Seth Killian was one of the first Street Fighter players to make a name for himself. After he stopped competing, he was hired at Capcom to help develop Street F

Seth Killian was one of the first Street Fighter players to make a name for himself. After he stopped competing, he was hired at Capcom to help develop Street Fighter 4 (The boss character, Seth, is named after Killian), and is now working with Radiant Entertainment to release Rising Thunder, a game that's currently in alpha. Peter 'Combofiend' Rosas was a professional fighting game player who competed at a high level in both Street Fighter and Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (and possibly others that I'm forgetting). A few years ago, he was hired by Capcom to work as a community liason, and he's apparently had some pretty significant input into the balance decisions in Ultra SF4 and the upcoming SF5. In addition, there's always the commentating, coaching/management, or switching to another game that you mentioned. edit: A large number of players supplement their income by streaming; people can subscribe to the player's channel on twitch for a monthly fee, and players get a cut of that.