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A Lot of Money for Playing Games
knowhow writes "Tom Taylor took the risk of dropping out from high school just to play video games. The guy who is just 18 years old, was prompted to take this step; because of the reason that emerged from his love for gaming. After playing for six months on a full time basis the guy signed a contract for a staggering $250,000."
From the Article:"Now Tom taylor is known as Tsquared on the gaming circuit. He's earning six figures and has product endorsements and a video game tutoring business. He's one of about 100 professional gamers associated with Major League Gaming, a video gaming league founded in 2002. When they're playing well, pros might bring home a few grand a month."
I wonder in what situation he will be, he better be working on a backup skill.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
I suppose that, unlike actual sports leagues, Major League Gaming doesn't have to worry about sex party scandals.
Major League Gaming shows he's not even the best! :-(
Common sense is not so common
Couldn't the same be said for all of us? What happens if IT "dries up"?
I wonder if Fatal1ty makes more?
Sorry HTML skills suck
http://www.fatal1ty.com/
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
Obviously the youngun's have the advantage when it comes to twitch style video gaming, but this seems very reminscent of poker, where you can make aliving playing if you're good enough, but not many people are that good.
As for the people who say "what's his backup skill going to be?" Assuming he can talk & isn't butt ugly, I imagine he'll be a commentator or spokesperson someday.
Hell, if there's enough drama in the industry, he can write a book too.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
The guy who is just 18 years old, was prompted to take this step; because of the reason that emerged from his love for gaming.
Set that poor semicolon free! It doesn't deserve to be cooped up in that horrible excuse for a sentence! The semicolon is a beautiful creature that can only be appreciated in its natural habitat: a sentence containing two full independent clauses. Or certain lists.
We may as well talk about the guys who drop out of school to play basketball...
I, for one, welcome our new video gaming celebrities.
Everyone always talks about wanting to get a job where they get paid to do what they enjoy, but I tend to wonder if maybe you'd get burned out of doing something that you enjoy as a pastime, if you had to start doing it for 8, 10 or 12 hours a day. (Okay, admittedly there are WoW players who seem to have no problems there.)
There are lots of things that I enjoy in moderation that I don't think I'd like anymore, if I started doing them as my day job. Maybe it's just me...but I just think that playing games for a living might take the fun out of it.
I guess maybe this is because I enjoy playing games as a way to relax, and I guess I wouldn't want to play them more than a few hours a day, regardless of the other constraints on my time.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I wonder who he's dating.... Maybe E! can cover this in one of the their hard hitting investigative reports. I bet he's a scientologist too!
Don't worry about the mule, just load the wagon.
Game tester. It's not really that fun (playing same games repeatedly until they're balanced/stable enough), but he's got the skills.
The Raven
>> The guy who is just 18 years old, was prompted to take this step; because of the reason that emerged from his love for gaming.
Say that again, but not in Klingon.
The guy who is just 18 years old, was prompted to take this step; because of the reason that emerged from his love for gaming.
... *weeping*
"The guy who is just 18 years old, was prompted to take this step; because of the reason that emerged from his love for gaming."
"... do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites, standing for absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college." -- Kurt Vonnegut
Or, if you must, at least avoid using if you haven't the foggiest idea of where to put them (such as, say, between two independent clauses). All that does is show you've dropped out of high school to play video games.
....for the Reality TV show that will be based on the Barbie Diary Mysteries pro circut.
I'll finally have the perfect reason to abandon an outdated entertainment medium and move on the the net full time...
I cant even count the number of people I knew when I was in college who threw away the chance to become succesfull engineers (I went to an engineering school) to play WoW/Everquest/Counterstrike 15 hours a day. For every guy like this who makes a career out of gaming there are hundreds of thousands who give up their careers because they spend too much time playing video games.
Spending the enourmous amount of time required to be good at video games is a worse investment than a lottery ticket. Lottery tickets have had more winners, require less time investment, and the payoff is a lot bigger than 250 grand.
Yes, I realize that a lot of people play video games for fun and moderate their time spent well. But dont we all know people who play endlessly because they want to be the best on their server or be in a clan that wins a lot of tournaments?
If players are somehow making 6 figures, why should the writers be making less? There's far more skill involved in writing a game than playing it, but often the developers are highschool students or university co-op making something at least an order of magnitude less than this player...
There are still issues in gaming. The most extreme in my opinion would be the illegal use of steriods. We need to check all the professional gamers to see if they are using steroids. It would be a bad influence on those who are still playing as Night Elves in World of Warcraft (aka the younger crowd).
I will bend like a reed in the wind.
There are a lot of QA testers that play just as much as him if not not more and probably can woop the crap out of him in any game. It really doesn't take that much talent to play video games, you just got to spend time figuring out what the developers where thinking.
"When they're playing well, pros might bring home a few grand a month."
Hell yea, where's the Enemy Territory tourneys with the money? C'mon guys, don't neglect good and free for everyone games! Let's see who rocks the free-world for the most cash!
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
How dare you slander good name Scientology! Not even capitalize Scientology! You free fair game now buddy junior. We suck you brains out with super power, sue you all you money, and bump rudely into you whilst in street! Maybe even in that order! Bet you sorry now!
It seems a shame to take a recreational activity that you love and make it your sole source of income.
Yes, I do believe you can love your work. But this guy took a thing that he truly loved that *wasn't* work and *made it* his work. Playing games for a living sounds great, but anything loses its luster once you are chained to it if you want to eat and have a place to live.
For all you gamers, think of how excited you are when a new blockbuster game comes out and you can't wait to get your hands on it. Now take that feeling and completely invert it, and I think that that about approximates what this guy must feel when that happens. "Oh man, a new game... guess I better start getting good at this one too. Back to ten hours of practice a day."
The guy who is just 18 years old, was prompted to take this step; because of the reason that emerged from his love for gaming.
What the fuck is this supposed to mean?
What would TV coverage of this look like? You can't just have a shot of the screen, but if you cut back and forth you miss screen action. They probably have to edit together a lot of highlights. I can't imagine this would be very entertaining to watch on live TV... ok, some stuff like one-on-one fighting games might play well... it would be like boxing without the chance of actual injury. Yes, I guess this could be watchable if done right. The missing element is that you aren't watching your friends get beat, or beating your friends, or well... gaming. Robot wars was OK TV because most of us don't have the time, money or skill to make a decent fighting bot. Everyone can game. When I was a kid and was totally game crazy, the time I spent having to just *watch* was pure agony. Gimme the joystick!!! How many kids these days get their only daily exercise fighting their siblings for the controller? You're going to take gaming and make it totally passive? Those kids are going to explode, leaving nasty bits of fat all over the walls. Hey... that'd be a cool effect in a game.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
May I suggest he read through this?
g uid=%7BBE57F0AA-03D9-4320-BC4D-83363B6372F6%7D&sit eid=
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Story.aspx?
You've got a friend in Japan: http://www.jlist.com
I think this is a common situation and a common misunderstanding. Just because you like something doesn't mean you like it under any circumstance. Why would it? Maybe you like doing something at *your* pace, but don't like it so much when you have to hassle or keep deadlines. Thinking about what you really would like to do is a pretty complicated prospect and I suspect most of us don't actually achieve it. Such is life.
:)
But its short-sightedness that probably brings a lot of us to it. Probably a bit of lack of imagination and bills too.
Quack, quack.
I mean, I guess it's not actually any different than going for tennis lessons, but something about that just leaves me with an overwhelming feeling of wtfness.
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
All right, so this kid got a contract for 250k; how long will he be able to get such contracts. Given the new nature of gaming, the amount of young competition, and the lack of training required, I would be surprised if he gets a follow up contract. Let's face it, to become an elite gamer requires good reflexes and an obsession with gaming; a lot more people fit this criteria as opposed to having the athletic prowess to be a professional soccer player. It also takes a lot less self-dicipline than getting into professional sports (where you also have to train outside of playing the actual game, watch your diet, etc.). In the end, professional gamers will always be more available than professional athletes; so they are going to have a very short money-generating life span. This isn't mentioning the fact that to be a professional gamer will require you staring at a screen for something like 15 hours a day. It's true many spend that much time gaming a day without getting paid; but for a professional, that's 15 hours of work. I don't know, 15 hours a day everyday for 250k a year doesn't seem like such a great deal to me. I'll take a lower salary and less time working, thanks. Maybe he will go back to school after his gaming career is over; frankly, he'll have few options if he doesn't. That being said, I have to wonder if he won't spend years gaming in futility trying to get another contract after his time has passed. Another point to consider is the affect media will have on such a profession. Let's say you've been gaming for years and have put on a few pounds or aren't the most attractive person to begin with, then someone comes along just as good as you but prettier, who's more likely to get the contract if a sponsor had to choose?
"like Michael Jordan was born to play basketball. I feel like I was born to play video games." ... and to use that as an excuse to compare myself to Michael Jordan.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
More people won MORE money playing the lottery. This type of sensationalist stuff doesn't interest most people but it keeps making headlines on /. ?
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
It doesn't say whether that's 250k over 1 year or 10 years....Sure if it's 1 year it's amazing, but a 10 year contract...
I can't think of many worse (in terms of sustainable income) jobs in the World than this to be honest.
For a start you're competing against millions of people who don't require any technical qualification to compete with you. Besides gaining knowledge on a subject most people go to College & University to set themselves aside from the pack, to make themselves look more attractive to employers. With pro-gaming you haven't got any of this, the only barrier to entry is sufficiently fast reflexes, a little intelligence and a competent PC.
This person is going to be a target for the rest of his playing career. The guy below him is gonna be aiming to usurp him to get his sponsorship, not to mention thousands upon thousands of upstarts actively seeking to relegate him to obscurity.
It's also the sort of industry where unless you are in the Top 10 or so players for an extended period of time you're anonymous. It's not like being a professional footballer where even if you're in the lower divisions you're still making enough money to live on. This guy has to realise that there are thousands of people below him who are making no real money to speak of just waiting for him to slip up.
No one really knows the terms of this $250,000 contract - whether he's actually been given this amount of money or whether that's essentially his "valuation" in pro-gaming terms, but if I were him I would invest all of it and work on the principal that his career could just fizzle out in a couple of years or so.
"What exactly is the marketable skill in signing a contract that says 'give me loads of money'?"
None at that stage, but getting someone to offer you a genorous contract in the first place is a "marketable skill". If this kid has any financial smarts he will suck that contract dry and get a renewal, if not he will get bored, throw a "party", and watch it slip through his fingers.
I dropped out of high school at 16 (Australia), it did not stop me from renting a house, buying a car, raising a family... Sure I completed a BSc when I was 30 because by that time I had figured out what I wanted to do, now I am 47 my pay pack is well above average. To be honest, I would have to say that making a living is less "financialy challenging" when you have the right bits of paper, but that still doesn't mean your life is ruined without them.
However the notion that dropping out of school will ruin the rest of your life is false and usually promoted by those who stayed at school and have yet to find out what earning a pay packet is all about. And no, a couple of years burger flipping while leeching off your friends and relatives does not qualify.
BTW: Please excuse my spelling, as I said, I'm a high school dropout.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
... anyone who knows what game he actually plays? This is the typical sensationalist news that I loathe, especially when it's about competitive video gaming. They presume that the people reading the article are interested solely in the bizarre fact that people can make money playing video games, and that they probably wouldn't need to know which game we're actually talking about here.
It is just marketing/PR to make the kids believe you can actually earn money with playing games. How many kids "ruin their live" while trying to become a progamer?
And all this shit just to sell a few more games and getting PR. They could hire 5 developers instead. That would be at least be productive.
As someone else stated: The guy is a lottery winner. He had incredible luck to get his "job". 99.9999% of the kids who try the same will fail miserably.
I like games, but it is a hobby. If you want to earn money/dedicate yourself do something usefull, please. If all the time wasted in Wow, Warcraft, Counterstrike would be spend productive (research, art, maybe open software) that would be great.
I hate those cynical bastards betraying, decifing and seducing the kids and destroying opportunities.
The article doesn't say how long the contract runs.
If it is $250k for one year, then that is pretty damn good. $250k over five years is pretty darn average once you take out income tax, Social Security, and Medicare. Not bad for a High School dropout, but not exactly the staggering sum it is made out to be.
SirWired
v ghaH wa'maH chorgh DISmey qan; ghaHta' Daq tlhap vam- vo' meq vetlh vo' Daj muSHa' vaD [gaming]
You're welcome.
Education is for everybody. There should be no excuse for him to leave school only for the money, because the minute this wonderful company comes down he's going to be in deep shite. There shouldn't be a problem with playing hard and maintaining at least a passing grade in school and college.
William Shatner submitting slashdot articles now?
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
Back when I was 14 years old, I was a video game fanatic. Now admittedly, that was quite a long time ago. I was addicted to "Asteroids" and "Defender" and "Robotron". But while I played them, I also got quite a good idea of the underlying programming and how the game itself worked.
Two years later, I was writing games. It was the days before IDEs and sophisticated graphics engines, so everything had to be done from the metal up. It was hard work. But some of my software was picked up by a software company affiliated with a major computer magazine (Instant Software, Kilobaud Magazine) and royalty cheques started to come in. Big time.
Ultimately my business interests in writing games and having others distribute them lasted only 3 years, but it was the springboard for me to grow into other areas of computing. To this day I still own a computer related business. Video games were my start.
One could argue that today, with 7 figure budgets for game production and armies of programmers, there is no way for a young single guy or 2-3 friends to write successful game software. I would say, though, that this is incorrect: look around the Internet and you will find many many examples of shareware game authors earning quite a good living. In some cases very good. The Internet is an unparalleled software distribution resource, and if you can get 2% of 500,000 people who downloaded your software to pay you $5 for it, that's $50,000 for your efforts. You don't need many of those in a year.
Hopefully this young man can milk this game playing contract for all it's worth, then use his earnings as seed capital for the next stage in his career. It's what I did, and I've never looked back.
A few grand a month does not sound like something worth dropping out of school over. Also, in the case of Tom Taylor, if he was 18 and still in school it didn't sound like he had much time left before graduating. I never understood the point of spending 13 years of your life in school to walk out the door 2 or 6 months before graduation. The least he could have done is homeschooled the remainder of his diploma to avoid having to place G.E.D. on his future resume's.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
Though he did make a rather strange habit of wearing a pair of his GF's panties around his neck during all of the tournaments that he played. He looked like a tool.
All your sig are belong to us.
In high school I loved space. I loved looking at the stars. Thinking about satellites, the coming commercialization of space, etc. So I went to school to become an Aerospace Engineer.
... but you know what? I love work! I can't think of anything I'd rather be doing. And if I were doing something else I'd probably be watching the clock to race home and work on my real passion for space. Think about what you are saying. You should do what you love.
By your logic I shouldn't have, because I "took a thing I truly loved that *wasn't* work and *made it* work"
It's the same principle as Briteny Spears making more money than the people who write her songs.
Honestly, though, I'm sure the top 0.1% of game developers are making 6 figures (Take Will Wright, John Romero, and John Carmack), just like the top 0.0001% of gamers. You can't really compare the 'leetest' gamers with your average game software developer (who will still earns well over 50,000/yr). That would be like comparing Will Wright to the average gamer (who pays $1500/year to play games).
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
I mean, maybe it's just me, but I'd interpret his intitials as T+T, not T*T.
So does this mean that the thousands of kids who have fucked up their education by too much gaming can look forward to big endorsement checks? I guess being addicted to WoW actually is a good thing.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
I am more impressed with one of the co-founders of YouTube still going to school and becomeing fabulously rich. HP, Yahoo, CISCO, NetScape, Google, YouTube ... those Stanford startups just keep on pumping money.
If you have only one hobby, and make that into your paycheck, then it's almost expected to witness 'burn out'.
I don't know if TSquared has other hobbies like art or athletics, but having such alternate forms of fulfillment helps significantly.
Balance.
In the mean time, I would encourage him to continue with this and not touch (read: conservative investments) half of the post-tax money for a few years. By that time, he'll experience more of the industry and figure out what else interests him. Maybe he'll just get sick of the whole thing and quit for nothing in particular - the reason for saving some of the money now.
For those that follow the Professional Halo 2 scene this is old news. T2 is on the team widely regarded as the 3rd best on the circuit; Str8 Rippin. At the same time that T2 got his contract the number one Halo 2 Team "Final Boss" (OGRE1, OGRE2, Walshy, Saiyan) also signed the same 3 year MLG contract worth $1,000,000 (or £250,000 each). Final Boss only lost once during the 2005 season and have only lost once so far in 2006, completely dominating the entire 2005-2006 season, and are regarded as the best Halo 2 team in the world.
Microsoft is a company known for paying a generous dividend. Their annual dividends on a share of stock ($28 as I write this) are $.40 cents at the moment, for a yield of 1.5%. If you want to make a $36k yearly income from dividends, you need a cool $2.4 million invested in a company with dividends of the same yield as Microsoft. Even if you get an unheard of yield of 4.5% you need $800k. Dividends are *not* tax free! You'll get a 1099 form from MSFT (or whoever) listing how much you made, and then you get to go through a fun process to decide whether they are ordinary dividends (taxable as income, same as if I paid you the same amount of money to play games for me) or qualified dividends (still taxable, but as capital gains -- you get either a 5% or 15% rate as opposed to whatever your normal income tax bracket puts you in, depending on what bracket you're in). The IRS says the overwhelming majority of dividends are ordinary, not qualified, and I'm inclined to agree with them since they'll break my kneecaps if I don't. (http://www.irs.gov/publications/p550/ch01.html#d0 e4586)
I'm skipping the impact of a traditional or Roth IRA, since neither of these applies to an 18 year old gamer -- you'd get penalized up the wazoo for touching a penny.
The reason most old folks can afford retirement isn't dividends (or bond income), its that their portfolio has appreciated to the point where they can live out the rest of their life expectancy through a combination of dividend income, bond income, and drawing down the value of the portfolio. Thats less of an option for a hypothetical 23 year old ex-pro gamer, since his hypothetical stash will not likely generate sufficient income to cover his expenses without liquidating a bit of it every year, and he will probably live long enough to see it vanish in its entirety. (Supposing a cool million in stock and $30k in annual living expenses, you'll need to either pray for an increasing market EVERY year of your life or liquidiate a few percent of your portfolio in year one, then a few more in year two, then year three, etc etc, and the amount you have to sell increases in every year because you're selling your future income stream down the river every time you sell a share).
Obligatory: THIS IS NOT TAX OR INVESTMENT ADVICE. I just have had these issues on my mind a lot recently as I've been working on starting my own retirement plan.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
...it's not really "playing" anymore. I find gaming great for unwinding and venting a little anger (e.g. by virtually blowing someone's head) of now and then, but I can't think of a more boring job. You don't create anything, after a while you don't need to think much anymore, and the Carpal Tunnel must be a killer.
But still... for 250k I guess there's a good enoughh reason for some people.
Maybe MLG is not going to keep this kind of thing as the norm. They're relatively new, and they want to be taken seriousely? So how do you do that? Get some people who make some serious cash. So how do you do that? Give 'em the money yourself. Might just be the conspiracy nut in me kicking in, but this might be the exception, even as exceptions go.
Google: "All your data are belong to us."
career moves simply because I didn't want to spend the best ten years of my life preparing for the worse ten years of my life. I didn't want to wait until I was 60 to see the beautiful mountains through the window of a tour bus/ cruise ship/ etc. I wanted to climb it. One of the turning points in my life was when I was sitting in an old folks home and an old lady told me she had spent her entire life preparing, saving, and avoid things that might have, should've, but never did, happen. Her main regret was that she was so focused on her career that she never got to do the things she wanted to do. And when she finally did have the time and money she wasn't physically able. I also learned from my dad he's 65 and has no plans to retire. Sure he no longer works super stressful hours but he always says "Why would I want to wait around to die." Working was his life to him. He says he'd rather die working, than die being useless.
Does anyone else think this guy is a totally idiot? I "took a chance and it paid off"??? What a load of horse manure. He doesn't even graduate from High School? Where is this kids parents? Where is the discipline? It is articles like this that make me angry. It celebrates our societies mistakes, and makes them look like something of value. Too bad he couldn't see the value of school. Everything has its place, but quitting high school to play video games full time is a sure path to loserville. Poor chap...
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
There's a Far Side akin to this.
Have you read my journal today?