Hello everyone, I go by Hanako. To give a little info about me without getting into too much detail, I’ve been playing fighting games since 2013(right after EVO). Someone I was playing with on a game told me about EVO happening and I checked it out, only to fall in love with Street Fighter IV after seeing Haitani’s Makoto. Ever since then I’ve been playing Street Fighter and eventually branched out into anime fighters. I’d say I’ve been playing fighters pretty casually these past 2 years, until recently, because even though I wanted to be good at them I didn’t invest the time required out of frustration for sucking so bad. Recently, after quitting fighting games for awhile(out of frustration), I came back and decided this is what I really want to do, it’s what I want my life to center around. There’s nothing else I want to do or have the motivation to do in life except become a professional fighting game player, and I swear I’m willing to do whatever it takes. This is my reason for swallowing my pride and coming to these online forums to ask for help in order to get better, so please, help me.
I’m only focusing on Street Fighter(currently sfiv) right now until I get really good at the game, then I might branch out into other fighting games. When it comes to online play, I lose most of the time, so a couple days ago I picked up Cammy and started to really work on my fundamentals by learning her normals and moveset, grinding out her bnb combos, reading about fighting game fundamentals online and trying to beat the cpu on the hardest difficulty using fundamentals. After that I started training my fundamentals against online opponents, but I don’t really know if I’m getting better. I don’t have a ps4 right now, but I’m hoping to get one in the next couple of months, and I want to get good at sfiv before that happens so I can have the skills necessary to transition to Street Fighter V and get really good on that game as well. If there’s anyone out there willing to help me on my road to becoming a professional, by giving advice, sparring, etc, then I’d really appreciate it. Thank you for reading.
Dude what the fuck are you retarded?
Go get a fucking job and do what is necessary to get one.
When all that shit is done go sit down and play some fighting games.
Jesus Christ, do you know how few of the people you call “professional” are actually professional in the sense that playing fighting games pays their bills?
All those Japanese anime fighter “pros” you see at Evo, pay their flight from the money they earn in their boring fucking job and have to take a vacation in order to do so.
Even Justin Wong has a fucking day job, so unless you’re Daigo Umehara who has over 22 years of arcade experience and made some of the clutchest plays in the history of competitive fighting games, it’s a good idea for your dumb ass to set your priorities straight.
I know it’s incredibly frustrating that life is a piece of shit and you cannot do what you really want to do in terms of careers, but that is how it is. If you throw your time out of the fucking window to pursue a dream of guaranteed poverty, you’ll soon end up in a position where you won’t even have enough money to play your favorite games, because you’ve become a bum.
LOL first off @ArtVandelay the fact that your avatar is George Costanza couldn’t be more perfect! Beyond that everything you said is not only right but couldn’t have been said in a nicer way. “I have been playing since 2013” are you serious? And you just joined a day ago and now you want to be pro? I mean I understand you have to start from somewhere but no motivation for a career? Because this is such a bad idea I want to do nothing but discourage you. As amazing and fun as fighting games are, and I have been playing them pre-internet, Art is right, get a job, have a life, and if you are really good at fighting games, you’ll win a local, maybe a regional, make a name for yourself. Go to a Major and then people can find you on youtube and comment on how amazing you are, then MAYBE you can make a few thousand a year. I doubt you’ll find one of the pro gamers that set out to be pro, they just played because they enjoyed it and were really good at it. Don’t mistake reading stuff on guys like Sonicfox who make so much money, the kids an anomaly, and I’m sure he’s loving life after EVO, he is one out of thousands of guys.
Maybe I was a little harsh, but I mean it.
Treat it as a hobby in your free time and when it eventually turns out that you are amazing at it, you will gain recognition and maybe make a bit of money on the side, but if not you have not just fucked up your life, you just happen to be someone who is not the best person at his hobby, instead of being someone who is good for nothing.
You don’t pursue the path to becoming a professional. You play the game you love, attend events and hope you do well. Just focus on an actual career path and treat fighting games ALWAYS as a hobby. As stated by Art, a large amount of “professional” fighting game players still work a day-job and live pretty basic lifestyles just because they love the game they play.
The utmost best way to improve is by learning the fundamentals to an expert degree, and learning how to adapt quickly and force your game plan on an opponent. This is how players dominate BO3 tournaments offline, the ability to adapt to a strategy and force the counter strategy on the opponent. When you can watch a high-level match and see each and every small thing the players do you’ll know you have an idea of what this is. But honestly, completely scrap the idea of becoming professional and instead just enjoy it for what it is - a video game.
I’ve been playing golf for two months, and I just realized I want to be the next Tiger Woods!
Lol weebs.
Get friends that play the games you play, go play in your local scene, go to every tournament you can and be prepared to lose a lot. But have fun!
I suppose even SRK was the wrong place to look for help. Very well then.
First of all, I understand it would take quite awhile to get to the point where competing in fighting games could be my sole source of income, so of course I’d get some basic day job somewhere until that happens. However, I don’t care if only x amount of people in the world are professional fighting game players, it’s what I want to do and I will die trying, cause that’s what it’s going to take to get there. Either put everything I have into reaching there, or not even bother to try in the first place, and I choose the former. I would rather die a bum than live a life without achieving my dreams, so there you have it. I’m going to pursue this no matter what is said to me, so the least you could have done is give advice instead of shitting on my thread.
One more thing. Two years is more than enough time for someone to decide they want to do a certain thing as a career.
Actually…there was good advice given here.
It may not have been the advice you wanted to read…but it’s advice.
I think you should have asked a pro directly for advice.
You want to be a pro fighting game player? Good for you.
Are your parents cool with this?
I ask this because you are only 14…and you are in school.
School is important, but you also have to dedicate time to your studies while you are unknown.
As stated before…if you want to go pro, you have to get good.
IMO playing online will only get you so far…you have to go out there and get into the offline tournament scene. I think you can learn more about the games better that way.
Get used to the community environment…because we can get hype and loud.
Win locals…win regionals…win nationals…win Evo.
Or win enough for sponsors to take notice.
You said that you quit fighting games for a while because you got frustrated with losing.
If you are looking to go pro…you CAN’T be doing that.
Be prepared to deal with losses and pressure of being on the stage in a hype match-up.
But what if it doesn’t work out?
What if you can play for years…and don’t get signed?
Always have a plan B…get that education.
Actually I’m 17 almost 18 and I don’t live with my “parents,” I live with a couple relatives, and I can do almost whatever I want. I play fighting games with that leeway, but you’re right. When you think about it, it’s kind of straight-forward. Play in offline community environments, win locals, regionals, nationals, evo, etc. But in-game it doesn’t feel so simple. I’ll be getting a basic education while pursuing this, so it’s not like I’m dropping out of highschool/college etc, I just have no motivation to pursue a different career. I’d get a basic crappy job and that would be my back-up to support me. Either I make it as a pro or I work at a mediocre job for the rest of my life, so I’ll be trying to get to the former.
Also, I would like to ask pros for advice, but it’s not like they live next-door from me. Maybe I can find their emails or meet them at a local event or something. Thanks for the advice.
I must have confused you with someone else…my bad. Still my advice applies.
If you are so bent on becoming pro in fighting games…you have to put in the the time and dedication to master it.
Get into the new games while they are fresh competition.
Still…it’s always good to have a Plan B. It’s better you figure that out sooner than later.
You can likely find the pros on Twitch, Twitter, Facebook, etc…not sure if they’ll answer you right away.
If you happen to run into one in person…respectfully inquire.
Good luck.
Wow. Well it’s gonna take years of practice if you’re actually serious about what ya just said fella, so unless you gots the patience it ain’t possible.
Muscle memory, ground game and of course strategy. If you’re one of them serious dudes then you hafta put it serious dude time, no other way 
That’s if it’s not a spare time thing if you actually want a job like that [well…] I mean if that’s really what you wanna do, as a job, an actual? then well…gotta put in the work like anything else for the "job"
Can’t tell ya not to go for it but dude. You do realize the scope of that right?
I do realize the scope of what I’m trying to do. I understand how difficult it is and how unlikely it is for me to be successful in this field but I still have to try. I’ll put in the years of experience and training I need in order to get there, it’s just how I go about the training. If I don’t do it right then it won’t matter how long I practice, which is why I came to the SRK forums for advice.
I sincerely thank everyone here that has given me advice so far for helping me achieve where I want to get to rather than shooting it down. If there’s anything else that would be useful for me to know, please drop a post here.
Follow your dreams.
You need a way to earn income separate from playing fighting games. And then you can dedicate your free time to becoming a better player. ie: I don’t see earning a living as a fighting game player feasible… I’m guessing there are a handful of people around the world that are actually doing this.
Maybe your regular job can be related to games… I don’t know… game journalism, reviewing games… maybe become a programmer…
Save your money, invest… be frugal… when you’ve got money saved up, you’ve got far more options of what to do with your time… If you become independently wealthy, you can do whatever you want with your time.
Thank you, SpindriveSmasher.
As for being financially secure while pursuing this goal, I will have some stupid, boring crappy day job somewhere until I become a professional Fighting game player, but not anything like programming or writing as a journalist or anything. I don’t have the motivation for those kind of tedious things. I mean I suppose it would be cool to work for Gameinformer or something, but once again, no motivation.
Earning a living being a professional fighting game player is possible if you’re good enough, or if you also become a live streamer.
It wouldn’t be a “temporary” job untill you get pro that you would need. I wouldn’t throw away the education you recieve at school and get a “basic crappy job” (direct quote) on the side.
Like many people have already said you will need a backup plan. By all means follow your dreams, but don’t throw away the rest of your life in the process. Why don’t you think about getting a decent job, (I take it you are in america?) if so, go to college and actually get a half decent job that you don’t go into every day wanting to kill yourself. It will take many years of playing and practise to reach a top level and you’ll have plenty of time while you are in college and working. If it doesn’t work out… then hey! at least you’re not in a job that you hate and you have decent income to support a family that you potentially want to have? Unless you want to live alone but thats personal preference I suppose.
Like many have said don’t forget that even while potentially playing at top level, even winning EVO, you’ll still most likely have to have that job in the background and you wouldn’t lead much of a happy life if you have to go into a crappy job that you hate every day.
The only other way would be to become well known in the FGC such as Mike Ross, I wouldn’t call him PRO, though he’s more PRO than I will ever be lol, and do something similar to he does which involves twitch. That is probably one of the only sustaining sources of income from the FGC that I can think of.
My last point is, you’re 17. Sure you can start now but don’t throw away future opportunities for it.** I am now 22 and I am a whole different person to who I was when I was 17.** I can’t even believe what I was thinking back then only 5 years ago! Everything thing from what I wanted out of life down to the clothes I wore and the haircut I had shudders. Just another point in why you should stick to education hard and don’t drop the idea of getting a decent full time job. You will still have the same time to practise! so there is no need to just get a “boring crappy job”
Keep those things in mind.
Not likely. I think around 2,000 people were in the tournament this year at EVO? So that’s around a $20,000 prize pool. 60% of that is 12,000. So that’d be 1st place.
$12,000 isn’t enough to live off of. Aside from capcom cup that’s probably one of the biggest prize pools too.
Stop saying “Untill” I become a proffesional fighting game player. Instead use the more correct term of “I want a boring crappy day job while I play in proffesional fighting game tournaments”
But unfortunately not nearly long enough to grasp what’s actually required, in this instance.
At 17, I am now 21 years your senior and have been playing street fighter, and other fighting games, since they were invented. I grew up in the same fighting game circle as Ryan Hart, spending my mid teens to early twenties playing against him regularly in various arcades around England’s Capitol.
While representing East London, with three others on my team, I entered many tourneys, beat the Japanese #2 in KOF97 (In 1998) played tons of public money matches and, in later life, worked with Gamesville (a short lived games programme here in the UK) as an advisor and advocate for the FGC. I have had television exposure, managed video game shops for both Game and Gamestation and hosted monthly tournaments. For a little while I was pretty well known.
However, through all of this, I was never anything more than just ‘above average’ at any game I played. Sure I could play theory fighter with the best of them, but I could never reach the skill levels I saw people like Ryan achieve. Of course I had high points, but that’s all they were.
Ultimately I’m happier that I’ve managed gain a decent education, carve out a real life career, get married to a wonderful and supportive wife (yes she was with me back then too) and have a wonderful daughter… who just happens to be a beast with Oni.
Point is, keep it real. People have limits, but you never really know what they are until you test them. By all means chase your dream, but always have a back up plan.
There’s some real down to earth shit being posted in here so I advise you to take note of it.