, or girls as a whole, are incapable of competing on the same level as a male. It has been 10 years since I started competing and it has now gotten to the point that I no longer feel the pressure to succeed. I already know that people have particular expectations and harsh opinions of competitive female gamers and now I am able to focus less on everyone else’s expectations because I know it will take away from concentrating on my own development and goals.
There is and always has been a social stigma to the term “girl gamer”, it’s been around ever since women stepped into the gaming scene. We all understand gaming is male dominated and with any sport, the comparison [between genders] is always made. I can tell you, when I first came into the gaming community, I came in with a lot of insecurities and I reached to competitive gaming and its community to fit in. I found something I finally loved and not only that, I could meet and share the same passion I had for a game with a multitude of people. I am positive that almost any competitive player will tell you a similar story about why they got so heavily involved in gaming and the community. It becomes our social environment and it becomes more than just playing a game. A lot of comparable key points can be taken from an analysis of the famous debate between nature vs. nurture; we can even dive into Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (sense of belonging, safety, esteem, etc.) to help explain our behavior in the gaming community and what motivates us to get what we want. We naturally fear and we want a sense of security; to feel like we belong so, when you pair that with a female who is getting into a new social environment, there are a lot of things that overwhelm us that we don’t even understand or know. The sense of direction and acceptance are big obstacles we face as females in the circuit.
What is the next step for you in terms of your gaming career?
I’ve focused a lot less on my gaming career in the last few years. I’m not sure what the next big step is, but as of right now, I am looking to continue to build my stream and hopefully produce more gaming content. I will always want to compete because competing has been such a crucial part of life and upbringing. I do plan to compete every now and then, but I think I am reaching the age where I am ready to step away from competing at events and hopefully do something more professional and influential with competitive gaming and its community.
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Talk a little bit about King Of The Nerds, what was it like to be on the show?
I was the winner of Season 1 of TBS’ Reality TV Show ‘King of the Nerds’. Myself and ten other players lived in a mansion called ‘Nerdvana’ where we had to battle it out until only one nerd remained. At the beginning we were divided into two teams and we had to compete in challenges against one another. The losing team had two of their nerds sent to the “Nerd-Off” where they would face-off in another challenge. The loser went home and the winner stayed in the house. The show was nothing like what I expected. Although it was one of the most stressful situations I’d ever been in, it was also the best experience of my life. The challenges were extremely fun and they were what made my experience with the show a memorable one. When you know $100,000 is on the line and you’re trying to beat your competitors to be crowned the winner and earn the title of “King of the Nerds”, everything becomes surreal. I would wake up every day in disbelief of where I was, what I was doing and what I was trying to accomplish.
KotN was a big turning point in my life and it affected me in a lot of different ways. The experience triggered something in me and I started challenging myself a lot more – I changed the way I thought of myself and worked develop a better state of mind. I’d have to say that the largest effect of KotN was realizing how much fear controlled my decision-making. My fears molded my insecurities and it caused me to change how I viewed myself. That fear was a path to doubt. After we said our goodbyes on set, I was finally alone for the first time in over a month… that was when everything hit me hard. I felt very happy and blessed with the life I had lived up until then, mistakes, successes and all.
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Why did you decide to audition?
I didn’t want to at first. I was going through a tough time in my life and on my birthday, I received an e-mail from a Halo player that I had met and interviewed in 2007 when I was working on the AMP Energy Video Game Tour. He was contacted by a company that was looking for a female gamer . He said that he had just got into video game player management and remembered me from 2007. He said I was the first girl he thought of and found my e-mail on one of my social media sites so he decided to message me. Like I said, I didn’t want to audition. I brushed it off at first because I had not heard of the show and didn’t think it was going to be something that would be aired on TV. I just simply didn’t think it was a real thing. It was at a rough point in my life where I was told the best thing to do was to take risks and start trying new things. My friends pushed me to do it and after I received a follow-up e-mail from the guy who messaged me (Giordano) saying that they told him that they were hoping to have my audition tape in a few days, I decided to just do it. I wrote notes to plan what I wanted to say and locked myself away in a library study room for several hours to film my entire audition video. I stayed up for 32 hours straight to write, film, edit and render the audition tape.
What are your fans like? Do they know you from TV? Gaming? Do you get recognized a lot?
My fans are incredible people. I’d say that most of my fans that do approach me are ones that recognize me from “King of the Nerds”. The TV show aired on TBS in the US and on Slice TV in Canada. It reached a huge audience and racked up millions of views per episode. In the first year of when the show was being aired, I was getting recognized throughout my day and it was always amazing to see the excitement and surprise on people’s faces. I have had a lot of supportive fans send me e-mails telling me stories about their life and struggle and that I had helped inspire them in some way. I think what I enjoy the most about meeting my fans is hearing how the show, or myself, have affected them positively. Now that my season has been over for a few years now, I don’t get recognized as much. Every now and then it happens and it still makes me smile because I usually get comments saying how they really enjoyed the show.
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What is it like working at Escape Games Canada? Which mission is your favourite?
It is a lot of fun! For a long time, I had been thinking about finding a new hobby. I wanted to switch up the routine of activities I did outside of work. I discovered escape games about a year ago and after completing my second game, I kind of got hooked. Since then, I’ve done 47 escape games (and counting) and recently got hired at Escape Games Canada. Everyone always tells me, “I am not surprised you ended up working at an Escape Game Facility”. I love working at Escape Games Canada for a few simple reasons. The people I work with are awesome and big time nerds in their own way. I love it. I had always been a fan of the games themselves before I was hired. It’s always enjoyable to see people getting excited to play an escape game, I feel like I can relate. I had played Mayan Curse, Haunting of Noriko, End of the Line and Syndicate before I started working here. I felt the facility stepped up their production value in comparison to other businesses and every time I thought of which escape games were my favorites, I knew Escape Games Canada would end up at the top of the list. Syndicate is easily my favourite mission. I remember walking away from that mission being completely satisfied with the experience I got from the game. You got to move around a lot and complete a lot of task-based puzzles.
If you could make any escape game, what would the theme be?
Since I am a huge Harry Potter fan, I’d probably consider creating a magic themed game, something with wizardry and witchcraft. With the right tools and expertise, you could make a very techie and eerie dungeon-type room that I think would be amazing to play.
To learn more about Celeste, or just keep up with her, you can follow her social media on Twitter, Instagram, or watch her stream on Twitch. All images are Celeste’s own.