[snippyhollow]

It is exactly the same for competitive gaming, and for everything else that's competitive I think. At some point, I was competing at a national level (France) on Warcraft III, I realized that if I were to be in top8 or above, I had to play 50 hours / week. That's a full-time job, and the level of specialization and skill specificity you need is really high. I chose to work on my studies instead. Now I sometimes play StarCraft II (not really got time recently), but not above "for fun" nor more than 5 hours / week, or I quickly get frustrated that I'm no longer at a top master / grand master level.

Games are fun, they teach you a lot of things, they can be recreative if you're not all-in. If you don't want to make it your career though, keep focused on the main thing you want to do with your life.

[baddox]

It's minor, but competitive gamers generally do at least acquire mechanics that can be used for other games. I'm not sure if chess is like that.

[mmcnickle]

I found my ability to perform well at certain board games (even those previously unknown to me) to improve after spending some effort studying chess. I attribute this to the improved ability to analyse abstract positions, to construct an increased number of possible moves and opponents' responses in my head in a short amount of time. Though confirmation bias etc.

[Bootvis]

As far as that is true, it's because all RTS or FPS games are essentially the same. I say this as a once avid chess player and gamer.