A Lot of Money for Playing Games 239
knowhow writes "Tom Taylor took the risk of dropping out from high school just to play video games. The guy who is just 18 years old, was prompted to take this step; because of the reason that emerged from his love for gaming. After playing for six months on a full time basis the guy signed a contract for a staggering $250,000."
From the Article:"Now Tom taylor is known as Tsquared on the gaming circuit. He's earning six figures and has product endorsements and a video game tutoring business. He's one of about 100 professional gamers associated with Major League Gaming, a video gaming league founded in 2002. When they're playing well, pros might bring home a few grand a month."
When the money dries up... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:When the money dries up... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Quiting school is not a life sentence (Score:5, Informative)
None at that stage, but getting someone to offer you a genorous contract in the first place is a "marketable skill". If this kid has any financial smarts he will suck that contract dry and get a renewal, if not he will get bored, throw a "party", and watch it slip through his fingers.
I dropped out of high school at 16 (Australia), it did not stop me from renting a house, buying a car, raising a family... Sure I completed a BSc when I was 30 because by that time I had figured out what I wanted to do, now I am 47 my pay pack is well above average. To be honest, I would have to say that making a living is less "financialy challenging" when you have the right bits of paper, but that still doesn't mean your life is ruined without them.
However the notion that dropping out of school will ruin the rest of your life is false and usually promoted by those who stayed at school and have yet to find out what earning a pay packet is all about. And no, a couple of years burger flipping while leeching off your friends and relatives does not qualify.
BTW: Please excuse my spelling, as I said, I'm a high school dropout.
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|>oug
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yeah... or writes a large check... if he's got the cash, he can get in just about anywhere...
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|>oug
Re:When the money dries up... (Score:4, Insightful)
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That's probably because MIT has a very significant humanities requirement.... (That was a joke, btw, even though it is true.)
The joke around Boston is that you hire Northeastern grads to get the work done, MIT grads to be your CTOs, and Harva
Re:When the money dries up... (Score:4, Funny)
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In Australia, universities select school leavers by a score, similar to SAT's in the US, but it has little bearing on educational opportunities once you reach the ripe old age of 23. When I appli
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No, the USA doesn't have that concept (mature age student) in any formal way. You are treated no differently from a new high school graduate. However, most "Mature Students" would go the Junior College route, which makes it significantly easier to get into a given state-supported school. I agree that older students are probably more likely to be motivated, my own personal observations supports that. And as for dropping out at 16, then getting back to school, and being successful all the while
Re:When the money dries up... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Anyways, the problem with a competition of this nature is that you can make a lot of money as long as you're at the top of your game. For every person in this league there is (probably) 100 people who are nearly as good and (if they so choose) could easily start challenging you for your spot in the league. In other words you always are at risk of not being good enough to keep your 'job'.
Growing up, I knew a few guys who ended up becomming professional snowboarders;
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I say 'so what'? You do it for as long as you can, and then go to school (or do whatever other career you want to try out). It's not like trying to be a professional whatever is going to ruin the rest of anyones life.
How about ... (Score:3, Interesting)
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Given the money he's making, he'll have no trouble putting himself through college to pick up a backup skill after the funding for pro gaming has dried up.
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Why are you certain that the money will dry up? Do you mean for the profession, or for him personally as he gets older and his reflexes aren't as good? Maybe he'll go on to games where reflexes aren't that important. I don't think the assumption that the money will dry up is necessarily a good one. It's good to hedge against, but that's good advice no matter what you do.
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Re:When the money dries up... (Score:5, Informative)
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Unfortunately you don't get there's a lot more to life than money. Money is a means to various services. Everyone needs to contribute to society in order to draw on the services of society. For those who no longer work, it's simply saying you've payed your dues(in the form of time) to society equivalent to those which you're drawing back from society.
To get those IRAs or dividends to the degree which you did, if you di
Re:When the money dries up... (Score:5, Funny)
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Work is the only thing that gives your life meaning? Wow. Sucks to be you.
Re:When the money dries up... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's true there's a lot more to life than money... but I hardly see how you can read that he doesn't understand that from his post.
There's a lot more to life than money, so when I have enough to retire comfortably, I can pay someone to clean and do yard work. That way I can spend more time with my family - because spending more time with my family is more important the money I'm spending to do it.
So this whole "money can't buy hapiness" is true only to the point that material possessions don't bring true happiness, but financial freedom gives you the ability to DO the things you might not otherwise be able to - travel, go back to school, pay others to do the menial tasks you've had to do in the past to free up more of your time, and if you've got enough you can be a philanthropist. If you're a computer geek, you can write or finance (or both) that useful application you've been thinking people would enjoy.
But regardless, you are always being a benefit to society - that guy you pay to cut your grass doesn't have to collect welfare, for example. You still buy food and the necessities of life and pay bills and so forth, all helping the next generation of people survive without being a drain on societies resources.
Re:When the money dries up... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the math will not work out for the gamer (Score:2)
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$9,000 a quarter = $36,000 a year. Bond's are giving me about 0.25% a month, my really nice dividend stocks/mutual-funds are giving me about 1% a quarter (but the stocks esp. have growth as well, although some of that is compounding too -- which you'd lose out on). Let's just double those numbers. You'd need $450,000 invested into stocks, or $1,800,000 into bounds.
Note that bonds are high atm., the above doesn't account for inflation and assumes the dividend income is risk free (more true for bonds). I
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Here's the better news. I've neglected the role of inflation in my calcuations.
Wow, many errors. First of all, that 7% might be right if you're subtracting out inflation. Nominal return on stocks has been 11% since 1927. Second of all, when you're talking about retirement income, you wouldn't draw it from stock dividends. You would sell
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Of course I have. But for a record that long (which extends back to pretty much every equity index since the 17th century), which does not depend on any one manager, it gives you a better idea where the bell curve lies.
Good luck getting a 7% real rate of return in that environment. What's the average annual real rate of return for the past 5 years, champ? Free clue
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For the fingers- type 1 handed. Or use voice recognition software.
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Women (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Women (Score:5, Funny)
Are you kidding? All they have to do is install the Hot Coffee Mod, and lawyers like Jack T. will be on them like the FBI on a criminal driven tank.
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They'll repeatedly crash into the back of them, but burst into flames and explode before doing any damage? This I've got to see!
Rating (Score:5, Informative)
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Reminds me of poker (Score:4, Insightful)
As for the people who say "what's his backup skill going to be?" Assuming he can talk & isn't butt ugly, I imagine he'll be a commentator or spokesperson someday.
Hell, if there's enough drama in the industry, he can write a book too.
Ah, Superstar Economics. (Score:5, Insightful)
Too much of a good thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
There are lots of things that I enjoy in moderation that I don't think I'd like anymore, if I started doing them as my day job. Maybe it's just me...but I just think that playing games for a living might take the fun out of it.
I guess maybe this is because I enjoy playing games as a way to relax, and I guess I wouldn't want to play them more than a few hours a day, regardless of the other constraints on my time.
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Keeping your eye on the prize... (Score:2)
But its short-sightedness that probably brings a lot of us to it. Probably a bit of lac
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I took a Psychology of Motivation class in college and I believe that they taught us that there is an ample amount of research out there that suggests that anytime you get paid to do something, your motivation to do it will be less.
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It's similar to everything I've read about the geniuses in history - a major factor that set them apart was an ability to focus on one problem far longer than anybody else. Consider Einstein spending years of his life learning the advanced math he needed to tackle general relativity.
So would you or
Nice "editing" (Score:5, Informative)
The guy who is just 18 years old, was prompted to take this step; because of the reason that emerged from his love for gaming.
Set that poor semicolon free! It doesn't deserve to be cooped up in that horrible excuse for a sentence! The semicolon is a beautiful creature that can only be appreciated in its natural habitat: a sentence containing two full independent clauses. Or certain lists.
Re:Nice "editing" (Score:4, Funny)
That should read: 'a sentence containing two full independent clauses or certain lists.'
There was no reason to separate those thoughts. It made the flow of your prose awkward. I must refer you to the old saying about glass houses and accusations.
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What? (Score:5, Funny)
Say that again, but not in Klingon.
Re:What? (Score:5, Funny)
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(I don't have mod points)
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Don't quit your dream job (Score:5, Funny)
"... do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites, standing for absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college." -- Kurt Vonnegut
Or, if you must, at least avoid using if you haven't the foggiest idea of where to put them (such as, say, between two independent clauses). All that does is show you've dropped out of high school to play video games.
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print "Such as at the end of the line rather than in the middle.\n" ;
Gambling with his future... (Score:5, Insightful)
Spending the enourmous amount of time required to be good at video games is a worse investment than a lottery ticket. Lottery tickets have had more winners, require less time investment, and the payoff is a lot bigger than 250 grand.
Yes, I realize that a lot of people play video games for fun and moderate their time spent well. But dont we all know people who play endlessly because they want to be the best on their server or be in a clan that wins a lot of tournaments?
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Yes, that is called a hobby and there are lots of them. I don't think it is bad if you can combine it with the rest of your life.
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Really? You can't count the number of people you personally knew who were smart and ambitious enough to get into engineering sch
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Bertrand Russell
Of course the question is whether, while spending 14 hours a day to get the next PVP rank so you get shoulders with spikes on them, you are really enjoying yourself.
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If you want to write about video games, write about them. There's hundreds of sites around and I'm sure o
a few grand a month, eh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Hell yea, where's the Enemy Territory tourneys with the money? C'mon guys, don't neglect good and free for everyone games! Let's see who rocks the free-world for the most cash!
How sad (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, I do believe you can love your work. But this guy took a thing that he truly loved that *wasn't* work and *made it* his work. Playing games for a living sounds great, but anything loses its luster once you are chained to it if you want to eat and have a place to live.
For all you gamers, think of how excited you are when a new blockbuster game comes out and you can't wait to get your hands on it. Now take that feeling and completely invert it, and I think that that about approximates what this guy must feel when that happens. "Oh man, a new game... guess I better start getting good at this one too. Back to ten hours of practice a day."
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It's also a mistake to assume he has no other skills. The simple fact is, this is his -best- skill, not necessarily his only skill.
As for the 'new game' mentality... Someone in a previous thread noted that he only plays 1 game professionally: Halo. There's been quite a few games in that genre since then, and
You are thinking about this wrong (Score:2)
By your logic I shouldn't have, because I "took a thing I truly loved that *wasn't* work and *made it* work"
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How about learning to enjoy a variety of things? Food and shelter are nice!
Getting them in exchange for gaming instead of pumping porta-johns is a screaming deal!
I just can't see this taking off (Score:3, Insightful)
What would TV coverage of this look like? You can't just have a shot of the screen, but if you cut back and forth you miss screen action. They probably have to edit together a lot of highlights. I can't imagine this would be very entertaining to watch on live TV... ok, some stuff like one-on-one fighting games might play well... it would be like boxing without the chance of actual injury. Yes, I guess this could be watchable if done right. The missing element is that you aren't watching your friends get beat, or beating your friends, or well... gaming. Robot wars was OK TV because most of us don't have the time, money or skill to make a decent fighting bot. Everyone can game. When I was a kid and was totally game crazy, the time I spent having to just *watch* was pure agony. Gimme the joystick!!! How many kids these days get their only daily exercise fighting their siblings for the controller? You're going to take gaming and make it totally passive? Those kids are going to explode, leaving nasty bits of fat all over the walls. Hey... that'd be a cool effect in a game.
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I take your point about wanting to play, and I agree, but if you're a fan of a particular game, there's definitely som
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"What would TV coverage of this look like? ... I can't imagine this would be very entertaining to watch on live TV...."
I suppose you didn't read this recent ./ article [slashdot.org]?
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Probably excrutiatingly boring. I've never, ever seen any show featuring competitive gaming segements which was even slightly interesting to look at.
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a video game tutoring business?? (Score:2)
Michael Jordan (Score:5, Funny)
This is not a career (Score:3, Insightful)
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More people made MORE money...
As CEO of a company
Playing sports
Making movies
Singing
As head of a country
As drug kingpins
In the stock market
No, this is news because it's so rare. That's the way news works... The stuff that doesn't happen every day is what gets talked about.
Worst job in the World? (Score:4, Interesting)
For a start you're competing against millions of people who don't require any technical qualification to compete with you. Besides gaining knowledge on a subject most people go to College & University to set themselves aside from the pack, to make themselves look more attractive to employers. With pro-gaming you haven't got any of this, the only barrier to entry is sufficiently fast reflexes, a little intelligence and a competent PC.
This person is going to be a target for the rest of his playing career. The guy below him is gonna be aiming to usurp him to get his sponsorship, not to mention thousands upon thousands of upstarts actively seeking to relegate him to obscurity.
It's also the sort of industry where unless you are in the Top 10 or so players for an extended period of time you're anonymous. It's not like being a professional footballer where even if you're in the lower divisions you're still making enough money to live on. This guy has to realise that there are thousands of people below him who are making no real money to speak of just waiting for him to slip up.
No one really knows the terms of this $250,000 contract - whether he's actually been given this amount of money or whether that's essentially his "valuation" in pro-gaming terms, but if I were him I would invest all of it and work on the principal that his career could just fizzle out in a couple of years or so.
Re:Worst job in the World? (Score:4, Interesting)
But almost everyone has a degree these days, so if you want to 'set yourself aside from the pack', you shouldn't be wasting your time at university.
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You don't want to set yourself aside from the pack. You want to set yourself AHEAD of the pack. And if the pack has college degrees and you don't, you're going to face an uphill battle trying to convince people that you're better than them at most things.
That's great (Score:2)
$250,000, but over how long? (Score:2)
If it is $250k for one year, then that is pretty damn good. $250k over five years is pretty darn average once you take out income tax, Social Security, and Medicare. Not bad for a High School dropout, but not exactly the staggering sum it is made out to be.
SirWired
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It also doesn't mention what grade he was in. As an 18 year dropping out of high school should have been right in his senior year. If he was in the middle of his senior year, that would be pretty dumb, but if he was still like a sophomore well then that tells you something.
Seriously though, as a parent I say good for him, but I would have pushed the graduating high school a bit more. For my kids, once they get out of high sch
Celebrity headline submissions now? (Score:2)
William Shatner submitting slashdot articles now?
A few grand a month? (Score:2, Insightful)
Shouldn't he be 2T? (Score:2)
Hope for Others (Score:2)
Stanford grad student getting $100 million (Score:2)
What what what what what?? (Score:4, Funny)
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Personally, I'm not much of a sport afficionado, though occasionally I do like to watch a bit of sports. Games, I like a lot more, but I can't imagine ever willingly watching game competitions on TV.
And who actually buys these products endorsed by random-gamer-geek #29? It's like a basketball player endorsing a TV set, because they play better on a HD set.
Demand pushes salaries (Score:2)
Honestly, though, I'm sure the top 0.1% of game developers are making 6 figures (Take Will Wright, John Romero, and John Carmack), just like the top 0.0001% of gamers. You can't really compare the 'leetest' gamers with your average game software developer (who will still earns well over 50,000/yr). That would be like comparing Will Wright to the average gamer (who pays $1500/year to play games).
Re:QA testers (Score:4, Funny)