Is It Worth It to be Professional Gamer?

Last week we learn how much pressure are there for study in Korea. Study until 10 pm, National exam, and also university exam killed every student freedom. Many students tried to relieve their stress by hanging out with their friend or game. Since game is flexible in term of time (you can play game anytime), many people gaming to escape from reality. The only dangerous thing from gaming is addictive and can make you waste a lot of time.

However, What if you do gaming and finally become a professional gamer? Is it really worth it especially in Korea?

Not really good at LOL, but I can see Mata (From South Korea) in this poster.

Gaming in South Korea consider as a normal thing. Almost everyone played online game even girl and you can find PC bang everywhere. Not only that, fast internet connection in Korea support the online game performance. In term of income from E-sport (gaming/gamer), South Korea is the highest which is around $26 million compare to other country. This money is from the price pool that every Korean gamer won at international game tournament such as LOL or Starcraft. The surprising part is the price pool is pretty high. On Starcraft, first place get $250 thousand. Anyway, good at gaming and becoming a professional player might be the best job ever for man, but is that really worth it?

1. Price pool of a tournament is way tooooooooooo high

Based on a website[1], the price pool is way too high then you can imagine. For example, for Starcraft 2, every year the winner can get up to 250 thousand Dollars. Looking at the average income in Korea (which is around which is around 180 thousand Dollars annually. Not only that, the game currently booming (League of Legend) has also really high price pool. Rich by winning tournament is dream for every man in this generation.

2. Average looking + High gaming skill  = Model, Actor, or athlete

He is not sleeping angel. He is too tired to play game

Gamer is always look up to the better gamer. Normal people who think game as a hobby usually watch how the pro player play the game. Later on these groups will create a fan base of this professional player. Actually, each gamer also has their fan base and group and even girl like them as they do to the actor or boy band. Well, if you see the picture above, it's true (because that is the gamer ID) and I kind of creep out.

3. Streaming = Money

Playing together while streaming. Not bad.

Gamer also can get some few bucks throughout streaming while they are playing. A famous professional gamer get more than six figures every month just by streaming his video of gaming through Internet. As I told you, every gamer has their fan base and those people are watching and even donating while they are playing game.

4. High skill

To be professional, you need to be good at gaming and participate in few championship. Thus in order to participate, you need to have high skill on gaming. For example, average Starcraft player can do around 300 actions every minutes or 5 action every second. This kind of action need fast eye and hand coordination that you can get from hard training. Similar to LOL on last hitting and mastering all of champion (character) is pretty hard and take more than 3 years. They also need to be adaptable to the game update and the opposition playing style.

5. Only few are gifted

It's already hard enough to be a professional gamer, but not all the professional gamer get that high income. If you want to break the six figures income, you need to win tournament and also get a big fan base. So far, there are only 1222 professional gamer in Korea and around 10-40 people that won tournament can enjoy their life like rich people. The other just stuck with streaming and low income. The high competitive in gaming also can eliminate another gamer out of the industry. Basically, gamer income is not stable but high.

Conclusion:

Well, we can say that being a gamer in Korea is worth it, but the high competitive, high skill, and even luck play major part in gaming and income. Out of 1222 people, only few that get more than 10 thousand dollars income per month and the other stuck on low income. Thus Professional gamer is not worth it since it's not that stable even though it's a dream job for every man. Sometimes, those gamer losing their hobby to just earn income in this game. My advice is find more stable income and keep gaming as hobby.

Reference:
- http://www.cracked.com/funny-4892-professional-gaming/
[1] http://www.esportsearnings.com/countries --> Country and price pool of game
- http://www.cracked.com/article_18763_5-insane-true-facts-about-starcraft-professional-sport_p2.html --> picture and about starcraft
- http://money.cnn.com/2014/10/09/technology/six-figures-to-play-video-games/--> Streaming
- http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/korea/ --> Income