How To Become A Pro Gamer

GameDailyBiz reports on what it takes to make it on the pro gaming circuit. From the article: "The simplest answer would be by getting good enough in their game of choice to attract the attention of others already playing the sport. While gaming is still not at the point where there is a vast network scouting talent and coaches turning players into champions, there are people looking for up-and-coming talent. Win enough and you'll attract their attention."

Comments

I know!

[Anonymous Coward]

I know what it takes! No life!

Re:I know!

[csbrooks]

Silly. If that's all it took, we'd ALL be pro-gamers.

Same as Karmawhoring on Slashdot.

[SharpFang]

Be good in games generally
Be especially good in this or similar kind of games (topics), there are just as many.
Make sure the game will get popular/make it to front page.
Do/write something interesting in the game/story
Post early.

Yep, a karma whore professional.

3 Step Program

[TibbonZero]

Step One: Play Videogames Step Two: ???????????? Step Three: PROFIT!

The Other way Around

[superpulpsicle]

Why don't companies hire a bunch of people just to lose online. I want to play online and have a close game but eventually win. What keeps people coming back is winning.

What is the sense of paying 20 really good players in a competition in some LAN party. I am not sure the masses would be convinced to buy the game.

Re:The Other way Around

[Saige]

Actually, it's not just winning. It's winning a close game. Slaughtering other people is only fun for a short time, then it gets boring.

How?

[voice_of_all_reason]

Be a girl.

Re:How?

[Danse]

Be a girl.

More specifically, be at least a reasonably hot girl.

Re:How?

[Pichu0102]

This is the internet, you don't need to be a hot girl.

Re:How?

[Danse]

This is the internet, you don't need to be a hot girl.

But it sure helps a lot.

Pure Pwnage

[generic-man]

Pure Pwnage captured this all in the very first episode. Here's a torrent.

Re:Pure Pwnage

[Anonymous Coward]

BOOM Headshot. Pwn some fuckin' n00bs yo!

Hmm

[GigsVT]

So if idiot jocks can choose "professional sports" as a "career choice", then I guess "pro gamer" should be a legitimate career choice too.

Wonder when we'll start to see scholarships and special treatment from professors.

Re:Hmm

[hal2814]

You'll start to see scholarships when you see the single trend that all forms of money-making entertainment (including sports) share: Get a very large number of people to pay to watch a very small number of people perform. "Pro gamer" will be a legitimate career option when you can get people to pay to watch others game.

Re:Hmm

[MindStalker]

Which will be..... never..

For some odd reason it works in Korea... Not quite sure why.

But simply put watching a computer game is boring, the only people willing to pay to watch would be other high level gamers. Not quite unlike golf I guess... Oh well nevermind... I guess gamers just have to have enough money

Re:Hmm

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

People already pay to spectate the major competitions (WCG, CPL), but what needs to happen is spectating needs to be more fun. You can't do that as long as all the progamers are jumping to the newest games that arn't even ready yet. CPL is especially bad for this, they went from Painkiller to Doom to FEAR to quake4, each time switching before the next game was even out. What should happen is switching to something custom made for competition/spectating, like a modified quakeworld. Get the right automated camera tracking stuff, a good shoutcaster (TSN does this nice for cs), and you could make it actually enjoyable to spec.

Of course the game is important too, not just the engines specability-- CS (The biggest online competitive game) is actually one of the most boring to spectate considering how long people can spend waiting for the round to end to save a weapon, or other long periods of inaction. Plus using a round based system instead of a timelimit makes it hard to schedule, which is important for speccing.

Re:Hmm

[rotre]

http://image.fighterforum.com/showImage.asp?realFi le=FFPHOT20050731043041008.JPG
the top tier korean starcraft progamers make 50-200k a year.

Watch Pro Gamers

[DasWookie]

Another part of becoming a pro gamer is getting hooked watching pro game tournaments. GGL.com is providing a ton of coverage of the World Cyber Games in Singapore going on right now and live streaming broadcasts begin tomorrow. It can all be found here: http://www.ggl.com/wcg2005.php/ There is also a bunch of video from Blizzcon a few weeks ago in the downloads section. Enjoy!

An athlete you aint

[tsm_sf]

Can we please stop calling gamers althetes (or the execrable "cyber-athlete")? They're gamers. That's a good description.

If you're so dull that you actually need an analogy to understand what they're doing, you probably don't read anyhow.