Creator of Evil Geniuses, the world's leading professional video gaming team, which currently has 15 full-time paid employees and 45 full-time paid players. Garfield's roster includes some of the world's best from popular e-Sports titles like StarCraft and League of Legends.
Jaedong Lee 23 Professional gamer
One of the world's most successful professional gamers, nicknamed "The Tyrant" and "The Legend Killer." Lee is a World Cyber Games champion, two-time StarCraft League champion, and one of the highest-earning e-Sports players ever, taking home more than $489,000 in prize money over the course of his career so far.
TheGunRun and Justin Wong from Twitch were also mentioned. Congrats!
EDIT: Also Day 9! Forgot about him, but he transcends just esports in my humble opinion.
Best known by the alias "Day[9]," this professional gamer turned broadcaster is one of the biggest names in the world of e-sports: Once a top-ranked StarCraft player, he turned a daily webshow into an entire site for gamers, and he works as a commentator at tournaments worldwide. In 2013 he joined Artillery, a startup developing strategy games for the web.
You forgot to mention Day9. (which has a really cool photo in the article). Garfield's spot on the list is definitely earned though. He knows how to lead a team.
One of the world's most successful professional gamers, nicknamed "The Tyrant" and "The Legend Killer." Lee is a World Cyber Games champion, two-time StarCraft League champion, and one of the highest-earning e-Sports players ever, taking home more than $489,000 in prize money over the course of his career so far.
I hate to be that guy but isn't Jaedong by monetary definition the most successful player (which I'd assume is the metric one would use when dealing with different games and different eras), and hasn't he earned over $500,000?
One of the world's most successful professional gamers, nicknamed "The Tyrant" and "The Legend Killer." Lee is a World Cyber Games champion, two-time StarCraft League champion, and one of the highest-earning e-Sports players ever, taking home more than $489,000 in prize money over the course of his career so far.
I hate to be that guy but isn't Jaedong by monetary definition the most successful player (which I'd assume is the metric one would use when dealing with different games and different eras), and hasn't he earned over $500,000?
One of the world's most successful professional gamers, nicknamed "The Tyrant" and "The Legend Killer." Lee is a World Cyber Games champion, two-time StarCraft League champion, and one of the highest-earning e-Sports players ever, taking home more than $489,000 in prize money over the course of his career so far.
I hate to be that guy but isn't Jaedong by monetary definition the most successful player (which I'd assume is the metric one would use when dealing with different games and different eras), and hasn't he earned over $500,000?
since when exactitude has been brought back in journalism ?
heh started reading with mentality "oh thats cool". after reading started feeling like a piece of shit when i realized that these actually are ether same age or younger than me. fuck
Fuck all that, GUNRUN was on there. He is the master of the stream and "Best Sand King because he wanted to impress a girl" out there. We must celebrate his glory.
Once you start counting salaries things would get messy. Not all salaries are public information, so looking for the competitive gamer who has had the most lucrative career isn't really possible without insider info.
On January 07 2014 09:43 Plansix wrote: Fuck all that, GUNRUN was on there. He is the master of the stream and "Best Sand King because he wanted to impress a girl" out there. We must celebrate his glory.
Haha awesome, and well deserved. I didn't even see him when I skimmed it.
On January 07 2014 09:38 -niL wrote: They should've counted Jaedong's salaries
I didn't realise they were publicly disclosed. Do you have a link?
No, but I am pretty sure he received more in salaries than in prize money. They could've stated that.
There are a lot of rumors circulating about Flash's and JD's salaries and hardly any have substance to them. The fact that he's the winningest player in esport through tournaments alone is enough, no need to complicate things with guesswork and hearsay.
On January 07 2014 09:43 Plansix wrote: Fuck all that, GUNRUN was on there. He is the master of the stream and "Best Sand King because he wanted to impress a girl" out there. We must celebrate his glory.
On January 07 2014 10:15 Sub40APM wrote: how did garfield get into this game, was he a quake pro, or i just imagining it?
I think he played on a Quake or CS team and thats how EQ got its start. Then he kept going after college and BANG, we are where we are today.
ya, that makes sense, i guess i meant more in terms of where he got his initial capital from. its one thing to Day9 or Destiny yourself into a successful solo career, its another thing to get other people to sign onboard...
On January 07 2014 09:16 kakaman wrote: EDIT: Also Day 9! Forgot about him, but he transcends just esports in my humble opinion.
I don't think you can really say he transcends esports, when he only really has a presence in starcraft 2. Outside of starcraft, he's a really small figure relative to the rest of gaming.
On January 07 2014 11:23 Bagration wrote: Well that makes sense. But isn't gaming a bit of a narrow category? It's a victory, but I'd be surprised if no one from SC2 made this list.
It's more narrow then, say, Science or Tech, but a lot less narrow than something like Music or Hollywood.
Frankly, I'd think the category would be filled with young successful indie devs, or guys making new hardware or sites/platforms.
On January 07 2014 09:38 -niL wrote: They should've counted Jaedong's salaries
I didn't realise they were publicly disclosed. Do you have a link?
No, but I am pretty sure he received more in salaries than in prize money. They could've stated that.
I don't think we can know how much they made from their salary but its probably around as much as the prize money. I wouldn't be surprised if Flash made more than 200 k per year in salary alone in the end (thats about how much Nada made in his prime in BW http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=16156).
Its safe to say that Jaedong made less money than Flash since he was on a poor team (OZ). He got offers to play for a higher salary on other teams (it was rumored that SKT wanted to buy him when he was a free agent - I don't remember if that rumour ever was confirmed though), but he wanted to stay with OZ and coach Cho.
When I read the thread title, I was impressed that they made into a Forbes list, but then was a bit disappointed it was under games focus only. Hell, disappointed they divided up into categories such that it's more a list of "450 under 30" with the games category not being really competitive to get in on compared to say finance and tech. Congrats to those four however. They absolutely deserve the publicity and being able to put something like this on their resume.
EPT
