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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 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
Yes I'm sure someone handling their own expensive sponsership deals, complex contracts and his own business would have no marketable skills outside of playing quake.
It would take me seven years to make that much money. Maybe I should worry about what to do since my money dries up before each month ends. You make it sound like he won't have a job after the $250,000. With the current trend of video games I might say his job is more secure than a lot of people I know.
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...
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."
>> 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."
"... 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.
If you have a significant chunk of change in any set of stocks that pay qualified dividends (tax free), anyone can make $3,000 a month (or more likely, $9,000 every quarter) to live on. That's what a lot of rich people do. That's what senior citizens do after saving for 30 or 40 years. That's what I'm in my Roth IRA (although I'm years away from pulling three grand a month in dividends). Nothing magical about it. Unfortunately, a lot of kids just don't get it that there's more to life beyond today.
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?
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."
I'm sure he can probably play SAT long enough to get his score up to 1500.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
"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!"
But the problem is that this type of person generally is more interested in having the toys than the security. Some people can get away with it because they are content in a smaller house with a reasonable car that joe public can afford. Throw the big bucks at many others and they start thinking pimped Escalades and stuff from Cribs.
Heroscape, it's like legos combined with anachronistic wargames.
Considering that I'm planning to live to be 120, and will be into my fourth or fifth career by the time I retire at 100, I don't have a problem with this. Why retire at 30 and waste your life for the next 90 years?
"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.
Which is really ironic as I've yet to hire a MIT grad. Every one that I've interviewed (and yes a pool of 5 is statistically significant, even if it is a very small representation of a population) has an ego the size of a planet and actually seems to have got a very poor education with respect to usable, practical science. However, they seem to assume that I'll hire them based on the image the MIT research gets in the media. My guess this media image is generated by a very few select departments. - Mod this for flamenait and bring on the MIT flaming (actually it'll be interesting to see how 'clever' the flaming is).
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.