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When not playing competitively most professional gamers usually stream games  for their fans or practice as a team. Other than that they usually live a normal life, although eSports is big it's not big enough to get instantly recognized in the street and get flooded by fans eSports is big enough to easily get 20-30k people to watch you play. When your team gets ready for a tournament usually you play 18-20 hours of that game a day. These intense grind sessions get you prepared to conquer any problem that you may face in the middle of a game at a tournament.

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Only the twitchiest of trigger fingers need apply
Like athletic sports, Dota 2 is a young person's game. Neither ppd nor UNiVeRsE sees himself playing into his 30s, while their 26-year-old ally Clinton "Fear" Loomis is lovingly referred to as "Old Man Dota." Having participated in each of the previous three Internationals, Fear has been sidelined for this year's tournament by a chronic arm injury that was originally diagnosed as tennis elbow - and just like with the sport of tennis itself, the game he plays demands the instant reactions and intense focus that a young mind and body are most capable of sustaining.

"Once you reach the top of a competition, you think maybe I can take this to another level where I can turn my hobby into a profession," says ppd as he recounts the long road to his current position of leading a pro gaming team. He got his start in a game similar to Dota, Heroes of Newerth, and has been refining his gaming craft for over six years. UNiVeRsE began his career around the same time and went through a similar progression.

The key thing they agree on is that the jump between playing for fun and becoming a pro depends on someone spotting your talent and recruiting you to an established team - in other words, being scouted out just like a big-arm quarterback playing pitch in the park. As nascent as e-sports like Dota 2 may be, there are already big, professionally organized teams that pay salaries to representatives in multiple games (EG has a fighting game division and rosters of players competing in StarCraft II, Call of Duty, and League of Legends alongside Dota 2).

Without the financial support of a team or committed sponsors, it's basically impossible to put in the time necessary to refine your skills to the highest level. Juggling pro matches with school or work responsibilities is particularly awkward in the US, where most competitive games are played in the morning. It's an all-in or all-out affair, and the way the players talk about it reveals the sustained intensity that's required. ppd speaks of "disengaging" in the afternoon after at least six hours of team practice every day. That's later followed by playing solo or live-streaming matches on Twitch late into the night. UNiVeRsE adds that there's also no such thing as a holiday from the game: players take some time off after The International, but otherwise it's a full-year cycle of perfecting individual play and team strategy.
Chinese teams don't even consider it proper training if all five players aren't in the same room
The Chinese e-sports teams take the commitment to training to its logical extreme by having the whole team live together under one roof throughout the year. They don't even consider it proper practice unless all five players are in the same room, working as a team. The fruits of these labors are borne out by results at TI4: of the last eight remaining teams, five came from China.

UNiVeRsE openly admits that he wouldn't be putting in as much time on this game without the allure of The International's exponentially growing prizes and the monetary backing of his team. Valve, the custodian of Dota 2, made a big splash in 2011 when it announced the first International would have a $1.6 million prize pool. The amount was unheard of then, but this year's tournament will hand out nearly $5 million just to the winning team. That's having a trickle-down effect on other Dota 2 tournaments through the year, which has been felt by the likes of Uli Schulze from Turtle Entertainment. Schulze organized ESL One, the last big event before TI4, in Frankfurt's Commerzbank-Arena this June.

Around 12,500 fans attended two days of live Dota action and the online audience peaked at over half a million simultaneous viewers. "Two years ago, it would have been difficult to make it sustainable at this size," he says, but the shock waves of interest from The International are bringing in more money and sponsorships from unlikely sources like Coca-Cola and American Express. The other side of that coin is that Schulze now has to cover the travel costs of the teams he invites, while also providing a sizable prize purse to make their trip worthwhile.

"Two years ago, it would have been difficult to make it sustainable at this size."

Whether using Valve's Dota approach or the more hands-on strategy of Riot Games paying League of Legends players directly, the financial viability of e-sport competitions and teams is improving constantly. "At the moment, many complain that only the small top percentage of players and industry workers can make a sustainable living, but that number is growing every year," says Dan Chou, a professional e-sports commentator. He believes "it is the same as with Hollywood or other entertainment industries," where the most popular performers inevitably take home the lion's share of the profits.

Everyone who gets into competitive gaming will have to at some point accept a deal with the popularity devil. The late-night Twitch broadcasts that ppd talks about aren't really optional. EG and the other big teams work hard to raise the profile of their players, funneling fans to their social media channels and online video streams. The player is then expected to be personable and approachable, even though that level of accessibility exposes them to some of the crudest abuse that web trolls can muster. Whereas the din of a crowd at a live event can mask the boos and hisses of naysayers, ppd says "there's a lot more opportunity for players to view criticism" when engaging so directly with their audience.

People can be more vulnerable online than off

The appeal of live game broadcasts, explains pro Dota 2 commentator Toby Dawson, is that "the online world offers viewers real-time interactions and experiences without post-editing, it is raw and in real time which is very attractive." But when the audience isn't properly sensitive to the effects of its interaction with the players, that close relationship can quickly turn toxic. Young people who are still developing emotionally are having their passions scrutinized by an unforgiving and sometimes even hostile group of anonymous critics.

"The industry is young and moves at a grueling pace," says Dan Chou, and "due to the grassroots mentality, many young players and passionate people get exploited." Painting a picture where "organizations are still loose with details and contracts are pieces of paper," Chou says there's still a lot of progress to be made in ensuring players are treated correctly. It's easy for players to just be grateful for receiving any salary at all and neglect to see how they're being exploited.

On the other hand, shortcuts to financial success are always tempting and unscrupulous individuals will make them available to the top players. UNiVeRsE has twice been approached with serious bribe offers trying to entice him to lose an important match, while ppd has lost count of the number of people urging him to either win or lose depending on the bets they've placed on a game. Some of this is innocuous, of course, but external influences like gambling rings are only going to grow along with the prominence of e-sport tournaments.
"The industry is young and moves at a grueling pace."
Even the legally acceptable exploitation, that of the player's name and likeness, can be distasteful. There are official team jerseys slathered in sponsor names, and you'll see appendages like "HyperX" or "DouYuTV" attached to the end of players' in-game handles. Some like it, others hate it, but in either case, the path to the highest echelons of gaming is laced with dubious product endorsements and awkward glad-handing interviews. Just like other sports.

In hyping up The International 4, Valve this year released Free to Play, an excellent documentary delving into the lives of three players taking part in the first International in 2011. ppd's injured teammate Fear is one of the trio, representing the American experience, while the Singaporean Benedict "hyhy" Lim and Ukrainian Danil "Dendi" Ishutin give a sense of what it's like internationally. Despite their radically different origins, there's a stark universality to their development into professional players. All three clashed with open hostility from their parents and had to pursue their passions in a form of tacit rebellion against the people closest to them. Fear's mother explains the difficulty well when she says that e-sports are unprecedented and give no history of success that a parent can rely on. Being a trailblazer, even as part of a team, usually means going it alone, at least as far as your closest support network is concerned.

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Meet the pro 'Dota 2' gamers competing for $10 million

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Only the twitchiest of trigger fingers need apply Like athletic sports, Dota 2 is a young person's game. Neither ppd nor UNiVeRsE sees himself playing into his 30s, while their 26-year-old ally Clinton "Fear" Loomis is lovingly referred to as "Old Man Dota."

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Usually when you get picked up by a bare eSport team 25-30k  depending on the team or game. After you get picked up by a team you usually all move in a house together to practice playing with your teammates . Then you can get even more money for winning prize money or getting sponsorships. On top of the money your earning all the expenses for traveling, hotels and your peripherals when playing (competitively) is paid for by the team.

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Source: LoL Esports

Now I have been playing video games since I was a little kid. Back in the 90s, video games were seen as nothing more of "entertainment" and to kill time. Fast forward to 2010s and now we have the birth of Esports.

If you were to tell somebody that you play video games for a living in the 90s, people would laugh at you and tell you to go get a REAL job. Times have changed and video gamers have something to cheer about. You see these famous players from League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone and more getting the limelight for being good at a video game. Heck, even there are groupies for these.

With the birth of Esports, many young kids aspire to become a professional gamer. They dream about playing their favorite video game, get cheered on by thousands of fans of their skills. That is not a bad goal to have. The best perk about all these is you get paid a professional salary for doing it!

MANY want to be a pro gamer, but not many are willing to sacrifice the time to be one...

How to become a Pro Gamer

The steps to become one is pretty straight forward, but it takes talent and hard work to be one.
Step 1 - Become Good at 1 Game
Now when I say become good, you literally have to be the cream of the crop when it comes to that particular game. Most online video games have "Ranked" system where you can climb the ladder. For example, League of Legends have a ranked system where you can climb all the way to "Challenger", which is the top 200 players in the game. Now these players are really good and a lot of them are in a professional team.

If you do get to the higher tier ranked ladder, your chances of getting picked up by a professional team increases. This is where you join the pro team and make it as a pro gamer.

To be honest, you should only go after established games with an Esports audience such as:

If you don't like any of the games on the list, then you are much better off creating a gaming channel on YouTube.
Step 2 - Hard Work and Dedication
Most young kids think that all they have to do is play their favorite game and they will become good. There is a difference between casually playing and professional playing. A casual player will try to beat the game and be good.

A professional player plays the game and learns every single detail of the game. They always review their game play and see what they can improve on. They spend a lot of time on the game, sometimes more than 10 hours a day. Are you willing to sacrifice your time to become good?
Step 3 - Success and Outreach
If you do happen to get really good and dedicated a good portion of your time to a game, it is time to do some outreach to the pro teams. Some of these pro teams sponsors various games. For example, Team SoloMid sponsors League of Legends and Super Smash Bros.

Salary for a Pro Gamer

This will vary depending on the team you get on. Western LoL gamers get $12,500 per split plus any additional prize money from tournaments and their own personal streams on Twitch. The bare minimum they make is $25,000 per year if they don't stream, get sponsorships or win any tournaments.

On average, you can expect an average salary of 50-60k annually if you stream and also get sponsored, which most teams do. More popular pro gamers such as Doublelift or Bjergsen make 6 figure salaries.

Other Options to Earn as a Pro Gamer

You don't always have to be on a team to earn a good salary. The next 2 biggest options are:

YouTube Gaming Channel

Now this is a lot easier to get into Twitch, which I will touch on later. YouTube offers a much more lucrative selection in terms of video games. You are not limited to one video game and you can cover multiple games if you choose to.

The main method you earn money is through ad monetization. You can go with the standard YouTube partner or join other video game networks like Machinima or Freedom!. The video game networks provide you with royalty free music which you can use on your videos.

Stream on Twitch

Now this one will be a little harder especially if you don't have an established audience to begin with. Most people will stream League of Legends, CS:GO or Dota 2. I highly suggest you go with YouTube channel first to build up your audience.

Once you have close to 10,000 subscribers, then you can invite them to come check out your stream. Otherwise, you need either top notch gaming skills or a unique play style to entice viewers to come watch your stream.

Conclusion

To sum it up, if you want to become a professional gamer, ask yourself these questions:

Am I willing to sacrifice what it takes to become good at a game?

Am I willing to put in the hours to hone my skills on that game?

If your answer is yes to both, then I suggest you go for it. Otherwise, you should stay in school.

Related posts:

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Become a Professional Gamer - Earn a Salary with Video Games? - Online Fanatic

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Total Share: 45101012625 Source: LoL Esports Now I have been playing video games since I was a little kid. Back in the 90s, video games were seen as nothing more of "entertainment" and to kill time. Fast forward to 2010s and now we have the birth of Esports.

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Well first off you have to be at least in the top 5-10 percent of all the players in your region. After you become a top player in the game you want to go pro at the most hard part comes, and that's getting scouted to join a team or get sponsored if you are solo. It's very similar to high school football where you get scouted and when you graduate you'll already be in that colleges team or in this you'll be in an eSports team.

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Gaming for a living always seemed like some sort of adolescent dream growing up. Being paid to play your favorite game was something most kids only fantasized about, but now in 2012, it actually can be a reality for the truly hard working and talented.

eSports has exploded worldwide, and with it, there's an entire class of 15-30 year olds who now play games for a living. Out of the millions that play titles like Starcraft, Halo or League of Legends, they've gotten so good that many can make a full-time living out of gaming. The top few players in the world even pull in six figure salaries between sponsorships, team salaries and tournament winnings.

So, how can you follow their lead? One thing should be clear from the start, it's a lot of hard work. These ten steps should send you on your way.
1. Practice
It might be nice that you get to play a game you love and think you're pretty good at. But do you love it enough to play it six, seven, eight hours a day, every day? Because that's what it takes if you even want a prayer of being a pro. The top players have a regimented practice schedule against competitors at or above their own level, as it's the only way to truly advance in skill. Make sure you're constantly playing with people who are better than you, as it's the only way you'll grow as a player.
2. Keep Your Day Job
It's always good to have a back-up plan, and I would not recommend anyone drop out of school or quit their current job until they have at least SOME indication they can make money and support themselves by gaming. If you've won some tournament prize money, or your stream gets a decent amount of ad dollars, you can look to start scaling back your everyday activities, but cutting them cold turkey from the beginning is a risk you should not be taking.
3. Studying
Like finding success in any field, it's important to study those who have excelled before you. Watching pro replays over and over until you start to absorb their own strategies and tactics is a must. These players have been perfecting their art for years, and for someone just starting out, it's of the utmost importance to learn high level tactic first by watching, then by practicing.
4. Homework
Playing the game for hours is good practice yes, but sometimes you might need to work on one particular aspect of your play in order to get the edge on your opponents. Word is that the best Terran Starcraft player in the world, MarineKingPrime, practices splitting marines, a complex, click-heavy game maneuver, for hours at a time. It only takes a few seconds in each instance, but it's like shooting a thousand free throws so you're able to come through in the clutch when you need to.
5. Community
Understand that almost all pro gamers are part of a community, and you should be too. Whether it's participating in forum discussions or forming your own team, it's important that you're not practicing in a vacuum. Outside input and strategy discussions with friends who also play is important when attempting to go pro.

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MLG champion HuK Gaming for a living always seemed like some sort of adolescent dream growing up. Being paid to play your favorite game was something most kids only fantasized about, but now in 2012, it actually can be a reality for the truly hard working and talented.

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Being a competitive gamer is taking the love for a video game to the next level. To the point where you considered a professional athlete, and that doesn't mean just because you play lots of video games you are a pro. Professional gamers compete in tournaments solo or in a team to get prizes usually money. When teams face off and the matches are steamed online hundreds of thousands and even millions of people watch and cheer on, and it's your job to not let your fans down.

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Source: LoL Esports

Now I have been playing video games since I was a little kid. Back in the 90s, video games were seen as nothing more of "entertainment" and to kill time. Fast forward to 2010s and now we have the birth of Esports.

If you were to tell somebody that you play video games for a living in the 90s, people would laugh at you and tell you to go get a REAL job. Times have changed and video gamers have something to cheer about. You see these famous players from League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone and more getting the limelight for being good at a video game. Heck, even there are groupies for these.

With the birth of Esports, many young kids aspire to become a professional gamer. They dream about playing their favorite video game, get cheered on by thousands of fans of their skills. That is not a bad goal to have. The best perk about all these is you get paid a professional salary for doing it!

MANY want to be a pro gamer, but not many are willing to sacrifice the time to be one...

How to become a Pro Gamer

The steps to become one is pretty straight forward, but it takes talent and hard work to be one.
Step 1 - Become Good at 1 Game
Now when I say become good, you literally have to be the cream of the crop when it comes to that particular game. Most online video games have "Ranked" system where you can climb the ladder. For example, League of Legends have a ranked system where you can climb all the way to "Challenger", which is the top 200 players in the game. Now these players are really good and a lot of them are in a professional team.

If you do get to the higher tier ranked ladder, your chances of getting picked up by a professional team increases. This is where you join the pro team and make it as a pro gamer.

To be honest, you should only go after established games with an Esports audience such as:

If you don't like any of the games on the list, then you are much better off creating a gaming channel on YouTube.
Step 2 - Hard Work and Dedication
Most young kids think that all they have to do is play their favorite game and they will become good. There is a difference between casually playing and professional playing. A casual player will try to beat the game and be good.

A professional player plays the game and learns every single detail of the game. They always review their game play and see what they can improve on. They spend a lot of time on the game, sometimes more than 10 hours a day. Are you willing to sacrifice your time to become good?
Step 3 - Success and Outreach
If you do happen to get really good and dedicated a good portion of your time to a game, it is time to do some outreach to the pro teams. Some of these pro teams sponsors various games. For example, Team SoloMid sponsors League of Legends and Super Smash Bros.

Salary for a Pro Gamer

This will vary depending on the team you get on. Western LoL gamers get $12,500 per split plus any additional prize money from tournaments and their own personal streams on Twitch. The bare minimum they make is $25,000 per year if they don't stream, get sponsorships or win any tournaments.

On average, you can expect an average salary of 50-60k annually if you stream and also get sponsored, which most teams do. More popular pro gamers such as Doublelift or Bjergsen make 6 figure salaries.

Other Options to Earn as a Pro Gamer

You don't always have to be on a team to earn a good salary. The next 2 biggest options are:

YouTube Gaming Channel

Now this is a lot easier to get into Twitch, which I will touch on later. YouTube offers a much more lucrative selection in terms of video games. You are not limited to one video game and you can cover multiple games if you choose to.

The main method you earn money is through ad monetization. You can go with the standard YouTube partner or join other video game networks like Machinima or Freedom!. The video game networks provide you with royalty free music which you can use on your videos.

Stream on Twitch

Now this one will be a little harder especially if you don't have an established audience to begin with. Most people will stream League of Legends, CS:GO or Dota 2. I highly suggest you go with YouTube channel first to build up your audience.

Once you have close to 10,000 subscribers, then you can invite them to come check out your stream. Otherwise, you need either top notch gaming skills or a unique play style to entice viewers to come watch your stream.

Conclusion

To sum it up, if you want to become a professional gamer, ask yourself these questions:

Am I willing to sacrifice what it takes to become good at a game?

Am I willing to put in the hours to hone my skills on that game?

If your answer is yes to both, then I suggest you go for it. Otherwise, you should stay in school.

Related posts:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Become a Professional Gamer - Earn a Salary with Video Games? - Online Fanatic

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Total Share: 45101012625 Source: LoL Esports Now I have been playing video games since I was a little kid. Back in the 90s, video games were seen as nothing more of "entertainment" and to kill time. Fast forward to 2010s and now we have the birth of Esports.