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Between around Christmas and a week from now, I had some expectations of how much money I was planning on making.
I was planning on helping my dad out at his office for a couple days and got payed 8$/hour for 16 hours = 128$, none of it was taxed!
There was a starcraft 2 lan that I would attend early in january too. I was hoping to make 50$, but enough people didn't show up so that the first place prize was only 25$. I payed 20 instead of 15 for a VIP computer, and well here we are now with only 5$ out on top (which was spent on my lunch, best damn subs around the area by far. Then for christmas, I got 200$ of cash to spend.
I know there are better ways at making money like actually getting a job and start getting some paychecks again. I did it once, but I didn't really fancy that. It was a tough job and I was just not used to it with the general atmosphere and everything. My social anxiety made just having a job even more stressful because of all the people interaction. I pretty much left the place feeling so alone and just wanting to shun them off. Don't get me wrong, they were all friendly people and I am sure I could have made better friends with more of them. I also did this in my high school too and I could never feel really validated with most of the people I talked to. I "had" a girlfriend at the beginning of a week during my high school career, and by the end of the week I had convinced myself that she didn't really like me and so I broke it off with her.
Something I like to do is to follow starcraft 2 tournament. I am so happy that kespa is now in starcraft 2. All the talent from broodwar has really put the game into another level. On top of that, there are events such as homestory cup, gsl, mlg, and dreamhack all around the world. What a job that would be, earning money to play the equivalent of rts chess, AND traveling (after all the jetlag haha).
I would rather have starcraft2 as a job than working a normal job. Even if I don't make it, I have really just bonded with the game over the past couple of days. Yesterday was the first time I played 20+ games in a row (btw after 20 combined wins/losses, I feel that I've come out at about 50%).
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There is not much of a career to be made in eSports, at least not yet. It is much more of a sure thing to go to school and get a degree for a good job. For example, look at Engineering students: ~85% average to get into a good University, 4 years of hard work, and you start making ~60K/year. I'd wager that's more than almost anyone in eSports makes from eSports itself, and only increases after that.
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I've never been one of those "follow your dream" type of people, just a hard headed realist. So I may sound a little pessimistic here.
If you go to college and get a degree in something useful, what is the worst that can happen? Well I suppose 2 bad things could happen: 1) You still can't find a job. 2) You are miserable in your job that you just invested your time and money to get. In either case, you still have a degree, and an education, which is definitely worth something in life.
Suppose you go the sc2 pro route, what's the worst that can happen? Well you can be dead broke, constantly frustrated with your inability to "break through" into real success, and come out of it years later with still no money and still no marketable skills to give you hope for a real career. Basically whole years down the drain with nothing to show for it.
I can relate to the fact that you couldn't stand your job and that you have severe social anxiety, but you can work around those things. There are plenty of jobs out there that involve little if any social interaction, that may offer the same sort of challenge that you find enjoyable in rts chess, as you call it. Part of growing up for 99.9% of people is to just swallow the fact that there are no real substitutes for a normal job. Maybe you really do have what it takes to make it, but most of the people who think they do actually don't.
Essentially, keep your options open. You can go for your dream, but ensure you have something to fall back on, don't just go all in with it.
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I would not put all your eggs in one basket good sir. As WarSame stated, better to get a degree in a computer related field so if you can't make it as a player odds are you could get involved in a technical capacity with tournament organizers and other organizations.
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