EPTWhat do the pros earn and how? - Page 15
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two.watup
United States371 Posts
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infinity2k9
United Kingdom2397 Posts
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leadphyc
United States99 Posts
On May 03 2011 08:26 Drlemur wrote: This is a great site. But look how quick the money drops off. By #20, it's only $15,500, which isn't really livable. But I think in tourney sports that's not uncommon. Not that many golfers make that much in prize money per year either, they make it on endorsements. But live streaming is a cool game-only thing. If they get 1 penny per viewer per ad, a 3k viewer commercial is worth $30 and you can earn a bit. If it's .1 cents per viewer per ad, that's only $3 and it's barely going to pay for beer. I wonder. 15,500 is a lot to live on. you should check on what the real cost of living is and then make your statements.know that ppl live of a less that 15,500. now on to the OP i really think their main income would come from sponsorships and coaching. and like stated before me the coaching depends on the person and i've seen idra's rates and they are ridiculous. It makes sense for him to have them so high as he is in high demand but damn........ who would pay that much for coaching? | ||
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Aravan
Poland36 Posts
On May 07 2011 09:29 Steven.Bonnell.II wrote: I'm not entirely sure how the ads differ based on country, whether the impressions pay the same or what not, unfortunately. I've never dug that deep before.  Oh well, nevermind then. It's not a big deal at all, I was just curious. Thanks for taking the time to answer though  . | ||
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bigjenk
United States1543 Posts
On May 03 2011 18:41 tyCe wrote: Why is progaming so desirable anyway? That's a question that I don't really understand. I mean, I would love to be an elite professional footballer, but being an elite SC2 pro is completely different. You don't have the fame except to a bunch of fat, ugly fangirls and a bunch of nerds and casuals watching at their computers. You don't have great pay compared to other jobs you could have done (assuming that your intelligence and/or charisma is the reason for your SC2 success).. Further, your career is short and it is stressful to keep your position at the time. You have no employment prospects outside of the progaming scene after your career is done either. Furthermore, your achievements mean nothing to most people. Can you imagine telling your grandchildren that in your prime you were good at computer games? Video game fan is transient. Video games don't keep their popularity for more than 10 years. Even with BW in Korea, being a BW pro gives you a huge stigma when compared to other jobs you could have done with your brilliant RTS mind, e.g. lawyering, investment banking, corporate management, or even normal jobs like accounting or administration etc. Sorry but 300k/year is NOTHING considering that: 1. your career is transient - maybe 3-5 years max 2. you have no education and/or work experience during your progaming career 3. you have no reasonable career prospects afterwards outside SC2 or progaming; no promotion prospects; i.e. you have no valid transition out of SC2, you are "all-in" 4. no substantial contact with social networks outside gaming; i.e. 90% of the people you know are gaming and are probably your rivals at some time and place 5. you have no girlfriend or at least no fulfilling relationship with your girlfriend, unless you make significant sacrifices in your SC2 career to do so 6. you have no real job security, and you have little say in how your career will be headed; SC2 is going to die out within the 15 years, and your ability will probably be surpassed in the next 1-2 years; might also get screwed over by map makers and Blizzard patch makers 7. even your fame is very limited and very transient; your fame is limited to nerds and casual enthusiasts who watch you on their computers; this group of people are notoriously fickle and will probably latch on the next big progamer and mostly forget about you (e.g. qxc ever since he went to study in Spain, Ret ever since he left Korea, Huk ever since he stopped winning tournaments) 8. the BIG one: if you were good enough to be making 300k/yr in SC2, you are probably talented enough to be making 300k/yr in another profession that may or may not be more fulfilling to you IMO, progaming in SC2 has too much risk and too little reward. Only those without any other realistic prospects, and those who are still in high school and have a great talent in SC2, and of course those who had an SC2 progaming career fall into their laps without trying (e.g. IdrA and other BW foreign "pros"), should be actively pursuing a career out of SC2 progaming. For those who claim that SC2 would be a great career for those who do it out of passion and not money, well let me ask you this: How passionate will you be about SC2 when you are forced to play 12 hours a day, everyday, and have to win the next tournament or the next show match or else you cannot buy your next meal or pay your next rent? How passionate will you be about SC2 when you realise you have been a total deadbeat for 9 months, relying on the dole and your grandmother's pension while you try to mass game to catch up to the top? How passionate will you be about SC2 when you see your former peers and friends move ahead in life, marrying, having kids, buying houses, and being able to financially support it? User was warned for this post People can get a degree and play sc2 and if you make good money it is the same as taking some years off before college if your career doesn't last that long. There is also the hope that you can stay in the community as a promoter/commentator or organizer ala day9 after your career is done and esports actually grows. Tyler sure has a legit degree and is a progamer. | ||
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bigjenk
United States1543 Posts
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bigjenk
United States1543 Posts
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teekesselchen
Germany886 Posts
On May 03 2011 08:16 Holcan wrote: good pros: 50k-100k a year normal pros 30-50k a year north american pros : as much as mcdonalds pays, or less. I have a feeling like NA Pros actually make the most out of streaming, even when they're less quality players, such as Destiny. To my knowledge (okay, which just comes from other forum threads again) he's making a significant earning from streaming, even though he could never be considered as a candidate to make it far in a well attended international tournament. | ||
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Aphasie
Norway474 Posts
1. The base salary of almost all progamers (excluding GSL winners and a few others) is basicly shit. Most pros stream; it isnt a big effort but i would think almost anybody wouldnt take the extra time to interact with the community and exposing their playstyle if they had the financial luxury to forgo it and still make a decent living. Idra recently stated that he didnt even consider the NA ladder practice, and that it was just a way to tap into the recent trends. Also, there is no way pros would take the time out of their schedule to teach people what they already should know. I can certainly understand the argument that anybody wants to make "a little extra on the side", but that argument seems strange and to clash with every progamers basic notion that theyre playing for love of the game and not the cash. (realize its not mutually discluding, and that some people also seem to like the exposure) But had it been me, i wouldnt want to plan and committ to a daily schedule planned weeks or months ahead to make that little extra. 2. Low salary is acceptable due to minimal living expenses. I think money is also an incentive to teamhouses. Ofc, every player stresses the learning benefits, but the paid rent/food/traveling expenses are also important, especially for low earning pros. I also think this is why more likely to see the lower tier of a pro team shacking up together than the ace players. If your living costs are close to zero you can make by. For instance when i was in the mandatory military service we made around $ 800-900 a month (5 times less than unskilled labor in Norway) but we were barely able to live off it cuz of virtually no expenses. 3. The only way to truly know players avg. income without damaging the individual must be orchestrated trough a highly respected and reputable community member. I think it could be feasable to have someone collect non-spesific player data from teams and present the statistics on a regional level. (Say top 5 eu teams, top 5 NA and all the GSL teams). This would at least be a pointer to income in the respecitve realms, wouldnt be damaging to spesific players/teams and quell a hell of a lot of speculation. I dont know if anybody has the perceived integrity and authority to do this world wide, i highly doubt it. It could be possible to have a representative of GSL/IEM/MLG to their respective regions, but it might foster cross-regional competition (oh noes) and few companies perceive that to be a good thing. | ||
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Yoshi Kirishima
United States10364 Posts
Hmm I guess the money part is kinda confusing, first it says $ which indicates it's in dollars, but then after it says "cents" which actually means 0.002 cents and not 0.002 dollar. Anyhow it should be $0.002 which indeed is $22/ad. Heheh yeah xD didn't read the $ sign, but yeah $ and cent label at the same time is confusing... Why not shed some light on it then instead of saying "LOL noobs speculating?" Otherwise, just let us speculate. There's only one player we know of and it's Destiny since he's come out and said how much he makes. I agree, I'm not liking incontrol's "slips" on professionalism. | ||
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iNcontroL
USA29055 Posts
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Msr
Korea (South)495 Posts
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Excludos
Norway8155 Posts
On May 08 2011 03:35 iNcontroL wrote: excuse me? It gets really old when every post I make that someone disagrees with somehow calls to question my professional conduct. I wouldn't pay attention to it if I where you. Isn't there a meme going "haters gonna hate"?  While I respect your choice of not telling people salaries (assuming you know any outside of Idra), it would be nice of you to put out somekind of estimate. I think we all know that Idra makes enough to live off of it, but does he make enough for a long term plan when he eventually stops playing sc2? Does he have a car? Does he eat at Ikea every day or have enough for real food? And stuff like this i think most of us are just curious of how they are doing, and not the exact income.edit: and yourself for that matter, if you're willing to shed some light on the matter. | ||
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zeru
8156 Posts
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HomicidaL
United States283 Posts
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Rylaji
Sweden580 Posts
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Alexl
288 Posts
On May 07 2011 09:38 BroboCop wrote: Currently, sc2 pro player salaries are widely going to be based on speculation + limited information (from players like destiny). However, what I can say about team sponsorships is: my brother had an IRL friend on EG's Counter Strike 1.6 team, and he mentioned that he was SALARIED at $80k/yr~. Now note that CS =/= sc2 so it is more than likely that salaries are different. However, once again, one could assume that say the salary of strifcro =/= salary of idra. The thread is indeed very interesting though, and yes it seems some people are being slightly intrusive but part of what makes SPECTATOR-sports(meaning sports, e-sports, the works) big is "how much money people make" [for example my irl friend that is very good at soccer/keeps up with it mentions how xx makes "this many million a year" and this ref got $50k for reffing just 1 game] although it shouldn't play a factor it does and always will--money makes the world go round. Xp3(french player that moved to canada for studies/gf and placed 2nd in ESEA invite ect ect) said in an interview with aAa that EG's cs players we're getting ~800/1K a month that's far from 80K. For the record, WC3 players (and now SC2 players) have generally had a lot more lucrative salaries than cs players | ||
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Xeris
Iran17695 Posts
1) Prize money isn't as much as people make it out to be. There are pretty significant taxes in a lot of countries (at least in USA / Canada) on tournament winnings. For example, Canada taxes 35%... most teams take some percentage of prize winning as well (I think a standard is 15-20%). So basically, any tournament winnings has to be cut almost in half from the stated amount. 2) There are very few teams who can even afford to pay significant salaries to players... this is an infant industry really and it's a slow process trying to monetize this. Individuals have found a nice way to monetize this game (through streaming and coaching, and some individual sponsor plugging)... but so far the actual teams/oranizations themselves have had a tough time realizing an actual profit from this. EG and Liquid (this is just my opinion) -- seem to be the only teams that have found a good way to actually benefit financially (see all the new sponsor announcements from these teams!) 3) It takes a LOT of time/effort to make money from this game. If you look at people like Husky/Day9/incontrol/Idra/even Destiny -- it took them a long time to start actually making money. I mean, Idra wasn't getting anything from being a pro initially, and all the money he made was purely tournament winnings. Husky worked his ass off and didn't start making money for a long time. Now that they are making money, these guys are still working non-stop at it. It isn't this idealistic thing where money magically comes to you - Starcraft (if you're serious about it the way the above mentioned guys are) is actually a lot of work! 4) Personally -- I've been involved with Starcraft since it came out. I've been an "admin" since 2004. I joined the WGTour admin staff and ran the clan league and nation wars. I started running US tournaments (War of the States in 2006 was my first individual project). I founded BWUSA.org and created the Yankee League. I ran a 128 team tournament by myself, I put my own cash to fly to events and give some money to tournaments I ran. I didn't make a single dollar from Starcraft until late 2008, where I think if I remember correctly I made a few hundred bucks (which covered what I put in from my own pocket which was neat). It wasn't until 2010 that I actually earned a salary (so basically ~~5 years of working in the community to get to the position I'm at). And even then, I'm not making enough to live comfortably off of right now. Obviously my case is a little different, since I started in the Brood War days and there was no money there; players would join a team for $50 per month, and the highest paid non Korean players were getting about $350 per month (this was back in 06-08). So someone expecting to start making money (I'm talking about from a more administrative perspective rather than as a player) obviously won't have to work 5 years for free like I did, but it still isn't something that's going to come about instantaneously (think about Wolf for example... I'm not sure but I think he's earning a bit of a salary now, but it took him ~1 year to get to this point with FXO). I would also say that approaching this scene/community/game with the intention of making money from it is the wrong angle. I don't think you should look to justify your time investment by looking at the salary of the top people in the community. I think you should justify it instead by saying "I LOVE Starcraft, and I'm just going to keep doing what I can to contribute". If you're consistent enough (Day9 got to where he is because he was the only person who was producing regular, daily content) and good at what you do, financial success will follow. It's like that in every other aspect of life, and it's like that for Starcraft too! I'm very happy to know that the game I started playing with my cousin when I was 10 years old is still a big part of my life, and that I've done a lot to help give back to the community that I love, and that on top of it all, I'm finally able to make some money on it to help pay for my education. Anyway: random factoids: - The biggest streamers (I.E. guys like Destiny) will probably make somewhere between 3-5k per month if they're streaming a lot - A lot of players who I know of that do coaching, coach quite a bit and it's something like a regular job for them, and I'd probably roughly assume some averages (5 hours per day, 6 days per week of coaching at an average rate of $35/hour) that the upper tier (not top top tier such as Idra or iNcontroL) coaches can earn about $4k/month - Most famous players (excluding Korea, obviously) are probably earning something in the range of $2k/2.5k per month - 2nd tier (I.E. other top tier players) will be making something along the lines of $800-$1.5k per month - 3rd tier players will be making around $300-$600 per month - I don't really have any info on players from the less sponsored/smaller teams: however I'd assume salaries of $100-$200 and LAN support. Standard deals from every notable sponsored teams include: free hardware, free LAN trips (paying for flights + hotels + some meal expense + taxi to/from airport hotels, etc). Teams are also supportive of the 'pro houses' and will subsidize expenses (generally speaking). - Big name casters also get pretty good money, although I don't have any idea about rates casters get paid or anything (I have very little information here so I won't comment on it because it would be too speculative). Hope people found this informative. If anyone has questions about my career, or anyone looking to go down the path of an "admin" (more general questions) I'd be happy to answer. I won't answer any specific questions (I.E. about specific players, specific figures, etc). Anyway that's my piece. | ||
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PrimeTimey
Canada369 Posts
On May 07 2011 16:10 leadphyc wrote: 15,500 is a lot to live on. you should check on what the real cost of living is and then make your statements.know that ppl live of a less that 15,500. now on to the OP i really think their main income would come from sponsorships and coaching. and like stated before me the coaching depends on the person and i've seen idra's rates and they are ridiculous. It makes sense for him to have them so high as he is in high demand but damn........ who would pay that much for coaching? How is $15,000 a lot to live on? Lets say you get a modest apartment for $800/month. That is $9600 a year. Now you have $5000 to live off of for food, car, gas, cell phone, etc. etc. for an entire year? $15,000 is a modest income if you are 20 and live at home and go to college, not if you are trying to get somewhere in your life. Even minimum wage should give you around $20,000 a year. | ||
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Bobster
Germany3075 Posts
On May 08 2011 03:35 iNcontroL wrote: excuse me? It gets really old when every post I make that someone disagrees with somehow calls to question my professional conduct. Really unprofessional of you to call his post out, imo. + Show Spoiler + <3 | ||
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