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Sometimes you pay a price to be able to do the things you love. However, the plight isn't necessarily with Lee Young Ho (aka "FlaSh"), who was winning $50,000 t

Sometimes you pay a price to be able to do the things you love. However, the plight isn't necessarily with Lee Young Ho (aka "FlaSh"), who was winning $50,000 tournaments multiple times a year while on a 200-300k per year salary (I stopped following after the end of professional Brood War, not sure what it's like now). The plight lies with those who aren't among the top 1% in their already elite field who are subject to the same amount of physical and mental stress and grueling 12 hour practices while making welfare wages. Maybe that's changed with more capital flowing into eSports these days, but I doubt it.

dylanjermiah 11y ago
>"who are subject to the same amount of physical and mental stress and grueling 12 hour practices while making welfare wages. " They aren't subject to anything. They choose.
- iLoch 11y ago
  Yeah, doesn't this describe the pursuit of at least half the people on HN?
- panorama 11y ago
  While true, it's not adults getting into pro-gaming, it's usually teenagers. Kids who would rather play Starcraft than study, and, despite being very good, lack the foresight of knowing what kind of hole they're digging themselves into.
  - dylanjermiah 11y ago
    I agree, in my opinion there are more productive and 'healthy' uses of ones time. But, my opinion doesn't mean anything. Forcing/coercing kids into doing what you think is best for them is not productive either.
    - bad_user 11y ago
      Making choices for children, who are otherwise too immature, is the whole point of parenting. Of course, you can "coerce" them, or you can "guide" them, but then we are talking about different means for the same end goal. And then we can talk about parents that are too busy or uninterested to give a fuck and it's precisely in such families that you see children being allowed to play computer games for hours on end. I don't really get the line on "forcing/coercing" children. If your child would end up a drug addict, would you just let her be? Why is it any different with computer gaming addiction?
      - dylanjermiah 11y ago
        My comment was not from the perspective of a parent.
        gbog 11y ago
        Would it be so different with a good friend? If there if someone you are attached to, and if this someone is heading full steam toward a cliff or a dead end, you'll tell them, no? Or do whatever you can to help them. Or maybe you believe that anything about other people is not your concern in any respect? Parenting is not an exception, it is not a different world where values change. It is just the same world, with people caring or not for others, with some responsibility and affection. It's just a bit more acute and produce good counter examples to those believing one should not care about others. My third kid was born yesterday. I'm still getting drunk with friends once a week, I do my hobbies in the evening (programming, pictures, music), I spend very good moments with the kids, I let them grow and make sure they have plenty of different thing for their curiosity, gosh I even played gta with my 5yo boy, but I certainly would never encourage any of them to try to become a professional sport player, or e-sport. Or model. Or musician. The odds of having an happy life in these domains is infinitesimal.
        JoeAltmaier 11y ago
        Happy? Maybe the wrong word choice. Certainly folks can be happy doing these things. Maybe happier than any other job. They probably cannot be wealthy doing those things.
  - ghostDancer 11y ago
    I can show you a lot of teenagers doing the same but playing football(soccer), less hours at least, and even pushed by their parents with the hope that some of them will be the next Messi, Xavi or Ronaldo.
    - zo1 11y ago
      Exactly, and because it's part of the "normal culture", then no-one bats an eye (I exaggerate a bit there). If we were to look at football and basketball sports' effect on children, and how pervasive and time-consuming it is to normal teens/young-adults the same way we do when it comes to "e-sports", then we'd be positively disgusted (a bit of extrapolation there).
      - kendallpark 11y ago
        I think there is a difference in that sports like football and basketball are more limited by the body's abilities to perform. A natural mechanism for moderation. You don't have gaming binges where someone plays football for 18 hours straight without sleeping. But this happens all the time with gaming. Furthermore, most traditional sports also improve one's physiological health. This is not the case for e-sports where one is simply sitting in a chair all day. I can understand why a parent would be more concerned about their kid that doesn't leave his computer than their kid that plays three sports a year. But in both e-sports and traditional sports you have the risk of sacrificing too much for the sake of the game. I have known many athletes in both camps that have done this.
        MichaelGG 11y ago
        Is it true that competitive sports are actually physically healthy? I'm probably just over valuing notable cases, but even things like ballet tear up feet pretty badly. And tennis is known for injuries, isn't it? American football is rough, though I suppose normal football is basically the same as targeted running/sprinting.
        hacst 11y ago
pdpi 11y ago
> The plight lies with those who aren't among the top 1% in their already elite field who are subject to the same amount of physical and mental stress and grueling 12 hour practices while making welfare wages That's also no different from other pro sports.
- throwaway9324 11y ago
  It's plenty of different from other pro sports. The "pro" part largely means getting paid more than it takes to sustain the activity. With some exceptions like pro boxing which isn't exactly a poster boy for ethical practices.
  - culturestate 11y ago
    It's not as different as you think. Base salary in minor league baseball, for instance, is ~US$1500 per month, and they only get paid during the season. That obviously changes with service time -- and any service in the majors bumps it up disproportionately -- but guys who toil for 5 or 10 years in the minors without making it to the big club aren't getting rich.
    - throwaway9324 11y ago
      This is kind of an exception though when it comes to popular team sports and far as I know E-sport is still far from even those relatively bad pay and terms.
      - majormajor 11y ago
        Not really. NBA D-League and minor league hockey salaries aren't exactly anything to write home about either. And then there's football, where the "minor leagues" are 3 years unpaid in college, where you not only have to batter your body without getting paid, you also have to keep up academic performance at the same time (wouldn't it make more sense to make some money playing football trying to get to the NFL, and then if you don't make it, having that money to get an education if desired on your own schedule, without having to do both at once?). I often wonder if this, or the similar Hollywood model, is where Silicon Valley will eventually end up. The model is already quite similar, the money at the bottom just hasn't been squeezed out the same way yet. But there is pressure on first time founders who raise funding to pay themselves the minimum at first "to keep them focused," and the same applies to early employee equity stakes. We even have the tech-scene focused gossip/hero-worship of the Hollywood or pro sports scenes down pat!
EC1 11y ago
I spent four years of my life dedicated to StarCraft. I made GM several seasons on NA ladder. I made GM on Korean ladder for one season. I played many top tier players, and I beat them. Repeatedly. Then I decided to invest in flying myself down to Dreamhack. All the people I played online and beat about 50% of the time and made connections with, I lost to every single time. There's many like me, top tier players but who can't win a cent. The disparity in skill from bottom of the Grandmaster ladder to top 100, from 100 to top 50, then top 10, and finally top 5, is massive. Stopped gaming altogether around that time.
- spiritplumber 11y ago
  That's really interesting, could you do an AMA?
  - EC1 11y ago
    Where? Here? Reddit? Haha, probably pointless as nobody has ever really heard of me. There's dozens of players like me, dozens! Ask whatever you want.
    - hellbanner 11y ago
      I'm curious how you saw the metagame evolve -- did top players invest in a character or team only to find that they were weaker to an evolved metagame?
      - EC1 11y ago
        Player by player basis. Each one plays differently. It was moreso seeing a bracket, who signed up, then pulling up replays of how they played and reading about them. I made a lot of notes on specific players styles, their timings, unit composition etc. Different strategy for each player + map. What surprised me was when I went to the tournament, a lot of players had different play styles than what I've studied, which ultimately ruined me. I'm the guy you're describing. Behind on the meta game. I went for the long game every single time, as safe as possible, so I lost to a lot of early cheese that I didn't even know was possible. Some Korean gave me a 3 stalker push at like the 5:30 or earlier(can't remember). I just sat there wondering to my self "fucking... how?" That moment really stuck with me. You play thousands of games in the top leagues and people still surprise you.
deleted 11y ago
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- deleted 11y ago
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JonoBB 11y ago
Lest anyone thinks that this is not big business, the largest prize pool in gaming is the Dota International (held once a year). It's currently sitting at > $12m (split between 5 players on a team, their manager, and who knows who else). It will probably rise to over $15m by the time the tournament is on. Of interest is that the prize pool comes from the "normal" players playing the game - you buy in game items, and 25% of the revenue from that goes to the prize pool for the tournament. The items themselves are completely optional and cosmetic only. And, of course, valve takes the other 75%.
- jamornh 11y ago
  > And, of course, valve takes the other 75%. Not disagreeing, but they probably use a large portion of that money to actually pay for the organization, venue, designs of the compendium, the staffs, and everything else involved with the International. All that can't be cheap so I'm not sure which portion of that 75% is valve's profit. Does anybody have any ideas?
  - plorkyeran 11y ago
    I don't think it's really meaningful to look at it like that. The tournament isn't funded specifically by sales of the items which contribute to the prize pool; it's just a general marketing expense to increase the number of players. Even if everyone decided to boycott compendiums for some reason, the whole thing could be a net profit if they spent the same amount of money in the dota store on other things (actually, it'd be more profitable...).
- vicwhiten 11y ago
  The winning team doesn't take the entire 12 million, thats the prizepool for the entire tournament. However its still a lot of money. If you qualified for the LAN finals you're getting a piece of that. If you look at http://www.esportsearnings.com/players http://www.esportsearnings.com/players, the top 5 players were the 5 players on team Newbee, the International 4 champions from last year. They each made over 1 million dollars from that one tournament.

dylanjermiah 11y ago

>"who are subject to the same amount of physical and mental stress and grueling 12 hour practices while making welfare wages. " They aren't subject to anything. They choose.

iLoch 11y ago
Yeah, doesn't this describe the pursuit of at least half the people on HN?
panorama 11y ago
While true, it's not adults getting into pro-gaming, it's usually teenagers. Kids who would rather play Starcraft than study, and, despite being very good, lack the foresight of knowing what kind of hole they're digging themselves into.
- dylanjermiah 11y ago
  I agree, in my opinion there are more productive and 'healthy' uses of ones time. But, my opinion doesn't mean anything. Forcing/coercing kids into doing what you think is best for them is not productive either.
  - bad_user 11y ago
    Making choices for children, who are otherwise too immature, is the whole point of parenting. Of course, you can "coerce" them, or you can "guide" them, but then we are talking about different means for the same end goal. And then we can talk about parents that are too busy or uninterested to give a fuck and it's precisely in such families that you see children being allowed to play computer games for hours on end. I don't really get the line on "forcing/coercing" children. If your child would end up a drug addict, would you just let her be? Why is it any different with computer gaming addiction?
    - dylanjermiah 11y ago
      My comment was not from the perspective of a parent.
      - gbog 11y ago
        Would it be so different with a good friend? If there if someone you are attached to, and if this someone is heading full steam toward a cliff or a dead end, you'll tell them, no? Or do whatever you can to help them. Or maybe you believe that anything about other people is not your concern in any respect? Parenting is not an exception, it is not a different world where values change. It is just the same world, with people caring or not for others, with some responsibility and affection. It's just a bit more acute and produce good counter examples to those believing one should not care about others. My third kid was born yesterday. I'm still getting drunk with friends once a week, I do my hobbies in the evening (programming, pictures, music), I spend very good moments with the kids, I let them grow and make sure they have plenty of different thing for their curiosity, gosh I even played gta with my 5yo boy, but I certainly would never encourage any of them to try to become a professional sport player, or e-sport. Or model. Or musician. The odds of having an happy life in these domains is infinitesimal.
        JoeAltmaier 11y ago
        Happy? Maybe the wrong word choice. Certainly folks can be happy doing these things. Maybe happier than any other job. They probably cannot be wealthy doing those things.
- ghostDancer 11y ago
  I can show you a lot of teenagers doing the same but playing football(soccer), less hours at least, and even pushed by their parents with the hope that some of them will be the next Messi, Xavi or Ronaldo.
  - zo1 11y ago
    Exactly, and because it's part of the "normal culture", then no-one bats an eye (I exaggerate a bit there). If we were to look at football and basketball sports' effect on children, and how pervasive and time-consuming it is to normal teens/young-adults the same way we do when it comes to "e-sports", then we'd be positively disgusted (a bit of extrapolation there).
    - kendallpark 11y ago
      I think there is a difference in that sports like football and basketball are more limited by the body's abilities to perform. A natural mechanism for moderation. You don't have gaming binges where someone plays football for 18 hours straight without sleeping. But this happens all the time with gaming. Furthermore, most traditional sports also improve one's physiological health. This is not the case for e-sports where one is simply sitting in a chair all day. I can understand why a parent would be more concerned about their kid that doesn't leave his computer than their kid that plays three sports a year. But in both e-sports and traditional sports you have the risk of sacrificing too much for the sake of the game. I have known many athletes in both camps that have done this.
      - MichaelGG 11y ago
        Is it true that competitive sports are actually physically healthy? I'm probably just over valuing notable cases, but even things like ballet tear up feet pretty badly. And tennis is known for injuries, isn't it? American football is rough, though I suppose normal football is basically the same as targeted running/sprinting.
        hacst 11y ago

pdpi 11y ago

> The plight lies with those who aren't among the top 1% in their already elite field who are subject to the same amount of physical and mental stress and grueling 12 hour practices while making welfare wages That's also no different from other pro sports.

throwaway9324 11y ago
It's plenty of different from other pro sports. The "pro" part largely means getting paid more than it takes to sustain the activity. With some exceptions like pro boxing which isn't exactly a poster boy for ethical practices.
- culturestate 11y ago
  It's not as different as you think. Base salary in minor league baseball, for instance, is ~US$1500 per month, and they only get paid during the season. That obviously changes with service time -- and any service in the majors bumps it up disproportionately -- but guys who toil for 5 or 10 years in the minors without making it to the big club aren't getting rich.
  - throwaway9324 11y ago
    This is kind of an exception though when it comes to popular team sports and far as I know E-sport is still far from even those relatively bad pay and terms.
    - majormajor 11y ago
      Not really. NBA D-League and minor league hockey salaries aren't exactly anything to write home about either. And then there's football, where the "minor leagues" are 3 years unpaid in college, where you not only have to batter your body without getting paid, you also have to keep up academic performance at the same time (wouldn't it make more sense to make some money playing football trying to get to the NFL, and then if you don't make it, having that money to get an education if desired on your own schedule, without having to do both at once?). I often wonder if this, or the similar Hollywood model, is where Silicon Valley will eventually end up. The model is already quite similar, the money at the bottom just hasn't been squeezed out the same way yet. But there is pressure on first time founders who raise funding to pay themselves the minimum at first "to keep them focused," and the same applies to early employee equity stakes. We even have the tech-scene focused gossip/hero-worship of the Hollywood or pro sports scenes down pat!

EC1 11y ago

I spent four years of my life dedicated to StarCraft. I made GM several seasons on NA ladder. I made GM on Korean ladder for one season. I played many top tier players, and I beat them. Repeatedly. Then I decided to invest in flying myself down to Dreamhack. All the people I played online and beat about 50% of the time and made connections with, I lost to every single time. There's many like me, top tier players but who can't win a cent. The disparity in skill from bottom of the Grandmaster ladder to top 100, from 100 to top 50, then top 10, and finally top 5, is massive. Stopped gaming altogether around that time.

spiritplumber 11y ago
That's really interesting, could you do an AMA?
- EC1 11y ago
  Where? Here? Reddit? Haha, probably pointless as nobody has ever really heard of me. There's dozens of players like me, dozens! Ask whatever you want.
  - hellbanner 11y ago
    I'm curious how you saw the metagame evolve -- did top players invest in a character or team only to find that they were weaker to an evolved metagame?
    - EC1 11y ago
      Player by player basis. Each one plays differently. It was moreso seeing a bracket, who signed up, then pulling up replays of how they played and reading about them. I made a lot of notes on specific players styles, their timings, unit composition etc. Different strategy for each player + map. What surprised me was when I went to the tournament, a lot of players had different play styles than what I've studied, which ultimately ruined me. I'm the guy you're describing. Behind on the meta game. I went for the long game every single time, as safe as possible, so I lost to a lot of early cheese that I didn't even know was possible. Some Korean gave me a 3 stalker push at like the 5:30 or earlier(can't remember). I just sat there wondering to my self "fucking... how?" That moment really stuck with me. You play thousands of games in the top leagues and people still surprise you.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

JonoBB 11y ago

Lest anyone thinks that this is not big business, the largest prize pool in gaming is the Dota International (held once a year). It's currently sitting at > $12m (split between 5 players on a team, their manager, and who knows who else). It will probably rise to over $15m by the time the tournament is on. Of interest is that the prize pool comes from the "normal" players playing the game - you buy in game items, and 25% of the revenue from that goes to the prize pool for the tournament. The items themselves are completely optional and cosmetic only. And, of course, valve takes the other 75%.

jamornh 11y ago
> And, of course, valve takes the other 75%. Not disagreeing, but they probably use a large portion of that money to actually pay for the organization, venue, designs of the compendium, the staffs, and everything else involved with the International. All that can't be cheap so I'm not sure which portion of that 75% is valve's profit. Does anybody have any ideas?
- plorkyeran 11y ago
  I don't think it's really meaningful to look at it like that. The tournament isn't funded specifically by sales of the items which contribute to the prize pool; it's just a general marketing expense to increase the number of players. Even if everyone decided to boycott compendiums for some reason, the whole thing could be a net profit if they spent the same amount of money in the dota store on other things (actually, it'd be more profitable...).
vicwhiten 11y ago
The winning team doesn't take the entire 12 million, thats the prizepool for the entire tournament. However its still a lot of money. If you qualified for the LAN finals you're getting a piece of that. If you look at http://www.esportsearnings.com/players http://www.esportsearnings.com/players, the top 5 players were the 5 players on team Newbee, the International 4 champions from last year. They each made over 1 million dollars from that one tournament.