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On October 29 2010 02:34 intrigue wrote:
be fair to your dad - show him this thread and give him an idea of how difficult it is to become a progamer. he should be aware that you are doing this primarily to have an interesting experience. motivation flags very easily when you're working alone, so i would advise joining a team or taking lessons (incontrol maybe?)
really though, if you've been playing this long and still are 1400 diamond, i don't know... try out hardcore training for a few weeks and see how much you've improved? i'm extremely skeptical but not entirely disapproving of this idea.
I completely agree with this post. The smartest thing you could do, is sit down, look at all options. Real life situation and SC2 situation, then take a decision.
And the most important thing is if you and you're father are 100 into this. I see he trusts you, but you really should give him information about the scene, and see if he still wants to support you.
I wish you the best in you're SC2 life. Good luck to you my friend
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Many people travel after high school before going to college. Or do other things before going to college.
If it is not getting in the way of school, a 6 month break for something like this could be an interesting and personally enritching experience, even if you don't make it.
Though at your current level, it will probably take you those 6 months of pure dedication and work in starcraft2 to even get to the level where you can even compete in high level tournaments without getting roflstomped. The competition is only getting more intense, GSL1 to GSL2 alone was a huge jump in ability level and game quality.
That being said, ask any of the progamers here who post often, like Jinro, and they will probably tell you that its not as easy as it all seems. They would be good people to ask, ask them about their average day, how they feel at different point, and their overall opinion on the situation. They would have a much better perspective.
Just know that many people have the desire to be a progamer, but many dont make it. Look at the courage tournaments in SC1, how many of those people have practiced for months even years, and how many of them fail. Not only do you have to be good at the game, but you have to be strong mentally, and have a resilient personaly to be able to handle the loses and handle the amount of work you need to put in without slumping.
Even the best progamers struggle to maintain a win ratio above 60%. There are people who are amazing at the game, but put them on the stage, and they fall apart. Even great players like Fantasy struggle to deal with the pressure.
In conclusion:
If its not going to get in the way of school, there is nothing wrong with taking a 6 month break before going to college to take this opportunity. Just make it more about the personal experience and enritchment and not the end result.
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I don't think you're really at the level yet where you could be a serious, competitive programer. Plus, there will be a lot of pressure to perform once your father has put aside the money to help make this happen. I think that at this point, you'd be much better off using the money to get lessons from programers and such before trying to get serious about competition. Plus, you could get their take on the situation. From what I understand, progaming doesn't exactly make a lot of money (except for a small handful of the very best), so if you do it, you're doing it because you love doing it.
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Well... if you've got the capital to back up your attempt at becoming a progamer, I suppose that's one less reason to say no. Life's short and you don't get to try everything, so trying something while you can might be worth it.
That being said, you want to be realistic - and you already have examples to draw from. If your concept of progaming is that of Korean e-sports right now, then I'd say your goal is quite unrealistic. You can already see how tough it is for IdrA or TLO. IdrA has been living the life of a progamer for quite a while now and still it's tough for him to break the top 8 in GSL.
If your concept of progaming is in North America or Europe, it's a whole new story. You have to really trust Blizzard and their promises to open tournaments and stuff worldwide. However, at the current state, I don't think there will be enough "things to do" as a progamer outside Korea. Who knows, maybe the global e-sports market will bloom in the near future.
Best of luck.
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You only see the "good things" you have to see the bad things...Im not gonna say if you should do or not do, because is your life.
But i can say only one thing: Is not a easy road and you probably gonna fail
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Take the risk. Take some lessons(free or not) and go to random tournies(on or offline). Make a name for yourself.
I'm 25, graduated and workign full time. I'm 1800~ and been to two MLG's events and didn't do so well. Infact the same each time. I'm going to dallas to try again. You will gain real life experience and its well worth it. You're young and given the opportunity to pursue a dream, take it. A progamer is a choice not an obligation. Its not easy and you can't do it alone. you have school next fall, plenty of time to get better and maybe win or place top 4 in some tournies.
Don't ask for permission, ask for advise and guidance. If you have to pay for it, then its well worth it imo.
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waste of money but take the ride if hes offering, fuck yeah
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If I had a shitton of money I'd either travel the world or go to cooking school.
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On October 29 2010 01:27 ArbAttack wrote:
All fun and good aside. You're going to have to realize talent is the deciding factor.
I believe in this. To become a pro (specially a renowned one) in any competitive field, you gotta have a gift, a natural talent, that allows you to do things like beating easily players who have been playing for a longer time and working harder than you or climbing up in winrate/ladder/whatever should be used to measure a player's skill in less time than others. All of that in a ridiculous ratio.
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There are many intelligent posts on here. First I think you should ask yourself if you really want the progamer lifestyle. From what I know about it, it sounds terrible. But that is just me. The point that you need to really train before this begins was also mentioned. So how long would you practice for? How much time could you devote to it? And how far can you really get in 6 months of dad sponsorship? I'm very hesitant to say this is a good idea. But whatever you do, make sure it is thought out. Hopefully the community feedback helps, now what are you going to decide?
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First, tell your parents to let you practice for one or two months, and not just 1-2 hours daily, I'm talking about 5-6 hours here or 10 in weekends ( of course you still go to school or whatever ). If by the end of these 2 months you are world ~ top200 in points (would be 2300-2400 now) with a fair enough win ratio ( not like 800 / 780 rather 600 / 450 ) and you still feel confident, yeah definitely. But in the current situation i suggest no, don't try it.
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On October 29 2010 04:04 jlim wrote:Show nested quote +On October 29 2010 01:27 ArbAttack wrote:
All fun and good aside. You're going to have to realize talent is the deciding factor.
I believe in this. To become a pro (specially a renowned one) in any competitive field, you gotta have a gift, a natural talent, that allows you to things like beating easily players who have been playing for a longer time and working harder than you or climbing up in winrate/ladder/whatever should be used to measure a player's skill in less time than others. All of that in a ridiculous ratio.
Some people like myself will argue, that talent has nothing to do with it and that talent in general is a myth.
Investigate the top pros of any sport, and look at the dedication and ferocity they put into their practice. It is more than anyone else in their sport.
Its wrong to think that I am not a pro tennis because I wasnt born with the talent for tennis. This seems like a weak personal excuse. I am not a pro tennis player because instead of practicing 6 hours a day, every day back when I played seriously, I only practiced for 2 hours 3/4 times a week.
While this was enough to be one of the top varsity players at my school, it is no where near enough to even consider going pro. Considering someone like Federer has practiced over 6 hours a day, almost every day, since he was extremely young old. Even among pro players, this is an absurd amount of dedication, that simply compounds over time, as in a single day, he practices more than I do in the entire week.
Talent by definition would mean they could get by and succeed by doing less work than other athletes. This is not the case. Flash was not born with a gift for SC, he put in an insane amount of work, and still puts in an insane amount of work every day to stay ahead of his opponents.
There are people who have better practice habits, as there is a difference between just playing and performing deliberate practice. Thus they get more out of less practice time, but this is not an inherent ability to Starcraft, rather a personal ability to buckle down and focus. I don't know if you can call a higher work ethic talent.
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I agree with the majority here. the advice I offer you is to practice up and start small. Go local first, play game battles etc.. 1400 is too low, you'll get rolled over in big tournaments. On the other hand, it's the only way you'll learn and get better. If you start local and your still super into it and your seeing success; throw money into it.
By instantly investing in a pro gaming lifestyle your instantly at a psychological disadvantage because your under that much more pressure to win..
Pro gaming takes baby steps but I wish you all the luck in the world 
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In my opinion first find a coach and see how it goes teams such at VT gaming, Root, and Gosucoaching offer lessons. Work with them for some time to see your improvement. Talk with your coach for feedback etc. to see progress (even though you should know yourself).
This is the best way to go about it.
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Now for my opinion, do not devote your life to a video game. With the time you can devote to SC2 you can devote it to school and have a chance to become a Doctor, Lawyer, etc.. Even if you don't become any of those you at least have a degree to fall back on. Gaming is not a fallback plan or plan at all is you are trying to be realistic.
It sounds like you have made up your mind though so I just suggest get coaching at a good price.
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Definitely go for it. Why not ?
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On October 29 2010 04:17 grats wrote:
In my opinion first find a coach and see how it goes teams such at VT gaming, Root, and Gosucoaching offer lessons. Work with them for some time to see your improvement. Talk with your coach for feedback etc. to see progress (even though you should know yourself).
This is the best way to go about it.
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Now for my opinion, do not devote your life to a video game. With the time you can devote to SC2 you can devote it to school and have a chance to become a Doctor, Lawyer, etc.. Even if you don't become any of those you at least have a degree to fall back on. Gaming is not a fallback plan or plan at all is you are trying to be realistic.
It sounds like you have made up your mind though so I just suggest get coaching at a good price.
If you think about it - the way pro gaming is going, at its apex pro gaming and a comfortable job such as doctor or lawyer could be equal 
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If you're going to do it, make a documentary of it.
Even if you fail hardcore you could try selling the documentary to parental organizations that are trying to get their children to give up their dream of becoming a professional gamer. It could spread on the Internet as the next meme. You could even make an alternate ending to pretend that you succeeded.
It could be "kCaZ becomes a progamer!"
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Hey how long exactly did you play competitive BW? The only reason I ask is because I wanna know a reference of how long you have been into competitive SC in general.
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if its for only 6 months, i'd go for it. 6 months is minuscule compared to the time we spend on other stuff in our life. i wouldn't want to look back 30 years from now and be like.... i could have been the best starcraft 2 player ever but decided elsewhere, but that's just me. i don't like to regret my decisions. also, get a poster/piece of paper and make a pros and cons list of becoming a pro-gamer. weigh all the pros against all the cons it will give you a big picture of what you will be gaining and losing in the 6 months of progaming.
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EPT
