Can you make a living playing games?

is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. It's all about the game and how you play it, all about control and if you can take it, all about your debt and if you can pay it. It's all about the pain and who's gonna make it. I am the game. You don't

want to play? Me? Nice? Thank you. I'm sure you don't recognize that, and I'll tell you where it's from later, Okay, But I will say that, I'm sure our long term listeners, who know our propensity for quoting certain movies about video games probably are very happy that you found a quote that had nothing to do with certain movies, had nothing to do with war games or tron or fighting for the users. Today, however, we're going to talk about professional gamers.

That's one topic. That people have asked us to mention many times in the past. We have talked about similar topics though. Yeah, we talked about video game testers, the play testers who as a profession actually uh work with video game companies to test out video games in order to make sure that they are playable and they don't have any bugs. If you want to hear more about that, we have a podcast about and we also have an article on how stuff Works dot com about how video

game testers work. But in this case, we're talking about a different kind of professional gamer, not someone who's testing out a product that's still in the development stage, but people who actually play games for a living. Yes, and you would imagine that, uh, anything where you don't have to sit at a desk and act will do typical work, um, would be a lot of fun. But I think and and and for video game testing, we talked about that it's not necessarily you know, hey, I get to play

games all day. This is a lot closer to that. But it's not necessarily fun either. I mean there's a lot of work involved in this. Yeah. The for video game testing, it's all about you know, checking every square inch of a map to make sure there aren't any spots that you would excellently pass through and you know, and that players would discover, could that could be an exploit or could just be a bug that makes the game unplayable. It's not necessarily fun, uh now, professional gamers,

it also there's an element of fun to it. There's an element of of competition obviously, but it's also a lot of work in the sense that you have to really put in a lot of time to get really, really good at certain types of games if you want to compete on a professional level. Yeah. I didn't some reading on this since you know, I'm not a professional gamer. Um, since most of these games you know aren't aren't you

know Tetris? Uh kidding. I do play other games besides Tetris, but I don't play a lot of the types of video games because I'm not really a first person shooter kind of guy. I mean, I've played them in their fun, but it's not the thing I tend to do. I I tend to prefer strategy games. Um, there are some real time strategy was tournaments. Yeah. I was gonna say, don't pause the podcast and write to me and tell me that that's not the case. So yes, I'm aware

of StarCraft is way up there. Oh yes, yes it is, um but yeah, I mean for the most part, and and things like civilization, So there's not they're not really tournaments for this, but yeah, the people who are are professional video gamers are really a very specific sort of breed there. They tend to be young people, um, and they they tend to be people who are uh for a couple of reasons, but also tend to be people who are really into uh techy and and uh scholarly pursuits.

I would say there are a lot of people who are students, who are serious students who are really into video games, and there are a lot of this level. There are a lot of people who actually have a pretty good amount of discretionary income as well, because in order to be a pro gamer, you usually have to have a pretty decent gaming rig so that you can play a game at its at its uh best settings.

Because here's the thing about um about a tournament. So let's say that you are used to playing a video game. Let's just argue for argument sake, let's pick one. Let's call it. Let's do Quake, because that was a really popular one in tournaments all right, first person shooter game. So yeah, you've got a first person shooting game. You've got Quake, which you can play in competitive play one

on one against other people. Um, and so you've got this, uh, you've got Quake and you're you're pretty good at it. But you have, you know, just a decent machine. So what you've done is you've turned the polygon count down on and you know, you've turned off some of the effects so that the game runs more smoothly on your computer. And you've got, you know, a decent mouse and a

decent keyboard, and um, see, you know you're good. Well pro gamer is going to be running that on a really fast machine with a really nice mouse and keyboard set up, maybe one that's almost customized for that gamer. Some of them actually do have custom units where they'll they'll play these games and that can give them the edge they need in order to play at a professional level, where you know, pretty good just doesn't cut it. Pretty good means you're out in the first round. You have

to be astonishingly good. And one of the reasons you need to have a really good gaming rig is that you have to be used to playing at that setting because if you're playing in a tournament, most tournaments, they're gonna want those settings cranked up. And the reason they want those settings cranked up is because it looks better. If you're promoting a tournament, if you are trying to get sponsorships, you want those games to look as good as they possibly can. So you don't want to have

the polygon count turned down. You know, even if it makes the game smoother, you would prefer to beef up all the computers in the system rather than to have the graphics suffer, because you don't want the cameras to pick up some sort of low polygon count video game because it makes it look more amateurish. Right, So you know, you need to have that that money just so that you have a gaming rig, and a lot of the

professional gaming leagues and tournaments focus on PC gaming. Console gaming is also present, but it's not as big a market as PC gaming is in the tournament's realm. So you need the discretionary income for your rig. But you also need it because you need to be able to make travel arrangements because the way professional gamers, most professional gamers, I should add, make money is that they go and they play in tournaments, and if you want to make money,

you know, only just play in tournaments. You gotta win tournaments. And those tournaments may not be just down this streak from your house. They may be in another city, they may be in another country, and you will have to travel there. You might first have to travel to a preliminary event so that you can qualify to go onto the next round, which might be in a different country. So you're talking about a profession where you already have to have a certain amount of money in order to

really to really compete at a at the top level. UM, and there are various pathways to get there. If you are not, you might be saying, well, why so you're citially telling me that professional gaming is for the independently wealthy and really it's just a way to waste time. Uh not, not quite. There are ways of getting there,

but we'll get into that. Yeah, it's UM. I was trying to find a way to say this, but I think the best way to say it is a lot of people who are professional gamers UM fit into a stereotype for gamers because of the things you mentioned, the discretionary income, UM, and because also there are a lot of people are are younger. So there are people who are living in their parents basement because they don't have to pay you know, not because they are they're fitting

into a stereotype, but actually they're probably fueling it. But the thing is, um, you know they don't they don't have to worry about paying rent. They are you know, hanging out there. They probably have a job or you know for the younger kids, you know, they're going to school and have a job to to help pay for

these things. And um, so yeah, I mean I think that's part of why there there is that stereotype, but it's not it's a result of like I said, I think this behavior fuels that stereotype rather than them being us making the stereotype right right, It's just because a lot of the people One of the reasons that young people are such common competitors and in these tournaments is that, um, you have to have really good reflexes. Yeah, really good

hand eye coordination and reflexes. I read some interviews with pro gamers and um, I said, yeah, you know, at a certain point, your visual acuity, your you know, your dextery sorts to to drop and you really don't see people over thirty, which of course rules me way out. Um, but yeah, I mean that's so that's why you see a lot of kids and you know, younger twentysomethings in

in these tournaments. So generally these are people who are not necessarily established already, or if they're established, they're tenuously established. And here's the thing about being a professional gamer is that, yeah, you can in theory make some big money if you are really really good and you win some tournaments. For example, one of the one of the go to references, one of the ones most probably one of the most famous professional gamers in the Western hemisphere anyway, is uh is

Jonathan Wendel, also known as Fatality UH. And that the the eye and Fatality is the number one Uh. He's solite. Yes, he actually won a tournament where the the grand prize was a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Well for that year, that means he won fifty grand on top of whatever else he might have earned in other tournaments or other other ventures. But there's no guarantee that that's gonna repeat

the next year. So you know, in order to in order to be a professional game or you may not be able to have a sustainable career in the sense of you don't know that next year you're gonna make that same amount of money, or even any money at all. It may turn out that, you know, you just have a bad day at the tournament, or or it may be that the the next crop of players are just that much better. It may be that the tournament switches games. That's something that we really need to focus on, because

think about this. When you are a professional athlete, all right, the rules for your sport rarely change in a huge way. They normally change in tiny ways, and even then you will hear players really complain. I remember back in the Olympics that there was some discussion about the soccer balls being used in the soccer games because they were slightly

different from a standard that have been used previously. And I mean that sort of thing is a big deal because that tiny, little change can affect how well an athlete at that level can perform. But think about that, you know, like, that's the tiniest change. But if you're a professional gamer, the changes may be monumental. It may be that one year they're doing quake and the next

year they've switched to counterstrike. Those are two totally different games with different physics, different there's different frame rates, there's different you're gonna have a different experience. You know, you're gonna move at a different speed, the weapons behave in a totally different way. Plus you know, it may be that one game is a one on one style game and the other game is a team based game, which then affects not just the physics, but truly the strategy.

You have to learn new maps, you have to you know, be able to really adapt to it. So professional gamers may have some pretty big hurdles from one year to the next, which means that it is really hard to say that you're going to make a decent amount of money year over year. Now you could do what Fatality did. He was really really smart. He ended up making his own brand, and he ended up partnering with uh various component manufacturers things like video game graphics, cards, and gaming gear.

And because of that he's able to make money through those means, not just as a professional gamer, but through these licenses. So that's one way to continue to earn money. Even if you were to have say an off year in the tournaments, you would still have this other source

of revenue. It's also smart to do if you are, you know, creeping up on that age thirty and who knows when your your reflexes will start to just give a little bit, because remember again, at this level, the tiniest detriment can mean the difference between losing and winning. The reflexes a lonely childhood all in the reflexes, And yeah, I mean there are there are other things too. Um you were mentioning that that StarCraft is huge, it is,

It is monumentally huge. In Korea. Yes, South Korea, professional gaming is actually viewed on a level that is probably uh, approximately the same level as most professional athletes. Now that's most that's pretty unusual. I mean most other countries, that's just not the case. China is a little bit like that, but not to the level that South Korea is at. And in the United States, you know, there's an underground professional gamer uh culture, but it's it has never reached

mainstream acceptance like it has in South Korean. South Korea, they will televise tournaments and on major networks and you you can tune in and watch as players play against each other, and there are events that they hold have thousands of spectators who will come in and watch the gamers play. In the United States, it's mostly gamers and other gamers who attend these things with you know, friends and family that spill out beyond that, and then a few fans, but only a few compared to what you

would find in South Korea. So there's there's that difficulty too. Is just the fact that video games don't have the same kind of level of uh, fascination and respect in the United States as they do in South Korea. Right right, well, I was I was reading an interview with Greg Fields, who I'm really not sure how I would pronounce his handle.

I gotta put my glasses on capital I I'd say, I'd yeah, I d r capital A. He's a he's a StarCraft gamer and he's spent a lot of time in Korea, and they were talking about, uh, they asked him about StarCraft and why he chose StarCraft and uh, not only is he StarCraft gamer, that's you know, his game of choice, but he also specializes on one particular faction and he was he was talking about you were you were mentioning what happens at the tournament changes games.

Well right now, Well, at the time of the interview, he was saying that Blizzard had made his faction of choice UM sort of underpowered. I believe it was Zerg that he preferred. UM and Terrence were stronger, and he hoped that they would patch that, and they said, well, why don't you just switch to Terrence or something else, Like, well, if I do that, I'm going to have to learn

their strengths. And you know, once Blizzard fixes this, as I think they will, then I'm going to be I'm going to have to go back to my old faction. And you know, I would have spent a lot of time preparing for a faction that I really don't want to be playing until they patch this one. So I'm just gonna hang in there. And but yeah, the little subtle changes to the games even, yeah, it can make

huge difference. Yeah, the professional gamers, you gotta keep in mind, a lot of these guys spend hours each day playing games, playing against other people, seeking out people who are, you know, at least ranked better than they are, in order to learn new strategies and to test their own skills and make sure that the things that they're doing actually work in a game setting. Uh, you know, they're they're treating it like would a professional sport. You know, it's not

necessarily that they're playing for fun. They're playing to win in order to win tournaments. And that might sound like fun to you, but it really is a very competitive and very high stress kind of thing to do, because you know, once you get to that level, once you get into the tournament, you know you pretty much have the one choice, one one chance rather to to beat out all the other competitors. And there may be thousands

of them. Now granted, you know you might beat them out by proxy, like someone else beats and uh me and I'm out of the tournament, and then later on you managed to beat the guy who beat me, and that means that, you know, by extension, you beat me as well. You're very mean, both of you. Um. But but still you have to be good enough to get

through all those multiple levels. And you gotta remember every single other person out there is thinking that he or she is just as good as you are or better, or else they wouldn't be there, um, especially you know if they had to travel quite a distance for that tournament. Yeah, a lot of them do have that. I was reading interviews with They do have quite a bit of swagger

going on. I gotta say, oh, yeah, no, there's some there's some trash talking that that really is on the level of of of beauty and art truly between these guys um and and ladies. We should also mention there's another way of making money by being a professional gamer besides tournaments and uh and and sponsorships. Um you could become an official well it's kind of a sponsorship. There's a there's a professional gaming group called the frag Dolls.

They are sponsored by Ubisoft, and frag Dolls are it's this group of ladies who are all very very strong video game players, and they will enter tournaments as a team or as as a member of the frag Dolls, and they represent Ubisoft. They're they're also there to represent the female gamer demographic and also just to kind of be another voice in in the whole video game industry. So they're kind of like spokespeople as well as professional gamers.

But they're getting paid specifically by a company to do this sort of stuff. So it's a little different from the people who either join as a lone wolf in a tournament, or what's more common is that you'll see teams or clans of gamers joined tournaments. So you might have a clan of of gamers who are all you know of the professional level, joined the tournament together and uh and either play and team based games or they may be playing one on one, but you know they're

all you know. By by having a group of them there, they have a more likelihood of winning the big prize as a clan. Um. And to join a clan, you pretty much have to already show that you are a really good gamer, and then you essentially get uh. You gotta get lucky. You gotta have someone from that clan say, hey, you know there's this guy's an up and coomer. He's showing real promise. Um, I think you'd be a good

addition to our team. And then you know, each team has its own way of determining whether or not they want to bring someone else new in. But then you might be able to join a clan. And the nice thing about clans is that they can sometimes get sponsorships as a group, and sponsorships can sometimes help pay for things or at least offset costs like travel costs and

lodging and all that kind of stuff. So it's one way that players can pursue a professional gaming career without putting as much a personal investment into it as as they would otherwise. Yeah, it's still not easy, but it's possible. So so what do you want to What do you do if you want to become a professional gamer? I think the simplest you got to start out, as you said,

with some serious hardware. I mean, if you're using your two year old PC, it's not gonna I mean, yeah, you can get started, you can, you can learn how to play the game. I think that, uh is probably a primary importance, really is um, you know, if you look at it at the manuals for games like this. Then going on my personal experience, when I remember playing Warcraft three a few years ago, I never bothered learning the key combinations to make my troops form up on

one another, to you know, make squads. And I didn't bother learning about the bill orders that a lot of people were using. So then I'd go on battle dot net our battle now. I'm sure a lot of people admit the dot um and I you know, basically get later. Yeah, and it wouldn't take any time at all because for me, I like figuring out. I was like okay, so what

will I do here. Meanwhile, my opponent was sitting there going, Okay, I build this, I build this, I build that, I build that, and I'm ready to go, and you're gonna go find him and I'm gonna kill him. And that's pretty much what happened every single time. Because you have to learn the commands, and you have to learn these things, you can move very very quickly. Speed is of the

essence in these games. There's some great videos online that show professional gamers using those those keys, strokes and UH and the commands um at a crazy rate, especially the Korean players who are playing StarCraft. They they are particularly known for that, where they are using a crazy number of commands per minute. I mean it's it's it's easily more than a command per second. For a lot of these players where they are are are they've already got

their strategy before they've even started the game. And they've just started they just start implementing it as soon as the game says go. So it almost becomes a contest of not just whose strategy is better than than uh who's but who can type the fact or who can execute commands the quickest. Um. It's a combination of those two.

I mean, obviously, if you don't have the strategy, it doesn't really matter if you can execute commands more quickly, because someone with a better strategy may still be able to take you down. You have to have both. But yeah, the speed at which these players put those commands in is pretty frightening in a way. Yeah, you gotta you gotta learn all that stuff and practice all that stuff and you can start playing things like There are a

lot of online tournaments. Now, online games are always going to be a little different from most tournament based play because, yes, online introduced latency. It also has an element where it makes it harder to prevent cheating. Uh, there are various modifications out there for games that allow players to to cheat.

So there are times where you may run up against someone who's running that and you know, a mediocre player with a cheap program may be able to defeat a professional who's playing legitimately um based depending upon what the cheat allows that that mediocre player to do. Now, what kind of satisfaction does someone get out of using a cheat program to beat someone. I don't understand that, because that's not really you beating another person, you know, But anyway,

that's beside the point. I'm sure that you know the anonymity that we've talked about that goes along with the internet, um has something to do with it for some people. But because you can't, no one would really be able to prove that you didn't do it right. So so you want to do things like you want to have land parties where you can play against other people. You want to make it more realistic. You want to look into any sort of local tournaments that are being held.

Sometimes their tournaments being held by companies that are just doing as a promotional event, where you know, you might see like Microsoft is holding a game tournament nearby, and that it's a game one of the games that you're really interested in and that you really know, then by all means you should go and enter that tournament. I've actually played in a tournament once. Yeah, it was total fluke that I got in and uh and I was I was eliminated in the first round, but it was

really close. I almost got to the second round, but my my opponent defeated me. Um. But it was literally within the last like thirty seconds of play that it came down to and I was I was going to win until this last three second, so it just shows that I choke at the end of the game, kind of like the Braves, so um, yeah, hey, you know what, they've broken my heart anyways, not like the Thrashers though, Oh my gosh, I want anyway. Anyway, discussions professional sports,

not professional gaming. So yeah, you wanna compete in these local events as much as possible and then start looking into maybe some of the you know, if if you're actually winning these events, if you're consistently doing well, then it might be time to start looking at larger tournaments and see if there are any preliminary rounds there are within you know, a reasonable distance of where you live,

and try and enter those as well. It might not quite be time for you to book a flight to Korea, but you can at least start playing on on a higher level and test your skills out against other professionals. Keep in mind that a breakaway success, like a brand new player just entering the video game world and taking it by storm, is the thing of legend. It really

doesn't happen. Most professional gamers will tell you. It can take a couple of years of dedicated, hardcore practice and tournament play before you start getting to a level where

you can actually compete. I think though that um, you probably as an actor will agree with me when I say that that doesn't mean that you shouldn't enter a tournament and and give up, because having even if you honestly fail miserably, you get the experience of having an opportunity to see what the environment is like and and

sort of audition in that world. Um, you know, you might not you might, and my actor analogy, you might not get the part, but you see what a non addition is like, and so you can get an idea of how people behave at a tournament and what you can expect from other people and what the conditions are like. So you know, don't go in expecting to win, don't. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try your best, but might who knows become that legend it is. It's not that

it's impossible, it's just that it's really improbable. And if nothing else, you'll learn, you know, different tricks that you may never have thought of for the game and see, like you know, seeing how you were defeated can teach you how to play better the next time. And I mean that's really what tournament play is all about is learning all the different tricks of the of the maps and the physics of the game and the various uh shortcuts you can take in order to really get the

edge on your opponent. And uh, you know, learning that by yourself is is pretty difficult. You pretty much have to learn it through experience unless you're just you know, some sort of prodigy on video games, which you know, you could be, who knows, which is different from video

games on prodigy, which no longer. Um, I was just gonna say that, you know, the best part is probably going to be the practice, you know, because you that means you have to spend you know, two to ten hours a day working on your favorite video game, perfecting your moves and your your controls and your strategy for

winning the game. But um, you can also use a tournament for an opportunity and just like an other types of jobs with conventions and other get togethers, as an opportunity to network with other people who are good at what they do. Um, if you can meet some other gamers, maybe learn some tips and tricks from them, uh you know, maybe even get in you know, if you get a relationship going with them. Perhaps when you're uh, really good at your craft, you can you can join up with

their group. Um that's how how alliances are formed in these worlds. And and you know, not all of the tournaments are single player versus single players sometimes their teams and uh, you know, if you can get other good players around you, that's an advantage. Yeah. I've seen the frag Dolls play in person, and they were playing a team base game and uh, in their case, they had really um work. You could tell that they worked really

well as a team together. For one thing they had, uh, they had code names for different areas on the map which did not immediately give the location away to the other teams. So they could tell tell each other, I've got Sector A covered, and they know what what which sector is Sector A because they have personally gone through

and divided up the map and given it names. So the other players would say, all right, well sector is covered, I'm gonna go move over to the the sector B and uh, you know, and meanwhile their opposing team has no idea what these sectors mean where they are. They have no clue which areas of the map are being covered which

ones aren't. And uh, and they were at a real disadvantage. Now. Granted, when I was watching it, it was at C E S and the opposing teams were made up of random people who wanted to step up and play against the frag dolls. And it was four random players versus three frag dolls. And you might think that that's an advantage, that the numbers game is an advantage, or you might think that, hey, that means the frag dolls have one extra target to aim at. How long did it take

on average? Well, now, the games were played out, and uh, I think it was that they were played up through a time limit. It wasn't that you're killed and you were out. You would just keep playing and then But no, the frag dolls would pretty much you know, the number of kill is on the frag doll side versus the number of kills on the opponent's side was usually a round five to one ratio. Was like the frag dolls, well, get five kills to the other team's one kill. In general,

it's pretty efficient. There were some where you'd see the frag dolls really mop up on the on the opposing team, and that that was showed the value of teamwork. It wasn't just that the frag dolls were really good players, which they are. It shows that they work in a very well coordinated, organized way. So both of those components were very necessary to be able to be that leaked. Also, they were quite lovely and they still throw like girls. Uh.

They tossed out T shirts to the crowd afterwards. Don't don't insult them quickly, they will poon me. Um. So yeah, I mean the professional gaming is kind of an interesting, uh route to take. It's it's one that very few people can make work just because the odds are really against you. I mean, you have to be really good and you have to be willing to put in a lot of money, in time and effort in order to get there. Uh. It doesn't mean it's impossible. It's just

really tough. And the economy, uh changed in the economy over the last few years, really cut down on the number of professional gaming events. Yeah, there were many. Couple of years ago, several leagues folded and some tournaments ended because they just the sponsorship money dried up and there was no money for rewards, and you know, without that, you don't have the you know, the bragging rights only

go so far. So a lot of these tournaments have have sprung up and collapsed within the time frame of professional gaming really getting started. And you know, also you should keep in mind that if you are really good at a particular game, let's say Counterstrike. Let's say you're really good at Counterstrike, keep in mind that the version of counter Strike that some tournaments play maybe a moded version that give you different options than the standard version.

So that's something else you gotta look at. Is, like we were saying, there's not necessar early a standardized platform for any particular game out there. Um, so when you enter a tournament, it may turn out the surprise, it doesn't behave exactly the way you expected it to because they're running a modified version. Um. You know. It's again, it's one of those things that professional athletes normally don't

have to worry about. You don't usually have to say like, hey, I'm gonna do the pole vault, and the pole here is eleven inches shorter than what when I've been practicing with, what's up with that? You know, that's usually not going to be the case. But you do have to take into account things like weather conditions and temperature and sure, you know, yeah, there are other elements that can home

field and changes. So anyway, it's fascinating doesn't really mean it's it's um, you know, not something that I think the general populace thinks of is something you could do for a living. And as as you said, it's there are very few people who really can make it work, make it work, just because they're not as many opportunities in that in that realm. But uh, you know, it's it's really cool to watch and and to see people

at level play is incredible. I mean, it's so much different. Yeah, especially especially if you ever, like I said, go to YouTube and look at some of these tournament videos and you can watch them. Uh the players watch their hands on the keyboard and they never stop. They never it's never like even a pause to think about what to

do next. You just see those fingers just flying over the various commands while uh while the you know, there's this one I saw where it was I think, um, four reporters for some some gaming website versus one professional gamer, or maybe it was three three, three of the writers versus one professional gamer, and the three writers got to gang up on the professional gamer, and one by one you'd see the writers say oh no, until finally there's

just one left. He's like, I'm so alone and just getting completely wiped out by the pro and and the pro talked about how many commands he was able to execute per minute, and he said, compared to the Koreans, this is this is still slow, which to me was insane because I thought he was flying. Um. And if you guys are interested in the big tournaments, there are two really big ones that happened every year, a World Cyber Games and the Electronics Sports World Cup. Um. I

believe both of those are still running. Uh. There are other ones that I was going to name off, but frankly, some of them just don't exist anymore, so I'm not gonna go through the whole list. But yeah, it's interesting stuff. And if you guys have any questions about other topics you would like us to talk about, you should send

us an email. That address is tech stuff at how Stuff Works dot com, or you can contact us on Facebook and Twitter are handle there is tech Stuff hs W and Chris and I will talk to you again really soon game on. Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join How Stuffwork staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The House Stuff Works iPhone app has arrived. Download it today on iTunes. Brought to you by the

reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you