Jorien "Sheever" van der Heijden Talks Dota 2, Esports, And Making Gaming A Career

Jorien "Sheever" van der Heijden has become a name associated with Dota 2's most prestigious events and tournaments, bringing her signature style to commentary and colorful interviews with the game's personalities and players. We took a few moments to chat with Sheever about her gaming history and how she landed where she is today.

Game Informer: How did you get into gaming, and what are your first gaming memories?

Jorien "Sheever" van der Heijden: My first gaming memories – we had a DOS PC at some point and there was Lemmings and Snipes and games like that on it. I played those games. Prince of Persia also comes to mind. But it was just casual gaming. I'm come from a family with four kids in total, so we shared a computer and basically, everyone got an hour [laughs]. I remember getting a Windows PC at some point, as well. We had SimCity on that one. The first game I bought for myself was Grand Theft Auto III, I think. But it was still mostly casual gaming until I got addicted to World of Warcraft. Mostly PC gaming, though my brother had an N64 at some point and I played a lot of Ocarina of Time, some 1080° Snowboarding, some other games that were on there during that period, like Turok and Goldeneye or something like that.

Overall, it was mostly PC gaming. We got a computer, and as kids you start playing games. I mostly just played the games my brothers and sisters had. Until I got GTA, obviously, that was one I bought for myself. That's how I got into gaming, I guess. 

When and how did you decide to turn gaming into a career? 

Ooh, well, that wasn't actually a conscious decision. I played World of Warcraft for a very long time and I was very, very, very addicted. At some point I played for five years in total, and after tier thirteen I decided to quit. I quit cold turkey, but I was still used to gaming seven nights a week because I was in a high-end raiding guild so that kind of habit doesn't really go away. At that point I was already done being a student, I was in a full-time job and I didn't really like it that much. 

First, I played like two weeks of Skyrim and after that I got into the beta for Dota 2 and I started playing it a lot and streaming it around that time. I just continued doing that. I was looking at a new job in real life and I was thinking about getting into event organizing, and I decided I needed some experience for that so I tried to get experience by organizing an amateur Dota 2 tournament and I found one on some forums that needed an admin. So I volunteered and I started being an admin for Dota 2 tournaments, and at some point me and another admin were like, "Oh we should also get some more exposure for our tournament. Maybe we can stream it!" 

Since I was already streaming for like 10-20 viewers maximum, I figured I could stream the games, that would be fun. So basically me and an admin sat in a Skype channel after the game and watched it and we figured we might as well start talking about the game because it was kind of otherwise awkward. 

So we started casting the game and we basically casted the whole tournament. Then, there was another amateur tournament that heard about that and was like, "Hey can you cast our tournament too?" So we casted that one too and I started liking that a lot. 

I continued casting a lot of Dota 2 games, and this was around a lot of time where there were a lot of games, but there weren't a lot of commentators just yet. Basically, the only two that were around were TobiWan and Purge. Then someone suggested that I should apply to be a caster for Gosugamers because they were looking for new casters. Since I had a lot of time in the evenings, I could commentate a lot, because I basically didn't do anything else. I was able to get a lot of games in and then, this was around March, I started commentating, and then around May when I was commentating a lot, I was let go from my job for economic reasons, and then I could commentate a lot more, because I had a pretty well-paying job so letting me go was expensive for them, A.K.A. I could manage for a while without proper income, so I decided I was going to try to see if I could make it work. Basically, see how far I could get, because I knew some people had a job in that. 

That was how it started. At some point I stopped living month-to-month and started living like, moving forward for the next half-year or year and I'm kind of at the point where I don't worry about that anymore. So that's kind of nice. 

With all of the event coverage and casting you do, have you ever considered going pro yourself?

No, I'm not good enough. [laughs] In World of Warcraft, we did compete for the top world rankings. I think in my guild I wasn't the best, I knew that, but I was good communication-wise and I was an officer there as well. I was the best at my role, so to speak. But I always knew there were people out there a lot better than me at games. I don't have the patience to learn as much as I probably should in order to go pro. 

What's the coolest event you've hosted or casted and why?

That's a tough one. I think one of the most impactful moments from my personal experience was somewhere around The International 4. I was invited to be a panelist for the group stages and perhaps host as well, but not for the main event. During the break between the main event and the group stages I was asked if I could also work for the main event and obviously I'm not going to turn that down, so I went on to work as a panelist for the main event.

What's your favorite game of all time and why?

Well. [laughs] It's Dota 2. Surprise. [laughs] Why, I think I mentioned that. I love Dota 2, what it offers. Not a game is the same. Playing a game, even if you lose, you'll want to play another because you probably got crushed by something you're not trying yourself. So you want to play a game with what crushed you and see if you can do it yourself. Every game that you play, win or lose – and I lose quite a bit – overall, you have to have fun losing as well. And I really like that no matter how good or bad you do you want to try to improve purely because in the mechanics of the game you know that you can. So you just want to continue playing. 

Find out more about Jorien van der Heijden AKA Sheever on Twitter: @SheeverGaming and her official site http://sheevergaming.com/