The clock hits 10 p.m. and the night begins. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is loaded on the screen, the controller is ready in his hand. He plays a few games with his team to warm up, and then the fun starts.

“I love video games because it’s a way for me to go away from the real world and just have fun, just relax,” Lopez said.

Lopez has always loved gaming and played video games constantly, even before the job offer. The start of his job began two years ago while playing competitive games through an app called Game Battles. He and his teammates were racking up wins and an esports company took notice. A company called Rise Nation offered the team a job playing under them.

“I was so excited [when contacted] that I had all of the emotions,” Lopez said. “I was like, ‘Wow, I’m actually being seen now.’ It was a great feeling and it’s something that I think I will remember forever.”

His family was hesitant at first. Then once they realized it could be something cool and useful, his family gave full support. Lopez’s friends were excited for him and gave gracious amounts of support.

“I was really happy for him,” Lopez’s friend Arth Patel said. “I was also trying to do the same thing and stuff but like I don’t know, I just kind of gave up on it. I just didn’t try, didn’t put my time into it. I was happy that he actually made it.”

Lopez loves his job. He has a great connection with his teammates despite not meeting in person. Lopez hopes to meet them in the coming future.

“I’ve played with them so much that I now know them personally,” Lopez said.  “I’ve never been able to meet them in person which sucks, but we are doing that soon.”

The hardest part of his job is balancing everything in his life. Lopez has homework, friends, family, sports and clubs to contend with. He tries to find time for everything.

“Balancing school [is the hardest] because sometimes I play on school nights, balancing my social life, family. It’s a lot of balancing but it’s all worth it in the end,” Lopez said.

In the future, Lopez hopes to continue playing video games as a job to help him through college. He plans on becoming an aerospace engineer. If the gaming job begins to interfere with his day to day life or his future occupation, he has no qualms about quitting.

“I want to do this as something fun, but it also does earn me money and so I kind of want to do this in college,” Lopez said. “But I think as soon as it starts taking over, making my school work in college hard and not allowing me to do what I really want to pursue, I think then it’s time to call it quits.”