Don't design for professional gaming

Generally it is a bad idea to design a video game around the idea that it will be played professionally. But before we get into that there are some concepts that you need to understand

Trickle down Balancing: Video games in the modern day are constantly changing. Using the internet developers and produce fixes that change some of the parts of a game. When these changes are designed to make the game more fair this is called balancing. Trickle down balancing is when items or mechanics are balanced for the highest level of game play. This is because players who are more skilled and play the game more are more likely to exploit or break parts of a game and should thus be taken into account more then your average player. There is also the idea that if something works for the higher level players that it will work for lower level players.

Competitive, Casual and professional gaming: Most players play a game casually. playing for fun without any real forethought to most of the situations that they find themselves in. Casual players make up the majority of the community surrounding a game. Competitive players dedicate hundreds to thousands of hours to a game in an effort to excel at every aspect of the game. Competitive players make up the groups that keep your game alive, introducing and finding new ways of playing with old items although all competitive players start out casual. Professional players train every day to make a living playing one specific game. The players garner an international fallowing but make up and incredibly small portion of the community in a ratio comparable to the amount of major league sports stars compared to everyone else who plays the sport.

Meta: A meta or "the meta" is a set of rules made up by the community on the best ways to play a game. When a game is changed through balances often the meta changes with it.

Back to why making a game for the professional level is a bad idea. The main idea is that games made for professionals are difficult and complicated. If people are going to play a game every day for most of their lives then there are going to need to be deep and complicated. The only problem with this is that it turns off the Casual player base. And in effect the major platform that will be paying for your game has disappeared.

Another problem is that professional players aren't aiming to have fun. Building a game in which winning is the only focus takes a lot of the fun out of it. If players cant mess about doing what the love because the meta would punish them immensely, the game wont attract anyone as it will seem a bland and uninteresting platform. This in turn will turn off any professionals as any sport that no one enjoys will not garner any sponsors and the professionals wont be able to make a living.

Finally focusing on the aspects of professional play can distract you from building a cohesive story or world around your characters. even non canonical games such as Team Fortress 2, League of Legends or Overwatch have sparkling personality in all of their characters and a budding world outside of the game. While the players might not come to the game because of the story, it is one of the major deciding factors. Focusing purely on gameplay gives your world a bland taste and attracts no one.

(cinematic from Overwatch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ09xdxzIJQ )

Word of advice: Trickle down Balancing is not designing a game for professionals. After you have created your game and have a fallowing it is important to balance your game to keep it fair and to spice up the meta. However balancing for the highest player doesn't destroy the foundation your casual player have if you learn to compromise.

All in all it is just a really bad idea to start making a game with the idea of world wide professional success as a starting block. Start small design it for the casuals. then change it over time to incorporate more and more competitive and professional ideals. Lots of games do this well. Team Fortress 2 started off with only a casual mode. It later introduced a competitive game mode with more balanced teams stricter rules. But the key word here is share. Make sure there is something for everyone, the casuals, the competitives and the professionals alike.