Esports or electronic sports are competitions organized for streamers and gamers with a hefty tournament cash prize up for grabs.
Making a stable career out of professional gaming is like a childhood dream come to fruition. People would think it’s a big joke to quit your day job and focus on professional gaming but pro league gamers are actually earning in millions or much more than the paycheck generated from 9-to-5 corporate jobs.
Get Paid To Play Games!
Yes, the perks of being paid to actually play games that you can do for free is unbeatable. However, being a pro gamer isn’t really for everyone. What makes up a true-blue pro gamer isn’t just pure skills or talent but also the grit and perseverance to be on top of the league. This also takes a lot of drive and heart put to the game.
Pro gamers are competing worldwide at major gaming events such as the International Dota 2 Championship, Major League Gaming (MLG) circuit, and Intel Extreme Masters. Gaming has indeed pivoted from fun to seriously profitable business for organizers, communities, and gamers alike.
MLG has in fact dedicated specific domains all over the country to host professional gaming tournaments and has many communities and scouts to scour and look for the best players. The rawest yet most skilled ones are out there yet untapped.
For amateur gamers who are aspiring to go pro, you would have to focus not just on your mastery or gaming skills but also doing self-promotion on social media platforms. You really have to grow your social media following equally with that of your gaming skillset and aptitude level.
The Explosion Of Esports Industry
The esports industry is relatively at its infancy stage but it has been growing enormously over the years. This is gradually creating a more organized way to seed the talent pipeline.
Super League Gaming was established in 2014 and started out hosting multiplayer gaming tournaments for Minecraft which spread to major cities in the United States. It now currently hosts over 16 city-based teams for League of Legends, Clash Royale, and Minecraft. It has created this entire cybergaming space for esports professionals.
The esports talent pipeline gets to recruit aspiring yet competitive players combining factors such as social media influence, word-of-mouth advertising, third-party amateur tournaments, and online rankings.
In the same way, Blizzard Entertainment also has a Path to Pro program designed for talents who are geared towards League of Legends and Overwatch games. It all starts with an open division and then compete in the yearly Overwatch Contenders tournament events. Even though winners are not really guaranteed appointments to a professional team, talent scouts from different parts of the world can freely recruit skilled gamers from the roster of talents.
The exposure in open division or tournaments provides scouts a powerhouse of talented gamers to choose from.
How To Be A Pro Gamer – Steps On How You Can Make It To The Big League!
It’s easy to get disoriented when you do gaming for a living. Well, it’s more of a serious mode of having fun because it’s your career. Competitive gaming at esports takes a no-mediocre approach to gaming-skills, right game-on attitude, and drive to win. If you have what it takes, then read on.
Master Your Game
You need to pick a game that you’re actually good at and become an expert in that arena. You can’t play jack-of-all-trades, you need to find a game that you excel at and master that.
When you have found your niche game, self-promote and build your credibility online and offline as an exceptional gamer for both single and team play.
Fuel Your Fire
Every pro-gamer has his or her motivation. Either you do it with an ambitious streak to chase a childhood dream, just have fun and get paid for that, to save for the future, or to make your family proud.
Once you have found your motivation, you need to hold on to it and feed it so the drive and fire become inexhaustible.
Gear Up For The Game
In order to be a pro gamer, you should have the best equipment or peripherals such as a gaming laptop that is portable of handy enough to carry when traveling. Also, a high-end desktop that has updated hardware for gaming allows you to relax while playing at the comforts of your own home. An Xbox or Playstation too would allow you to compete anytime and anywhere.
Practice Makes A Master
You can’t be a pro gamer overnight, so you have to practice for several hours a day and watch a lot of gameplays by other gamers. Learn the best strategies. You should also play not just to win but to experience loss as well because the best pro gamers lost a lot of time and managed to outwit and outpace their own weaknesses. It’s your greatest teacher.
It’s a matter of having the right mindset in competitions. Pro gamers aren’t afraid to lose because they have the lion’s aptitude and appetite to win.
Join A Gaming Community
In order to be successful in the esports industry, you must learn how to be a team player and move in sync with a community. It’s the diversity that makes a community dynamic and it’s the collaboration that moves a community of gamers towards the same direction.
Join Tournaments
Once you get at an expert level competing in singles or with other teams, then you can venture out into entering tournaments. Join as many local and online tournaments so you get to test and sharpen your gaming skills. Winning at live tournament events help you boost your confidence to become a pro gamer.
Be Found
It’s either you get recruited in a team or you can try out for teams that you like. So, the more exposure you got on tournaments, creates more avenues for you to be discovered by talent scouts or teams.
Advice From Pro Gamers
Gaming eats a lot of your life up. If you want to be a pro gamer, there are sacrifices you have to make. This is according to pro game Ryan “Big Apple Pie” Gresty. He literally was sleep-deprived because it takes hard work and practice to measure up and get on top ranks.
One of the few young talents that had his breakthrough as a pro game is Blaze Elmore, 17. He became obsessed with “Clash Royale” when he was very young and was driven to join tournaments. And that he pursued relentlessly.
In 2018, the teen gamer won a tournament in Hollywood which is hosted by Super League Gaming which kicked off his rise to esports fame. He won a cash prize of $200 plus a flat-screen TV. Apparently, he was just warming up. He won one match after another following that at league tournaments hosted by Super League. Dignitas, an international esports organization saw his potential and recruited Elmore.
If you want to jump into streaming like Rumay “Hafu” Wang, who started in team competitions at the age of 14, you can evolve and become a streamer just like what she did. She is now a full-time streamer on Twitch at 23. She plays for 12 straight hours a day while listening to music and earning a full-time income from home.
You are only considered a pro gamer in esports once you have won at the pro level. That is every gamer’s dream. Many gamers whose age ranges from 15 to 30 are now earning six-figures out of gaming which is a combination of team salaries, sponsorships, and tournament prizes.
