Is E-Sports career really worth

pursuing?
By Patryk Wound
03/02/2015
Note to teachers: This article is targeted at young adults who play League of
Legends, and dream about becoming professional at it (thus the use of jargon).
This article will help them compare the up and downs of going pro, and decide
whether its worth the effort or not.

Preface (standfirst)
A recent article on the BBC highlighted a rapid growth of E-Sports, to the point
where it is being considered real sport. Seeing as it attracts many young adults
into becoming full time professional gamers, Patryk Wound explores this
phenomenon, to answer a vital question; is E-Sports a career worth pursuing?

The Long Lasting Career

First, and foremost E-Sports isnt
just an ordinary organisation. It is an
industry, which has more than made a
name for itself. For example, there are
Youtube videos of Warcraft 3 (2003)
world championship with views
350K.

ranging from 39K to

But the viewership count cant be

compared
to League of Legends, a game which
was
the key to developing E-Sports. The
season
1 world championship of League of
Legends (2011) only
had 69,000 viewers, according to League wikia. Three years later, the latest
season 4 world championship (2014) took place. It had a total of 40 million
viewers worldwide. This is huge.
This also proves that with the continued support of many successful games like
League of Legends, streaming platforms like Twitch.tv, not to mention event
organisers like Michal Blicharz, E Sports is definitely growing, meaning that a
career in this organisation will be a safe, and long lasting one for sure.
But what about your salary?
The official 2014 League Championship Series (LCS) rule book says:

2.2 Player Compensation: Each team must distribute the required

Minimum Player Compensation ($12,500 per starting player per split
during the 2014 season) to its starting players
So in other words, people who organise E Sports pay your team $12,500 for 3
months of playing games. Thats 28 games in each of the winter, spring, and
summer split, $450 per game. All games and events are streamed on Youtube,
Twitch.tv, and Azubu. The adverts (as well as the money gained from tickets)
provide income, which is then paid to each team as compensation for
participating. Whats more, Riot Games gives your team additional payment,
which is subject to your teams placement e.g.
1st place = additional $50.000, to be split between all team members (5)
2nd place = $25.000
3rd place = $15.000
4th place = $10.000
Another method of earning additional money is by making a name for yourself.
Riot Games often invites exceptional players to the analyst desk, to provide
comprehensive analysis of the game between different teams, in addition to the
commentators witty words. It changes their minimum salary of $14 an hour to
the likes
of

William Scarra Lis

$28 an hour.

Voyboy and Doublelift (right) invited to

the analyst desk
The final and perhaps
not so obscure method of
earning money is streaming. Professional players often turn to streaming in the
off season, to augment their monthly wages. This works, because viewers often
want to know a professional players thought chain and/or way of making
decisions in tough situations.
Popular players, like Sneaky or Dyrus often stream 8 hours a day during the
offseason, with an average viewership of 40K 60K daily. When we take into
consideration Twitch.tvs partnership rules (available when you hit a minimum of
1K viewers daily), that allows them to make potentially $9,000 + donations and
subscribers (+ $4.99 a month).

All of the above equates to a potential $143,000 annual salary on average.

Downsides
Dont do it. It is such a risk to be a pro gamer, as you have to sit there
14 hours a day, playing video games. Then after a year you might be on
an amateur team. And by that point, youve already dedicated yourself
to gaming, its that much of a gamble Peter Doublelift Peng
Dreamy stuff aside, there are risks to becoming a pro gamer, and Doublelift did a
good job of pointing out the first one gambling your life on the off chance that
your team will be superior to others who have the exact same dream of going
pro.
George HotshotGG Georgiallidis, president and manager of team Counter Logic
Gaming, added to the above: In order to become a leading team in this game, it
is fundamental to have an effective practice regiment. Every player has an
innate talent that they bring to the team, and the team needs to be able to
synergise each players ability with the other four members.
So whether you make it to the top or not depends on your practice schedule, as
well as your ambition, and the ability to work with your team members, not to
mention having exceptional abilities in order to join a team in the first place.

The second downside is that once you join an official LCS team, you are obligated
to stay with them until your contract with them ends. Because League of
Legends is the property of Riot Games, they can charge any amount of money as
punishment for breaking the rules of LCS. In fact, several teams have breached
these rules during the last couple of months.
First, lets go back to November 2014, shortly after season 4 World
Championship ended. A member of team Dignitas, William Scarra Li, was
poached by team Counter Logic Gaming, to join them as their coach. Scarra
agreed, and shortly after joined CLG and began to coach them in preparation to
the upcoming season 5 LCS. However, Scarra was still under contract with Team
Dignitas as a substitute player, which left him with two choices: either go back to
Dignitas for the remainder of his contract, or stay with CLG, but also pay a fine.

Originally Scarra was charged $2,000 but because he and Counter Logic Gaming
were evasive during Riot Games investigation, the fine was raised to $10,000.
Two months later, CLG poached another member of Team Dignitas, Darshan
ZionSpartan Upadhyaya, to join the main roster. CLG was yet again forced to
pay a massive fine, and barely managed to pay in time with the money they
made while streaming. This shows how risky it is, being an E-Sports player.

So is it worth pursuing?
It depends. In order to take part in preliminary LCS matches, your team must
become the top 4 in the rankings. Its not an easy task, considering you need a
solid practice schedule and determination, but getting there will give you
something to be very proud of.
There is also a matter of commitment. Once youre in the League Championship
Series, you wont be able to withdraw until your contract ends and that can
take long, depending on your manager.
Of course, E sports isnt all about becoming a player. Granted you have the
skills necessary, you can contribute to the organisation in different other ways.
Project management, journalism, TV and film are just a few examples of effort
made towards creating E sports. The streaming platform, Twitch.tv is probably
the best example, because it started as a side project by a group of university
students, and shortly after became a huge success, thanks to which we can
easily watch games at any time.
Overall, E-Sports is definitely worth pursuing but whether you can fully commit
yourself or not is for you to decide.