Free to Play is a 2014 documentary from American video game company Valve about the International, an esports tournament with a $1M prize, the highest prize an esports competition had ever seen at the time. Players from around the world gathered in Cologne, Germany,  to compete against one another in Defense of the Ancients (DotA), a multiplayer online battle area game. The film follows three key players, all competing on different teams, with one common goal: to prove that professional gaming is a career worth pursuing—and win a million dollars, of course.

One of the central figures is Benedict Lim, who plays under the name Hyhy. From Singapore, he plays on a Singapore national team called Scythe Gaming. While Hyhy is proud of his skill and passion for gaming, his family doesn’t see eye to eye with him, especially because of the negative effect gaming has had on Hyhy’s studies. To make matters worse, in order to compete at the International, he must skip his final exams, meaning he would have to repeat a semester of school. Hyhy feels that if he’s able to win the $1M prize, it will prove to his family that gaming is a worthy and lucrative profession. He also hopes that a win at this scale would bring him one step closer to winning back his ex-girlfriend, who he admits he is still in love with.

Another important player is Danil Ishutin, who goes by Dendi. Dendi competes on the Ukrainian national team Na’Vi, but he’s also fighting a personal battle. His father recently and unexpectedly passed away from cancer, and Dendi has been having trouble coping with the loss. He’s even stopped going fishing, which he and his father used to do together all the time. Instead, he throws himself into video games as a way of distracting himself from the grief.

Finally, Clinton Loomis, who goes by Fear, is from Medford, Oregon and is older than most competitors. Fear plays on a multi-national team called Online Kingdom. Because of the unusual hours that come with being on a team with players all over the world, Fear was forced to move out of his mother’s home. Tight on funds, Fear played his matches on an old, secondhand CRT monitor. He shares the same desire as Hyhy, to prove that professional gaming is a respectable career choice.

All three players lead their teams through The International, where teams from all over the world as well as family, friends, and fans gather to watch professional gamers compete for the $1M prize. The documentary is full of interviews from players themselves, their support systems, fans, announcers, and other figures in the esports world. These are spliced together along with immersive clips of live DotA 2 games, so even if you’re not familiar with the nuances of the game, you’re just as engrossed as the players.

Until the very end, it’s clear all three central teams have a real chance at taking home first place: will it be the underdogs, Online Kingdom, led by Fear and his motley crew of gamers, or will it be Scythe Gaming, led by Hyhy, who has the most at stake, or lastly, will it be Dendhi, who has the passion for the game but grief weighing down his heart. Through the qualifying rounds to the playoffs and into championship, Free to Play showcases the people at the heart of esports and their reason for pushing themselves to their limits to win it all.