pro players retire at a young age because the moment they have a unimpressive split or arent the "cool new thing" anymore they get deemed as worthless and get replaced / lose opportunities to players worse than them despite maintaining & improving skill. i retired at 21 because the people writing the narrative branded me a "veteran" (I played ONE split of LCS academy in my life. ONE fking split) and i lost opportunities to "rookies" aged 1-2 years younger than me (XD) despite the fact i gapped every1 in lane that year (except bradleyyy, shoutout to the goat) and even flame horizoned a mid (that went on to play lcs) in an official match. my bad for hitting chall at 15 and maintaining it for 6 years i guess. aside from the players that are actually washed / can't keep up, a vast majority of players retire unwillingly as the narrative is stacked against them due to "age bias" (which is really a circular argument, age does not affect mechanics, yet ppl claim this with no proof and as such the problem fallaciously creates itself), despite the fact that in a non-physical competitive realm, amassing meta knowledge from playing at a higher level in previous seasons only serves to enhance your skill level and perspective, giving you insights that a newer player might not have. anyways, pursuing esports as a player has to be one of the most toxic paths in life one can choose so many things are out of your control. a lot has to go right, and luck is definitely a huge factor.