EPTDon't.
I've seen a lot of players/posts lately around the scene of kids considering taking a semester off of college university to pursue being a professional in Starcraft 2. I think this is a very poor decision at least for the current state of pro gaming in NA. It's not going to benefit you in the long run financially at all. Now first off I know the word 'Pro'/'Professional' is used lightly in SC2 ESPORTS. You could be a low-Grandmasters player on NA server making a few bucks a month off your stream and consider yourself a professional. For the sake of discussion, lets say you're taking a semester off of school to go pro to be a professional to ( = ) "Make A Living." I really feel that the majority of the people saying this "wanting to go pro" enjoy the idea of chasing this dream than actually doing it. In case you didn't know pro teams usually take a good 40-50% of your tournament winnings anyway. Remember you're an investment in their eyes, or should be anyways.
The data that I used for this discussion is from here: http://sc2earnings.com/?region=americas
I believe the data is accurate but slightly out-of-date and only includes winnings from major/minor tournaments. I'm not sure how accurate it is, however they do a better job than anywhere else. It's a good source to look at for the 12-18 months of SC2 winnings. I don't believe anything like training/stream revenue is involved as I'm pretty sure someone like Destiny is probably pulling in a nice amount of money every year with his stream.
Top 10:
1. HuK - 60K - Canada - Lives/Lived in Korea for a while now, been a serious RTS player for a long time. Has said many times he simply misses his friends/lifestyle. He's telling you its not worth it. Even with the money he makes it's not worth it. Here is the guy that will probably make over 100,000 in the next year, and besides the number 2 on the list, no other NA player is even in his league. Nobody works as hard as him to be a professional. He's fully right when he said everyone is lazy. Can anyone else think of anyone in NA who works as hard as him?
2. IdrA - 50K - United States - Former BW Korean b-team pro gamer. Lived in Korea for over a year. Probably makes 6 figs as well. Been a pro sc player for how many years now? Works extremely hard. I believe he gave up some scholarship for an engineering program or something like that at a university to continue playing professionally. Lived in an actual Korean pro gaming environment for years. Has anyone else in NA done this? Maybe Tyler? Not sure on anyone else. One of the true and few actual NA "Pro Gamers" in my opinion.
(huge money drop after this)
3. Fenix - 22K - Peru - Former BW pro. Now is on a Korean team living in a Korean house. Heard that story of him scamming out his teammate for a few grand after they agreed to split the finals winnings? True or not he's put in a lot of time to pro gaming in BW and SC2. 3rd place has only played 22k from pro events?
4. TT1 - 15K - Canada - Former BW pro, spent time in Korea, many many years of RTS experience.
5. Killer - 12K - Chile Don't really know much about him tbh.
6. Major - 11K - Mexico - I really feel bad for this kid. I don't know too much about him however I don't believe he is 18 yet. Did he drop out of high school? Attitude problems that nobody can disagree with. Has been on 3-4 different teams in the past year. Doesn't understand key aspects of pro gaming. Thinks its not a big team when team sends him to pro events and he doesn't even wear the team t-shirt. Not trying to make fun of him at all, however his English is extremely poor grammar. I know it's not his main language but you can tell there's a huge lack of communication and education with him. I'm not even trying to talk shit about him/criticize him. He will have a hard time finding a decent job if pro gaming doesn't work out for the rest of his life. That's fine if you have HuK's contract but he doesn't. I'm actually not sure how he makes money to be honest. I guess checksix salary or something?
7. Sheth - 11K - United States - I'd throw him into the 'actual SC2 pro gamer' section as well even though he hasn't made as much from tournaments. Been to Korea, I believe played BW.
8. Kiwikaki 10K Canada - Guy's rich from online poker, SC2 is just a hobby for him/side thing. Doesn't even do it for money. So he technically has a real job.
9. dde 10K Kor/Can/Us? - Not sure but I believe he is/was a university student? I believe born Korean, moved to NA.
10. qxc 7K United States/Spain? - In school while being a pro gamer. Remember someone saying he's actually from Spain? No idea at all. Been to korea.
Notables:
11. drewbie 5k United States & 12. CatZ 5K Peru - CatZ & drewbie. They get mad props for trying to do their own pro gaming team for so long. Not to many people truly realize how hard that is too pull off. They play a lot, former BW players, put in so much for the game. I'm sure they get decent money however only 5K each from tournament winnings? They stream a lot which should get them decent revenue coming in, however I don't think people realize how much SC experience that they have.
13. Slush 4K United States - How many top 16s of MLG's has this guy been in? Very talented player. One of the best in the U.S. and only 4K from tournament winnings? Not sure if he has other income or not.
21. rsvp 3K United States - Met him before, knows he has a real full time job.
23. Machine 3K United States - How long has this guy played SC for? Great player, however has only made 3K from SC tournaments? That doesn't seem like that number is correct however that's crazy for how good he is.
28. Gatored 2K Kor/US? - Not sure if he is a born NA player or not, but this guy has gotten really good at SC. He beat some big name players at IEM. Still, with him being a break out player, still not even.
45. TriMaster .5K US - I believe he did take a semester off of college, joined coL, got his name recognized and did extremely well at a MLG. Very talented NA player. Still so far away like the rest. Was it worth it?
Other Factors:
-Streaming. Someone like Destiny who might not have even made 1K yet on tournament winnings (just assuming could be 100% wrong) might make 100k just off Streaming. You're not Destiny. You won't get as popular as him. He started streaming very early in SC2. Before it really picked up/got popular. I believe for some other pros like CatZ/drewbie it helps them out a lot as well and is their primary source of income. (Once again just assuming, could be 100% wrong.) Also everyone knows IdrA/HuK get many 1000's viewers when streaming as well. I'm sure a few of these pros make a living off of streaming revenues. However unless you're some huge breakout star at a MLG like vileIllusion who I don't even think he broke 1k viewers yet, it won't happen.
-Team/Player contracts. I don't know all the details but besides maybe 4-5 players in the top 10 I can't image many other players getting more than 10K a year to play SC2. The biggest advantages for the player are probably when teams agree to fly/pay for you at big events. However there's not many NA gaming teams that can do this, and do this for all of their players.
-Training/Coaching. I'm sure players make decent money with their 25 dollars, 35 dollars, 40 dollars, etc coaching rates. However you can't always rely on this as consistent income. Also factor in that teaching takes away your time at getting better at this game.
-Gaming houses. Not living in a gaming house in NA? Then your chance of going pro is probably very low. Sitting in the same place that you always played SC2 in with all the distractions is going to make it very difficult to even get better. Are you going to say No to your real life friends that want to go out and see a movie with you or something? Probably not. If you're considering going pro at SC2 and don't have a gaming house to live in with other dedicated gamers then you've already failed. Even still of the few pro gaming houses in NA, they might not have dedicated maids to cook/clean for you while you can focus. You only option is probably the next option:
-Korea If you're going to go pro, you might as well just move to Korea for the semester. I don't know all the details but I'm sure you can live in the GOM pro player house for cheap. Not sure if its cheap just assuming, but its probably your best option. Not for just 3-4 weeks, for months, maybe even a year. Ready to say good bye to all your friends/family? Also its between 800-1800 to fly to Asia round trip usually.
Why you don't need to stop/quit school to go pro:
There's a lot of great pro NA players that are still full time students and do very well in the SC2 scene. It's not going to be worth it in the long run to try and go pro for 99% of the kids that are trying it. I'm 24 years old, I recently just graduated after 5.5 years of college with my Masters degree. A month out of school I already have a decent job lined up with a respectable salary. A starting salary that has me making more than probably 98% of so called ' sc2 pro gamers' in NA and I'm very happy at the moment. I'm certainly not bragging what-so-ever. I greatly respect anyone trying to pursue their dreams in life.
However you have to factor in what's realistic in this world. I love hockey, wanted to be a pro hockey player, grew up in a low-income family, couldn't afford hockey equipment, let go of the dream early on. I've used up so much of my childhood playing SC, WC3, Diablo, SC2. I loved every fucking minute of it and don't regret it at all. I'm decent at all these games. (Mid-High Masters in SC2). However it's just simply not worth it to try and go professional at this game for the current state of NA esports. If 12 Koreans weren't coming to all the big NA events, then maybe, however they're still dominating most of the events. HuK, IdrA, Sheth, and maybe 2-3 others are the only ones that could consistently beat Koreans.
-Get a University job. I had a decent internship, and a side job at the university doing student tech support for 3 years. Minimum wage, around 15 hours a week just deleting spyware from dumb girls laptops. It brought me around 280-350$ a month.
-I only give up one day a week for homework/assignments/study. Went to a completely average university, but studied/worked my ass off on Saturdays and came out with a final 3.5 gpa. It's not hard, just takes time. Taking one day off for this and 15 more hours during the week for classes won't hurt your SC2 gaming that much. It's just the average NA sc2 player is lazy.
-If you can't do good in college then you're probably too dumb to be a great SC2 player. IdrA's just a smart dude. Engineering scholarship? SC2 takes a lot of fast decisions, multi-tasking, a lot of strategy and thinking. You're probably not smart enough to go pro. I could be a borderline pro, and I don't even think as a high masters player that I have what it takes to be a pro gamer. Its mental toughness too.
-Join the CSL team at your university. Hell there's like over 350 teams now. Join/make a SC2 club. Have other help you get better and critique your game together.
How many players on that list are actual NA players? Taking a semester of college to go pro at SC2 gives you really low chances to succeed in that lifestyle. You can even have a sick MLG run and still only make a few hundred from that event.
Good luck to anyone trying to do this, however for 99% of you, you will fail financially in the long run. Don't worry, SC2, and esports will still be there when you've completed college. To be honest now that I'm done with college and have a job I don't even have the desire/interest to go pro anymore. Now that a decent 'real job' and 'average american money' is looking me in the face, I have no problem just jumping on at night and just playing 2-3 solos then going to bed. Also, of course watching all MLGs, they're still fucking fun as hell.
TLDR: Stay in school, in the long run it will benefit you more, get your degree ASAP, I think you're making a big mistake. At the current state of NA esports you won't make enough to live on your own. There's still ways to go pro while being at a university. The only players that should even think about stopping school for this are ones that are already making thousands from SC2 and that's probably less than 10-20 North American SC2 players anyway.
No need to flame, just my opinion from my experiences/observations. Please feel very free to comment on anything that I might be wrong on/your opinions. <3<3
EDIT: To be fair I did want to add something. I actually started college when I was 19, 1 year after highschool. I was fried after HS, typical nerd who played blizz games until 3 am. I simply wasn't ready for college and also didn't have a major/career choice yet. I actually encourage people to take a semester/year off before STARTING college to make sure your ready/know what you want. I just can't stand it when I see people in this community who are 1-2 years in already and think taking a semester off to play SC2 is going to be a great move. Thanks for reading all.
