Crossroads in Life

My question may seem ridiculous to most people here, but this is not a troll. I am a 25 year old graduate student with front office internship experience and a good full-time offer in hand. However, in my spare time I play a computer game. At first the game was casual, but I got better and better at it and I have been offered a spot on a "professional" team. I'm not looking at this from a money perspective, but from a "how hard can I fuck my career" perspective.

Maybe someone can set me straight.

 
yeahright:
What game? E-Sports is getting huge depending on the game. Also depends, what is the actual full-time offer?

League of Legends. My contract would be roughly $25,000 guaranteed money and then I would likely generate $800-1,000/month from streaming my games. The team that wins the world finals in LoL is looking at $300-400k per player for the year. I'm not mentioning that to say that's what I'm relying on. Money isn't my concern here, it is really about whether I will really fuck myself. Say I play for 2-3 years and I come out of a pro-gaming career at 28.

It is not a FO internship. It is a full time offer not at the entry level.

 
Best Response

Question 1: Is this Starcraft 2? Question 2: Are you Korean?

If you answered no to any of the above questions, drop this crap and go for the FO internship.

No this isn't a trolling comment - unless you're at the top of your game, you're not going to make too much - plus, you constantly have to adapt to new games. Very few pro gamers make loads of money playing a single game; rather, they invest their money into new ventures and/or through ads. An example would be the person who created xfire (Tom Taylor), which he subsequently sold for millions.

So unless you want to get pigeon-holed into a career and live with all guys practicing one game, take the FO internship.

 

Would of been better if you weren't a graduate student already because you could have done the pro-gaming thing then got a grad degree and jumped back in.

If it is a good full-time opportunity, I would take that over the gaming career, it would be far more stable and won't potentially end in 1-5 years or whatever the timeline ends up being for League of Legends. From a NON-money standpoint, if you could launch some venture on the side to provide a future you may be in a better position (example: ladder/tournament website)

Frank Sinatra - "Alcohol may be man's worst enemy, but the bible says love your enemy."
 

Interesting question. But honestly bro, you are a bit too old to be a pro gamer. Most pro gamers are drop outs from HS and colleges. 22 years old and above would be considered an "experienced" gamer. The hours are bad and exit opps are minimal.

 

I had a couple buddies who fell into the pro gamer route in college. Smart guys with a lot of potential. Anyway, long story short, they were already nerds, but the hours they put into Call of Duty, League of Legends, etc turned them into shut-ins, to the point that people who met them thought they had personality disorders. I mean, they had no real friends, or even acquaintances, in 3+ years of school.Fell out of touch, but last time I met up with them, it was just depressing as hell.

I'd stay far, far away. Imagine never leaving your room for 10-15+ hours a day, and what that would do to you socially and physically.

 

I used to be the level right below pro in these games and played poker. I view LoL as a bad sport to be pro in because at some point you will get too old to keep what you're doing, there are no exit opps, and the life is actually pretty awful/lonely besides your teammates. Your opportunity cost is probably too large whereas for some people that I've played with before it's not.

I was actually considering poker since I figured I could make >$100k/yr on 40 hrs (really intense hours, 100% focus). Didn't do it because of the issues I described above and am happy with my decision.

Previous dota players will probably recognize my username here...

 

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