How much money do these people making being professional fighting game players? Do they really make enough money to be able to spend all the time they need practicing street fighter 4?
I don’t have any idea, I’m just guessing, but it seems to me that in order to be able to consistently perform at the level of play that these people do, you would need to make playing SF4 your full-time job (8 hours a day of practice). From a personal standpoint, the minimum I would need to break even with all my living expenses is roughly 25k a year, so is that really how much they make?
Another question I was wondering, is how much of what Daigo and Justin Wong (just using them for example, I’m sure there are others that are on their level) can do in the game is actually accomplishable by your standard person? To clarify, is their skill level in SF4 and other fighting games so high because of natural talent, that can’t come of practice, or if your standard Joe was practicing 8 hours a day could he compete against them?
Daigo isn’t professional as far as I know. He has a normal job. It’s not really a question of skill. It’s a question of marketing and popularity, and beyond that, sponsorship and business partnership. Justin makes money not only because he plays like every game and goes to tons of events, but because he has made a name for himself and people are willing to money match him/pay for playtime, pay him to come to their event, etc. Just being as good as him isn’t enough, you have to be able to market yourself.
You can be a Pro Gamer too, just change your title. P.S. I made a few hundred bucks thanks to David Sirlin, with an honorable mention to Namco in the past 6-8 months.
No prize for any normal FG tournament is even near that amount. Maybe EVO will be this year for SF4 but I doubt it. The gamestop prize was probably worth over 10K as well but again this is an extremely rare case.
That was CGS, and I would be having a sad face if I was him too. Getting a salary that’s similarly structured like a professional athlete’s, to play video games, and it gets pulled? QQ indeed.
If I’m not mistaken, didn’t Gootecks call himself a professional gamer? If he did, I wonder how it works out for him. Jwong has a sponsor.
The real money games are FPS. Smash is easy money if you’re good though because those tournaments get really big tournaments and they are pretty frequent.
My bad, I meant CGS… WCG… I’m a freelance pro gamer lol because I actually have a good job and I’m only joking because I don’t really need the extra money but it’s always nice being able to walk away from a tournament with your friends’ cash.
If tournament organizers actually got more sponsors and that more tournaments could actually rake in some real money but most of the time FG tournaments are more of a social thing while still remaining competitive enough that people want to win. It’s more of a pride or repuation thing than being in it for the money.
edit: I couldn’t be less empathetic to these busters who bet it all on pro gaming, putting off school and any chance at a decent job. You have to be one naive motherfucker to think that CGS shit was long term.
You can’t make a living gaming. you can only get a little pocket change, but nothing that is going to pay your bills or get you a mansion in Beverly Hills. maybe it can be that way one day, but people who play games are beyond poor. Pro gamers put up money to travel, share hotel rooms with 4 other people, and hitch rides with their friends. When Justin Wong or Gootecks can come to tourneys in their private jet, practice Street Fighter 4 in their hotel room which is a Presidential suite at the Hilton, and go to every tournament in their SL500. Then I’d consider being a pro gamer.
well to comment on the amount of time playing, I believe once u’ve reached a certain level u dont need to play half as much as u did learning/trial & erroring/material…a lot of players can think through several scenarios just by knowing the game really well, so afterwards it would be less time practicing…
Sure, look at Daigo. Came back to play some SFIV after a exhaustive break and beasted a bit. Still didn’t get into SBO though.
That said, Starcraft.
And people like J.Wong need to do a whole lot of marketing themselves to get by. Until they get F-tards status… but hopefully not his personality. Unfortumately, J-Wong just said he want to get so big F-man will have trouble fitting his shoes.
