Exit Interview: Arten 'Ballatw' Esa

Welcome to the sixth edition of Exit Interview, a series in which I interview people in the video game and esports industries who have experienced some kind of major career change. The conversations are shaggy, digressive, and usually only just a little bit about video games.

In early September, I interviewed Arten 'Ballatw' Esa, a Valorant caster and analyst whose insight and easy manner I’d grown to appreciate in my years following the game. In mid 2024, Esa abruptly announced that he was quitting esports altogether — earning tributes from dozens upon dozens of coaches, players, broadcast staff and fans. (Seriously, look at these replies.)

Chatting for over an hour, he and I discussed the sometimes-loosey-goosey feel of a career in esports, negotiations over better rates for casters, and — a subject of embarrassing relevance to me, personally — unhealthy relationships with video games.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.¹

ReaderGrev: Hey Balla! I have a question…² Why did you leave esports?

Arten 'Ballatw' Esa: I think the primary reason is I was looking for stability in my life, given that I have a now four-year old girl at home and my wife works full time. So that's the first and foremost reason: I wanted to be there for my daughter. I don't want to be traveling every single weekend out to Los Angeles, or to various different places in the world for three weeks at a time.

The other major one would be that I just was losing my passion for it. And the reasons for that may be different things within the esports world at large, things like the impending Saudi money coming in and taking over. There's a lot of things like that, that I just don't necessarily want to be involved in. The games are not going in the direction that I was hoping for. Any competitive game that I was looking at, I'm just not as interested in the direction — not necessarily from a gameplay perspective, but where the devs are taking it in terms of esports, and the tools and things that they're giving to the esports community. All that stuff leads to decreased passion.

And there's more too, like the politics of what I was actually doing. The ever-increasing needs to create a brand for yourself and grow that brand while trying to push your craft of casting to the highest level possible. It's just a balance that's really hard to strike when you are trying to raise a family. I think I made the right choice to step back after a year of reflection.

Can you tell me a little about what you saw in the direction Valorant was going that contributed to you losing your passion? 

Ballatw: Just before this, I stepped on Twitter for probably the first time in two months, and I saw that the replay system³ is finally getting released. That's a big one that we should have had with the game's launch. Right around the time I quit is when they finally said: Hey, it's coming. But that sort of thing is just way too late, and it's one of those social things that I think adds a lot to my enjoyment of competitive games and just the feeling of being able to improve at something or show off something or make content about the game. It’s so important, and it’s lacking. That's not the only thing. I was a huge champion of Premier in Valorant⁴ and I thought, not to bring it back to Fortnite again, but like, they had a version of Premier in Fortnite. That was kind of how they ran their entire competitive ecosystem. So I was really excited about it coming to Valorant and I think it fell really flat. I think Riot Games pushed it out, launched it, said they were really excited for it, and then they just kind of haven't really touched it.

Those sorts of things, I think, are really, really important to actually introduce people to playing the game in an organized fashion. And I've said this many, many, many times across all sorts of different platforms: When you have a competitive game, especially team-based games, you don't get the best of it by playing pugs, or queuing for matchmaking. You get the best out of it by having some sort of organized structure, where you can do the fun combinations and learn how to play as a team, set up crossfires, that sort of thing.

For me, growing up playing Counter-Strike, playing that game very seriously when I was in high school, that stuff was just built into the game. It was inherently social because there was no matchmaking up until ESEA came around. You had to go find scrims on your own, and that was the primary way we played the game. Obviously there were deathmatch servers, there were public servers and stuff like that. But like, when you finally got your friends on, you didn't just duo queue, or go, Oh, you want to five stack? You went and scrimmed. And you got better together.

The reliance on matchmaking that makes it addictive, makes you chase a number — it's just not fun. The last year of actually participating in the game, I was so addicted to playing ranked, for no reason. I knew I hated it and I just kept doing it because it was the only way to really consume and play the game. Don't get me wrong. I did enjoy the game. I love tac FPS. I loved Valorant in general. It's the systems that it's built on that take a toll after a time.

I remember the first time someone pointed that last bit out to me.⁵ When I played games as a kid, I was selecting into specific servers, or hosting them myself for friends. There was a server browser. I could find like-minded people and do specific things. Now, matchmaking is the only way to engage with the vast majority of games.

Ballatw: You're probably right around the same age as me, right? I'm 34 now. [Ed. note: I’m 31.] The difference back then was just crazy. StarCraft, you wouldn't queue, you'd select the map that you wanna play, and there's people who wanna play the custom game that you're playing. I thought that Riot was going to put a lot of effort into making the casual experience a little bit better and independent from the competitive aspect of the game.

You left esports when your daughter was three. If the primary reason was that you wanted to spend more time with her, there were three years during which you could have made that decision previously, but you didn't.

Ballatw: Hey, that's crazy. You wanted me to leave earlier? 

No, no, no. That’s not what I'm implying! I'm just curious if you think you could have left earlier — by which I sort of mean, were you previously more attached to esports in a way that would have made it harder to step back?

Ballatw: I think within the first three years of her being born, that was a time of transition. But you're absolutely right. At the height of my Valorant career — when I first started doing Champs, and when I first really started pushing my brand, I started doing Plat Chat⁶ — those sorts of things were places where I saw potential. I think that kind of drove my entire esports career from the beginning, [this feeling of] Wow, I think this has the potential to really be something exciting, something that I'd be casting for the majority of my life from here on out. Not that that was ever a goal, but I saw that as a possibility, both with Fortnite and with Valorant. I think that the longer I actually participated in both of those scenes, the harder it was for me to see that potential ever get realized.

I think last year, I definitely could have quit at the beginning of the year. But, like I said, I just was addicted to various different aspects of the scene. It was very difficult to break that cycle. It was definitely an unhealthy relationship that entire year. That was the year that I didn't do any casting, really. I stepped back from casting, I stepped back from international events. I wanted to see how much I would miss it, and how much of an impact it would have at home, too.

Can I ask what you mean when you say it was an unhealthy relationship?

Ballatw: It definitely was an addiction in 2024. Gaming addiction, while you're not consuming drugs or something like that, you still have that same need to do something to get that dopamine. And that results in neglect in various different other places. I neglected content. I neglected my home life, my relationship, my daughter — despite, you know, taking the time specifically to be home with her. That sort of stuff definitely manifested because of an addiction to Valorant and other various games. And it leaves you with a sense of loneliness, of anxiety, of all sorts of different mental conditions that suck. Part of the thing about ranked systems in general is that that literally, I think, is designed into it, and that's why I have such a disdain for it at this point.

Cutting it away from my life completely, I think, has been very, very beneficial. And honestly, at this point in my life — maybe because I'm older, or maybe it's just because I did have such an unhealthy relationship to it — I'm not gaming at all. I barely have logged onto the computer, this computer that I'm using to talk to you right now. This is all the way down in the basement, and I don't come down here anymore.

Had you achieved what you wanted when you stepped back?

Ballatw: I would say no, but I'm not disappointed with what I achieved. I think this gets into the politics of talent work in general, but I would have loved to see myself casting some of the bigger moments in the game. I think in terms of pure growth in my ability and my skill, by the end of my actual casting career I think I was at the top of my game. I'm not gonna say I was the best. I felt like I was close to being the best and I don't think that that got recognized with the moments [I was given], which felt a little unfair. But at the end of the day, I didn't truly care about that. Obviously I'm talking about it, but it was never a primary goal for me. I just wanted to create the best kind of environment in general for the broadcasting group, and I think we definitely achieved something great in terms of Valorant broadcasting.

I think it's also just soured by the end for me: I got COVID on my last Champs; I didn't get to do playoffs because of that. Some of those games that I was lined up for were very good and I had to watch from my hotel room, ignored and forgotten, which sucked.

I found a Reddit comment of yours from six years ago, in which you said you wanted to “become one of the best esports casters, not just in Fortnite. I want people in other games to know who I am, whether that is by breaking in and doing their games too or just being so good at Fortnite that people know me.“

Ballatw: [laughs]

Of course, you moved on from Fortnite, but I was going to ask like how you felt about that now.

Ballatw: Listening back to that comment is pretty funny. A little cringy. I don't care about that answer anymore.

Do you feel like you achieved that stability at home that you were seeking when you stepped back from esports?

Ballatw: For sure. And it was obviously a rough transition, given the fact that I was still dealing with addiction and not even realizing that that was a real problem until a decent time after stepping back from esports. But I have a very supportive partner in my wife, and my daughter's amazing, and I'm so happy I get to spend more time with them. But also, I work a full-time job now. I have more responsibility. I know what it takes to try to love something else, and try to love the grind of all that, to come home at the same time every day. And I think that's working very, very well for us right now. We're really, really happy. So yeah, I've achieved everything I wanted with that transition.

When I was preparing for this interview, I spoke with someone who mentioned that you were a demon on the basketball court among the broadcast staff at Riot. I think most jobs — and probably the job you're doing now — don't involve opportunities to cross-up your coworkers. I'm curious if you miss that, if you miss what seems to me to have been a pretty freewheeling, loose work environment where you got the chance to play basketball on the job.

Ballatw: I wouldn't call myself the demon. There are some demons on the Plat Chat team.

Yeah, the freewheeling aspect of esports was very, very good. I had a fantastic friend group that made those events incredibly fun, who were down for anything, who were very much a family while you're out at these events — because you kind of have to be. We kept ourselves grounded. And I definitely miss that. But it kind of wasn't worth the instability. I have no local friends because I was never home. I was never able to settle in my community. And these are incredibly important for mental health. So, yeah, I miss it, but now I get the chance to spread my roots.

But let me tell you about that Josh Wilkinson guy and that Bren guy! These guys — just ruthless on the basketball court, man! They just will not let up. I never knew they could move that fast.

Do you guys still keep in touch?

Ballatw: Um, not really. It's just hard. We don't have the same schedules at all. Even when I was in esports, when I was home, it was hard to get me to queue five stacks, because after 8 p.m. I need to spend time with my wife who just worked all day and is going to sleep in two hours. When am I going to see her if I'm five-stacking with the boys? So we haven't really kept up too much. Every once in a while when they're doing something fun I pop into one of their streams and we chat, but not in any sort of real, lasting level.

I was listening to an interview you did with Pedro Romero in which he asked about you spending more time with your family, and you responded that you wanted to stay healthy for your daughter. That was, if I remember correctly, the first thing you mentioned and the most emphatic part of your answer. It could be that I misread the moment, but I am curious about why that was your most immediate answer, the thing you felt so strongly about.

Ballatw: I don't know where I was in terms of that journey when I talked to Pedro, but I do vividly remember coming back from [Valorant Champions in] Turkey [in 2022] and having an absolutely ruined back. And that was the year that my daughter started walking. She was totally into it at that point: wants to go on walks daily, do her loop, stuff like that. And with my back, it was a rough time. That's a constant theme, I think, for dads who are starting to grow into their dad bod. It's super important to me to be able to keep up with her throughout her childhood and beyond. I want to be healthy well into my old age.

I've always been active. I've been athletic. But I've never actually been healthy. When I was a kid I was incredibly skinny, and now I'm overweight and not able to move the way I used to, while still being able to sprint and jump and play basketball and whatever. I have arthritis in both my knees, so I gotta make sure that they don't completely degrade by the time I'm in my old age and by the time my daughter is playing sports — maybe playing basketball — on her own. I want to be able to actually hoop with her.

Perpendicular to all that: As I was preparing for this interview, one of the things that somebody mentioned was that you were frequently fighting for better standards for casters. That was something that they pointed out about you that people might not know from the outside looking in. Does that characterization ring true to you?

Ballatw: I think I always had the motivation to fight for better conditions or what have you. I don't think that I achieved anything in that aspect. I was definitely more of a talker than anything. I do think my decision to step back was partly due to kind of poor conditions. I was constantly fighting on my rate, and I think part of the reason why I eventually left Fortnite was specifically that kind of battle.

The Valorant Champions Tour knows their dates a year and a half in advance. And oftentimes we'd get contracts very late — weeks before events start, if not the week of — and it just was not a very fun negotiating experience. Negotiations are never fun at all, but like, I always fought to change that and make it less of a fight all the time.

In terms of rates, we were not keeping up with a regular increase year to year. We work on day rates, and it's very rare to ever get a situation where like, they offer you a specific amount and you come back and say: No, I'll do it for this. Every single time they say no — because we will do it and other people will do it. It’s very difficult to actually bargain because of the environment within the talent community itself. We're struggling. I don’t know how it is right now. But it's constantly a fight, from what I'm seeing, and it doesn't look like it's turning around.

Don't get me wrong, Riot pay top of the line. It's not like they're underpaying people, but I just don't think it really matches what talent are giving them.

If you had stayed — if you didn't have the issues that you have with esports, if your priorities were the same as they were two or three years ago — do you think a career as a caster would have been sustainable for you, as someone with a family, a young child?

Ballatw: Straight up no. And the answer is because they were eventually going to ask us to move to Los Angeles. That hasn't happened yet, as far as I know, but even without that, it's still no. The way things are going — not to get political here! — your income has to grow to keep up with inflation.

I think I'm very fortunate in that I would have been fine. It would have be sustainable for me. But if, for whatever reason, my wife wanted to move into a different career where she's not making as much money, then it would not have been feasible.

I’m curious about your time in Fortnite. Specifically, there was this moment in 2020 when you wrote a blog post about the Fortnite viewing experience. And then, you stopped working on the Epic casting team. The terms of that separation are a little unclear. Can we get the clean take on what exactly happened between you and Epic in terms of you casting Fortnite?

Ballatw: My memory is going to be a little foggy at this point, but Epic had stopped broadcasting their Fortnite Champion Series for, I believe two full seasons. They just stopped broadcasting. I don't know why that was; they never really even talked about it. They just didn't do it. So I did it. I literally put on the broadcast on my own channels. Somebody who's getting into the Valorant scene right now, Shayan "ShyoWager" Shehryar, was my wingman in all this. And we — literally for six months straight of pure silence from Epic after having worked with them for a year and a half — we did our own thing for FNCS squads and FNCS duos and it was really successful. That was obviously during COVID. And we pulled off a remote broadcast that was very very good in two modes that were very good for the viewing experience, and Epic just missed on that.

Epic brought back the broadcast after significant push by us — public pressure and internal pressure. And yeah, I just was not happy that they were doing a worse job broadcasting it than I was when I did it alone. FNCS solos [Ed. note: a game mode in which players compete as individuals, and not in teams] came back — and I just did not like solos as a mode in Fortnite. You can go read the blog post if you want the actual reasons. It was constructive criticism. I was harsh on the mode; I was not harsh on Epic’s decisions to run it. But they did not like the fact that I was doing that as a community leader in Fortnite while I was also working the broadcast for them. They didn't hire me back because of that.

It's funny because in my conversations with them after the fact, they obviously relayed the feedback that I shouldn't have done that in the middle of a competition — but also that internally it was a very well-received criticism. They switched to my preferred mode of trios for an entire year after that blog post. The competitive team received it very well. But there were some people who just did not really get who I was or what I was getting at and received it in a different light. And so those people were able to pressure the people who make the actual broadcast decisions to not include me. They didn't think that I was the right fit for their broadcast.

Do you miss content creation?

Ballatw: It's funny, I was up after an early workout, going back through my notebook and I was like, damn, I had such good ideas in Valorant that I just never did. Partly because it was very hard to pull off in Valorant. Partly because I was actively working full time and having to watch three or however many regions there are in this damn game. And then also just dealing with addiction and not being able to actually motivate myself to do any of the work for it.

I do miss it in the sense that you get to expose people to the things that you're seeing that you don't necessarily get to talk about on broadcast or that people just don't listen to on broadcast. But I was totally not invested in content creation in Valorant because it was so hard. No replay system makes things crazy. I'm no stranger to going through streams and videos and obviously that's a big thing in any competitive game. But in this game, the amount of utility that you have to track and be able to see go off without seeing it at all, and be able to figure out where and why and what actual effect it had is so difficult without a replay system. You have to go back and watch the same game from multiple perspectives to actually get a full view of things.

I think the biggest aspect is just the time. I just never ever had the time. So yeah, I miss it a lot. I think I could have done a lot better.

I’m curious, and I think a lot of other folks are curious too, about whether you might ever consider coming back to esports. Or does that door seem like it’s closed?

Ballatw: I think it's closed for any permanent involvement or any serious time investments.

I have one more question that is so far afield from anything we've talked about that I don't know if it'll make sense in the context of this interview. In a previous interview you did, you were asked about your parents’ feelings about you playing video games, and you said basically that they didn't care so long as you were more or less normal. But you also mentioned that your mom was a diplomat, and I think you said something along the lines of: I'm sure that's gonna prompt a follow up question. And then there just wasn't one. So I'm curious about what work she did and how that might have influenced your upbringing, if at all.

Ballatw: She was a diplomat in the sense that she helped negotiate economic agreements between the various places she was stationed in. I always regret not knowing more specifics about what she did. But yeah, we went to many different places and that influenced my life in many, many different ways — very positively, I always think, but I'm the middle child and my older brother and younger brother would think very differently. I don't regret at all the way that I was brought up.

I guess probably it kind of pushed me toward games in general because you need something to latch on to when you're moving as much as I was. I was moving every four years or so. That was the max time that I would spend in a specific place.

My dad is Somali, and I spent some time traveling there and we lived in a neighboring country, in Djibouti. And so when I was younger, I had a lot more ties to Somali culture. That lost itself a little bit as we lived in the States, but one thing that I’m always reminded of is, one of the ways I got really interested in Counter-Strike was the first time I discovered HLTV.org and downloaded a demo and found out: Oh, there's pro players. And then finding out that one of the best pro players at the time, back in 2005, his name was Spawn and he was Somali, I was like: Oh, shit, that's me. I could be Spawn.

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I edited this interview while listening to the incredible new Geese record (and also the astonishingly horny new Frog album). I am a committed Full Album Listener, but if I had to recommend individual tracks, I’d suggest Au Pays du Cocaine from the former and SAX-A-MA-PHONE VAR. XII from the latter.

1  Editing an interview always feels a little weird, but for transparency’s sake, my changes are largely focused on cleaning up “ums,” “likes” and “ahs,” whittling down questions to let you get to the answers faster, and cutting certain parts of answers (or entire exchanges) that are redundant or irrelevant or which make sense over audio but not over text. My goal is never to change the meaning of what’s been said to me.

2  Esa used to do a video series about improving in competitive Fortnite titled Hey Balla! I Have A Question…

3  This is a long-demanded feature (which comes standard in a lot of other shooters) that lets players download and review games from any vantage point. Valorant shipped without one, and only just recently launched a rudimentary version.

4  Premier is Valorant’s in-game tournament system. Teams at the highest levels of Premier play for the chance to funnel into the game’s official competitive circuit.

5  It was this Errant Signal video.

6  A popular Valorant talk and analysis show, roughly equivalent to Inside the NBA but for esports.