Thursday, July 26, 2012

Thought: Professional LoL

It's an idle fancy of mine, and many others, to make a living off playing LoL professionally. As wonderful as the idea of it is, in reality very few people can pull it off. Trying to land that "job" these days is a uphill battle more difficult than a college education.

The first problem is the "early bird" advantage, being among the first to do something is extremely advantageous. The vast majority of current LoL pros played in the beta, or have competed in tournaments since the game was first released. It's much easier to establish yourself when there's essentially no competition. If you're looking to become a popular streamer/pro now, you have huge barriers to overcome that didn't exist two years ago.

The next problem is the amount of effort required to "break out". To really attract a slew of players you must be streaming consistently (unlike someone we know), get good enough at the game to surpass 2k+ Elo (with each 100 Elo thereafter being critically important to attracting new viewers), and have enough of a personality to be interesting. This effort must be sustained over months and months before any payoff is seen, and the reward may never materialize.

Finally, popularity itself can be fleeting. Even if you stay relevant for a long time through tournament victories and the like, eventually you will grow older and not have the reflexes/wherewithal/time to keep up. It's very likely that you'll need industry connections and/or education in order to secure a living later on.

At the end of the day becoming a professional player and making a decent living are things only a very small number of people will be able to do. Before attempting it, consider whether or not you really have what it takes to be more dedicated, more skilled, and more interesting than 99.9% of all LoL players.

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