KeSPA Top 30 Ranking Progamer Salaries

On August 09 2010 00:42 Judicator wrote:
Assuming these numbers are true, can someone give context to these numbers? Just curious how it plays out in the typical Korean standard of living.

No, converting it to dollars or whatever native currency isn't context.

On August 09 2010 00:54 choboPEon wrote:


i'm also interested in this. plus, i wonder what else is going on in the contracts. what other opportunities for earning do they have? in some sports, it's "score 4 goals and you get $50k". i wonder whats in the sc contracts.

On August 09 2010 00:55 wkcalex wrote:
Do they spend their salary on chicken or something
since most of these progamers are over 18, what do they do with all this money

On August 09 2010 00:55 wkcalex wrote:
Do they spend their salary on chicken or something
since most of these progamers are over 18, what do they do with all this money

On August 09 2010 01:10 Amnesia wrote:
wow for their age, this is quite a lot.

On August 09 2010 01:36 Lightwip wrote:
Didn't Hyuk say in one of his interviews that he made $50k? Not quite sure about these figures.

On August 09 2010 01:22 nayumi wrote:

well progamer life span is kinda short ... you get good money for like 6-8 years tops, maybe longer in the case of NaDa but you get the point ... and seeing how they have to give up education for gaming, i don't think $1 mil is high enough

but then maybe it's just me ;P

On August 09 2010 01:52 udgnim wrote:
need to consider that the equivalent of $1 USD goes a lot farther in South Korea than in the US

On August 09 2010 00:38 valaki wrote:
26.Bisu 200.000.000 wow seems pretty high even for Bisu...as he is performing now..

On August 09 2010 01:52 udgnim wrote:
need to consider that the equivalent of $1 USD goes a lot farther in South Korea than in the US

On August 09 2010 02:33 TheYango wrote:

I'm guessing that he probably has a 1 year or 3 year contract that was set while he was still performing well.

It's not like they can just cut his salary the moment he starts losing games.

On August 09 2010 00:39 Perguvious wrote:
bisu's getting more than hyuk+fantasy+best is getting combined

._____.

On August 09 2010 02:50 LosingID8 wrote:

where do people keep getting these ideas from lol

On August 09 2010 02:33 TheYango wrote:

I'm guessing that he probably has a 1 year or 3 year contract that was set while he was still performing well.

It's not like they can just cut his salary the moment he starts losing games.

On August 09 2010 00:39 Zoler wrote:
Action no contract, lol!

On August 09 2010 00:53 YoonHo wrote:
Damn, I thought Fantasy, Effort, and Stork would be at least over 100.000.000. They all got corporate giants as their sponsors (samsung, SKT, CJ), I thought they would get paid a bit higher than that.

Did KT players get a bonus for winning PL?

On August 09 2010 05:22 hellokitty[hk] wrote:

Didn't they all get iPhones one time?

On August 09 2010 04:04 FragKrag wrote:
Im surprised Shuttle makes so much money o_O

On August 09 2010 05:09 synapse wrote:
T-ara fan cafe... super sketchy indeed.

And yeah, are these number supposed to be just the players' contracts with their teams? If so, wow KT loves Flash and Oz loves JD o_o



This is true. Most of Flash's income goes to his parents, right?

On August 09 2010 06:00 Torenhire wrote:


Screw you buddy. Shuttle is up and coming!

It's his PvP skills. Gotta make the big bucks to get the above 70% win ratio.

On August 09 2010 03:58 Waxangel wrote:


because it's common sense?

But what I think a lot of the people in this thread are missing out on is the fact that, yes these Starcraft players make a load of cash, but that's only relevant in the context that THEY ARE WORKING FAR MORE HOURS for their salary. I hardly think that the average Korean person works from 9AM-1AM a day as some of these players are--and possibly more. If anyone would be willing to crunch some numbers and calculate the average hourly wage of these players and juxtapose them to the average hourly wage of the standard Korean person, we might see a different picture altogether.

On August 09 2010 08:25 Milkis wrote:


Haha. Good one.

Just an example of how much Korea cares about your free time -- my cousin in Korea went to school at 7 AM, came back at 1 AM after cram schools after school. Oh, not to mention Koreans almost always work overtime, for free.

Also.... if the progamers don't practice, they can't compete. Simple as that. Take off your rose colored glasses dude

The example you use is about how much students are studying in Korea. Yeah I know the academic rigor is tough in Korea, my statement says nothing about. Students study their asses off, sure. But my point was wanting to compare the average per-hour salary of a working Korean adult vs. the per-hour salary of a working Korean progamer because simply saying that they make big bucks annually without the context of how much practice time they're putting in to make it could leave a different scene.

Your next point IS my point exactly. Because they NEED to practice their asses off in order to even have a shot in any league, I'm sure that they would be working what til the early morning almost every day.

And I don't think you're using the idiom 'rose colored glasses' correctly.

Idiom:
through rose-colored glasses
With an unduly cheerful, optimistic, or favorable view of things: see the world through rose-colored glases.

(http://www.thefreedictionary.com/through+rose-colored+glasses)

If anything, I'm taking a pessimistic view of the situation. I think that programers tend to make this much money annually because they put in more time into practicing/playing than the hours an average Korea individual works.

On August 09 2010 08:47 Milkis wrote:


No, my point is "this is how much the kids work. Adults work about as much". Koreans are one of the people who works the most so honestly the hours aren't even ridiculous.



Right.



Nah, I did use it correctly. You seem to think they should be paid more because they work so much. But the point is, that's how it works out to be, and they choose to be Progamers. They don't deserve our pity. Hell, the more people pity them the worse they'll probably feel.

They chose to be Progamers, and people pity them for making a "bad life decision". How does that make you feel? Let them raise their heads high and say "I am a progamer" proudly. There is no different picture -- this is their occupation and they do what they do :|

Yeah this is sort of disoriented. Maybe i'll make another post later

On August 09 2010 08:21 cunninglinguists wrote:But what I think a lot of the people in this thread are missing out on is the fact that, yes these Starcraft players make a load of cash, but that's only relevant in the context that THEY ARE WORKING FAR MORE HOURS for their salary. I hardly think that the average Korean person works from 9AM-1AM a day as some of these players are--and possibly more. If anyone would be willing to crunch some numbers and calculate the average hourly wage of these players and juxtapose them to the average hourly wage of the standard Korean person, we might see a different picture altogether.

On August 09 2010 11:47 JohannesH wrote:

What makes you think a lot of people are missing out on that?

On August 09 2010 11:47 JohannesH wrote:

What makes you think a lot of people are missing out on that?

On August 09 2010 08:25 Milkis wrote:


Haha. Good one.

Just an example of how much Korea cares about your free time -- my cousin in Korea went to school at 7 AM, came back at 1 AM after cram schools after school. Oh, not to mention Koreans almost always work overtime, for free.

Also.... if the progamers don't practice, they can't compete. Simple as that. Take off your rose colored glasses dude

On August 09 2010 08:47 Milkis wrote:
Nah, I did use it correctly. You seem to think they should be paid more because they work so much. But the point is, that's how it works out to be, and they choose to be Progamers. They don't deserve our pity. Hell, the more people pity them the worse they'll probably feel.

They chose to be Progamers, and people pity them for making a "bad life decision". How does that make you feel? Let them raise their heads high and say "I am a progamer" proudly. There is no different picture -- this is their occupation and they do what they do :|

I don't think you've understanding what the original point in my first post here was. I wasn't saying that progamers should be making more. I was calling attention to the fact that people in this thread are saying things like 'wow thats a lot of money' without considering how much the average progamer has to work in order to make that money. I myself don't know how the per-hour wage numbers work out to be. Maybe Progamers make the same perhour earnings as a regular individual; maybe they don't. It wasn't my point to say that they should be making 'x' amount, but that the people who are claiming they are making so much ignore the fact that progamers might work from 9-1 and then some during their average day for their pay. I was simply asking for more context to be put into the salary of a progamer; I WASN'T saying anything substantive about whether they should be making more or less.

But also, just glancing at some numbers wikipedia gives me (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time), the average Korean worker works 2390 hours over the course of a year. If a progamer does indeed work from 9-1 Monday-Friday (though I'm sure they practice Sat-Sun for important matches too), that works out to be (16 hours a day x 261 work days in a year) 4176 hours 'worked' a year. My point is simply that Progamers work longer than the average Korean adult and THATS why they have such high salaries.

On August 09 2010 00:44 apm66 wrote:
Flash: $215,313.070US
Jaedong $189,475.501
Bisu 172,250.456
Sea 64,593.921

On August 09 2010 07:24 LosingID8 wrote:

it makes sense if you were talking about middle-of-nowhere, south korea, but not seoul where all of these progamers live.

i just did a quick search on wiki and found the following info;
Mercer Human Resource Consulting has Seoul ranked as the 51st most expensive city to live in in the world behind NYC, LA, White Plains, SF, Honolulu, Miami, and Chicago. I'm not quite sure what caused it to drop so dramatically because for the past 7 years it has been ranked in the top 10.

Economist Intelligence Unit has Seoul ranked 11th, higher than any US city.

On August 09 2010 23:17 Milkis wrote:


No. The number of hours they work have nothing to do with their salaries. That's a terrible connection to make that can be disproved by just pointing at B Teamers who make zero money.

On August 10 2010 09:18 cunninglinguists wrote:


Right, I completely agree. Good thing that was never my point. Not ALL progamers will have high salaries. B-Teamers make virtually nil. My point only concerned THESE TOP 30 progamers. Whenever I referred to 'Progamers' in my previous posts, I was referring to what almost everyone else in this thread were talking about when they said "woah these progamers make big bucks"--the top 30 kespa ranking gamers you had in your initial post. All I'm saying is that people who say 'these TOP progamers make so much money' might be better off saying 'these top progamers work for such long hours every day.' Imagine some janitor in Korea. He might make a small amount of money. If I gave you a sheet with the average janitor salary, you might say "yeah he doesn't make much" and you'd be right. But, if the janitor worked 19 hours a day at his normal, low rate (though obviously none do), he might be making quite a lot a year, perhaps enough to be even considered upper middle class--I dunno. But if then I showed you simply the numbers that pointed to his annual take, and asked you to guess what you think his job is, you might guess some white-collar company employee.

That is what I'm getting at. The reason his salary is inflated and your guess is wrong in this hypothetical situation isn't because he gets a lot of money by the end of the year (which is only shown here), it's because he's working more hours even if it's at his old, measly rate.

If I offered you two jobs, both of which paid the same annually but one was a janitorial position and the other a manager position at a company, you might be suspicious and ask me what the catch is. And you'd be right in doing so because I'd then pull out some sheets and have to admit to you that the reason the janitor makes more is because he works more hours. In the context of how much a person makes, the hours that they work is very relevant.

I came into this thread initially and read some posts by people saying stuff like "woah they make so much." That's true. But it doesn't give what I think is the full picture: how many hours do these progamers work in order to earn this much money? My post simply called for some more context to be added to the salaries of the progamers. I had hoped that someone with the access to the appropriate numbers might be able to check out if, after seeing the HOURLY WAGE, if the progamers still made more than the average individual or simply worked more. I wasn't trying to say anything about how bad their job was, or to pity them (as you assumed). In fact, I didn't even know if they did indeed have worse jobs. I was essentially asking a question so it was really perplexing to me when you replied to my posts with arguments against it. I was just asking for more context--in the form of an hourly wage rather than an annual one--to be posted by someone.

Hope that clarifies things.

On August 10 2010 09:56 Milkis wrote:


The issue is that not everything actually breaks down hourly. You're trying to fit an hourly wage system into a system that doesn't really use an hourly wage system. What we're honestly looking at is a tournament system of incentives.

Actually, let's play to your argument and lets break it down by an hourly wage. Let's say, in the end, they get paid like, 2 dollars an hour.

You're getting paid 2 dollars an hour to play a videogame. What value are you producing? The marginal cost of two dollars probably dont make up for the marginal revenue that much. You are likely getting overpaid.

That's kind of the reason why it's kind of a silly way of looking at it. I understand what you're trying to say but I'm just against the idea of looking at it like that because not everything breaks down hourly that simply =(

On August 10 2010 11:26 il0seonpurpose wrote:
What does no contract mean? Like he's playing for fun?

On August 10 2010 11:26 il0seonpurpose wrote:
What does no contract mean? Like he's playing for fun?