EPTBleak Future After Failed ProGaming Career
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jinjin5000
United States1475 Posts
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iFU.pauline
France1666 Posts
Haha on point. | ||
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tankgirl
Canada438 Posts
something like "heartwarming, inspiring interview with tenacious ex-progamer turned streamer gazillionaire" | ||
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Jealous
10273 Posts
I think a lot of us had the same fantasy as Brittney, he was better than most of us will ever be but still we salivated for the life he described, and to have this come out 10-15 years later just shows us how much pain we avoided. $3200 over like 6 years? I know the won stretches further in Korea than the dollar does in the USA and this was 12+ years ago so the dollar was more powerful, but $3200/6 = $533 per year??? Yes he had 3 hots and a cot, but that is worse than minimum wage for 2 full-time weeks per year in the USA. He was easily in the top ~1000 players at worst and still only made enough money to be basically an indentured servant. In Russian we have a term for working for food instead of money basically ("на халяву" = na halyavu) and I have worked that way in the past, but this is absurd, as he said. Then again, it is the launchpad for his current successful af career by all accounts. All's well that ends well? Life is a funny thing. | ||
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Puosu
7001 Posts
On January 29 2026 17:57 Jealous wrote: Thank you for this translation! I think a lot of us had the same fantasy as Brittney, he was better than most of us will ever be but still we salivated for the life he described, and to have this come out 10-15 years later just shows us how much pain we avoided. $3200 over like 6 years? I know the won stretches further in Korea than the dollar does in the USA and this was 12+ years ago so the dollar was more powerful, but $3200/6 = $533 per year??? Yes he had 3 hots and a cot, but that is worse than minimum wage for 2 full-time weeks per year in the USA. He was easily in the top ~1000 players at worst and still only made enough money to be basically an indentured servant. In Russian we have a term for working for food instead of money basically ("на халяву" = na halyavu) and I have worked that way in the past, but this is absurd, as he said. Then again, it is the launchpad for his current successful af career by all accounts. All's well that ends well? Life is a funny thing. I don't think 6 years is correct, unless you count the years he was an amateur. liquipedia.net suggests he was drafted in 2009 and the Sparkyz contract ended somewhere around 2010 after the match-fixing scandal. According to a post by GTR, he had then joined Woongjin but retired quickly after, in October 2011. | ||
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Jealous
10273 Posts
On January 29 2026 19:09 Puosu wrote: I don't think 6 years is correct, unless you count the years he was an amateur. liquipedia.net suggests he was drafted in 2009 and the Sparkyz contract ended somewhere around 2010 after the match-fixing scandal. According to a post by GTR, he had then joined Woongjin but retired quickly after, in October 2011. I was guesstimating based on when he said he was first trying to get through Courage at the same time as Bisu, Jaedong, Flash, etc. so yea def counting his amateur days in this because it sounds like he wasn't making money any other way at that time. | ||
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castleeMg
Canada785 Posts
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Puosu
7001 Posts
On January 30 2026 09:28 Jealous wrote: I was guesstimating based on when he said he was first trying to get through Courage at the same time as Bisu, Jaedong, Flash, etc. so yea def counting his amateur days in this because it sounds like he wasn't making money any other way at that time. Makes sense! | ||
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XenOsky
Chile2311 Posts
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Agh
United States1035 Posts
On January 29 2026 17:57 Jealous wrote: He was easily in the top ~1000 players at worst and still only made enough money to be basically an indentured servant. Not really familiar with him and haven't checked it out yet but I see that as pretty meaningless. I'd actually be surprised if it was anything else. Also assuming that was supposed to be 100 and not 1000 it doesn't change much, especially in a relatively small niche title. Compare that to something as large as golf, a buddy who is probably rank 500ish in the world isn't far ahead of break even. (That's in the top 0.001% of people on the planet that have touched it). Pretty much all income is still through lessons & coaching and other means. Isn't directed at you but it always surprises me how gaming and esports gets romanticized in such a fashion. The money isn't there because it doesn't exist. If you aren't the best of the best or on the cusp of that conversation then it's nothing short of delusion to see gaming as a viable source of money from a player perspective. There might be a few outlier titles but even if you are one of the Serrals of the world it's still the equivalent of a well paying job that carries a short term tag along with uncertainty. Only genuine money to be made in gaming is through entertainment and streaming. The juice pretty much is never worth the squeeze for running events or even making games. | ||
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Jealous
10273 Posts
On January 31 2026 03:50 Agh wrote: Not really familiar with him and haven't checked it out yet but I see that as pretty meaningless. I'd actually be surprised if it was anything else. Also assuming that was supposed to be 100 and not 1000 it doesn't change much, especially in a relatively small niche title. Compare that to something as large as golf, a buddy who is probably rank 500ish in the world isn't far ahead of break even. (That's in the top 0.001% of people on the planet that have touched it). Pretty much all income is still through lessons & coaching and other means. Isn't directed at you but it always surprises me how gaming and esports gets romanticized in such a fashion. The money isn't there because it doesn't exist. If you aren't the best of the best or on the cusp of that conversation then it's nothing short of delusion to see gaming as a viable source of money from a player perspective. There might be a few outlier titles but even if you are one of the Serrals of the world it's still the equivalent of a well paying job that carries a short term tag along with uncertainty. Only genuine money to be made in gaming is through entertainment and streaming. The juice pretty much is never worth the squeeze for running events or even making games. I did mean 1000 FWIW. I also agree with everything you said, it was kinda where I was going with it but maybe the beer got in the way as usual 😂🍻 You elaborated on it better than I did; I was trying to make the point that if you are in the top 1000 doctors, or scientists, or investment bankers, almost any "real" career path, then you would be making REAL money. He was in the top 1000 of something he loved and pursued with a passion I frankly have never had for any job ever, and made the equivalent of like fifty cents a day and lived a crowded military barracks lifestyle with ten dudes silently jerking off in their bunks at 3 am as a reward for pursuing it. Thus, all of us who back in the day were thinking "I would love to be a progamer," but were spared from the temptation of actually pursuing it are likely* better off for it. | ||
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SethN
16 Posts
I still find myself wishing to have experienced the life of a programer if only just to see what proleague/ starleagues would have felt like but it is definitely just not worth it for 99 percent of people at all who experienced it | ||
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