Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with text Stuff from dot Com.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland,
Speaker 1: and today I'm going to bring you a classic episode
Speaker 1: of tech Stuff about professional video gamers. And the reason
Speaker 1: I'm doing this is because actually the stories evolved quite
Speaker 1: a bit since Chris Plett and I originally recorded this episode. UH.
Speaker 1: E sports have become a huge business, whether it's from
Speaker 1: Twitch streams where people are making money because of subscribers
Speaker 1: to their program and they've got sponsorships, or if you're
Speaker 1: talking about gaming tournaments that have actual prizes attached to them.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of money to be made playing video
Speaker 1: games if you're good enough. According to the website e
Speaker 1: Sports Earnings, UH, how Chen tops the list of highest earners.
Speaker 1: This is based off of information that is found on
Speaker 1: the Internet, so it's quite possible that there are other
Speaker 1: sources that this site is not familiar with. However, they
Speaker 1: say that Chen has made nearly one point two million
Speaker 1: dollars and earnings from playing video games professionally, with the
Speaker 1: game that has made the lions share of that being
Speaker 1: Doda too. And that's really kind of why I wanted
Speaker 1: to do this rerun is first to talk about how
Speaker 1: things have changed, and one of the things that have
Speaker 1: changed is this emergence of games that are in the
Speaker 1: mobile category, and mobile stands for a multiplayer online battle arena.
Speaker 1: This is a relatively new type of genre. It's kind
Speaker 1: of a subgenre of real time strategies, but it has
Speaker 1: its own sort of quirks. So back in the day,
Speaker 1: E sports was all about really two main genres real
Speaker 1: real time strategy games or RTS games or first person
Speaker 1: shooter games or FPS. Mobile is now a real contender
Speaker 1: with those. UH. It involves teams playing against each other,
Speaker 1: so you have teammates, but each player controls a single
Speaker 1: character rather than a collection of units. So in a
Speaker 1: game like Warcraft or StarCraft, you know you're managing lots
Speaker 1: of units and you're commanding them to move and attack
Speaker 1: and engage with other units throughout the game, and this
Speaker 1: one you're playing a single character. So winning strategies rely
Speaker 1: on lots of different factors, including a familiarity with the
Speaker 1: arena layout, which is incredibly important. You need to really
Speaker 1: be familiar with all the different areas. UH. You also
Speaker 1: need a balanced team that plays to each player's strengths.
Speaker 1: While simultaneously providing a good mixture of skills and abilities.
Speaker 1: So not only do you have to be really good
Speaker 1: at working with your teammates, your character's abilities need to
Speaker 1: compliment at those teammates abilities. Uh, if you have a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of brutes just rushing in and you don't
Speaker 1: have anything that could heal any damage, you might find
Speaker 1: yourself on the losing end of a game, Whereas if
Speaker 1: you have a really well balanced team that works well together,
Speaker 1: you might find it you know that you're just rolling
Speaker 1: straight through the competition. Teams will often use their own
Speaker 1: terms in the game to communicate without giving their their
Speaker 1: plans away to opposition, So you hear a lot of
Speaker 1: folks kind of develop their own code names for different
Speaker 1: areas of the arena or different strategies. Um, it's not
Speaker 1: always the case, but it's it's fairly frequent, especially if
Speaker 1: you're playing in a tournament where the various teams are
Speaker 1: essentially with an earshot of each other. You know, if
Speaker 1: it's not across an arena and there right next to
Speaker 1: each other, then you don't necessarily want the opposing team
Speaker 1: to know, Hey, we're all going to concentrate on this
Speaker 1: one part of the map. Some of the popular games
Speaker 1: the mobile genre include Dota two, League of Legends, and Smite,
Speaker 1: So I'll really have to do a full episode about
Speaker 1: mobi's sometime in the future. And I know people who
Speaker 1: work on Smite in different areas, uh and some of
Speaker 1: them are doing voice work for Smite, some of them
Speaker 1: are working on the marketing for for tournaments. So I
Speaker 1: could probably pull one or two of them on for
Speaker 1: an episode of tech Stuff and really talk about mobile's
Speaker 1: in general and Smite in particular. But today I really
Speaker 1: wanted to take a look back on that classic episode
Speaker 1: of tech Stuff where Chris and I talked about what
Speaker 1: it takes to become a professional gamer, and as it
Speaker 1: turns out, it's not all fun and games. It's all
Speaker 1: about the game and how you play it, all about
Speaker 1: control and if you can take it, all about your
Speaker 1: debt and if you can pay it. It's all about
Speaker 1: the pain and who's gonna make it. I am the game.
Speaker 1: You don't want to play me? Nice? Thank you. I'm
Speaker 1: sure you don't recognize that, and I'll tell you where
Speaker 1: it's from later, but I will say that I'm sure
Speaker 1: our long term listeners who know our propensity for quoting
Speaker 1: certain movies about video games. Probably are very happy that
Speaker 1: you found a quote that had nothing to do with
Speaker 1: certain movies, had nothing to do with war games or
Speaker 1: drown or fighting for the users. Today, however, we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about professional gamers. That's one topic that people
Speaker 1: have asked us to mention many times. In the past.
Speaker 1: We have talked about similar topics, though. Yeah, we talked
Speaker 1: about video game testers, the play testers who as a
Speaker 1: profession actually work with video game companies to test out
Speaker 1: video games in order to make sure that they are
Speaker 1: playable and they don't have any bugs. If you want
Speaker 1: to hear more about that, we have a podcast about
Speaker 1: and we also have an article on how Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot Com about how video game testers work. But in
Speaker 1: this case, we're talking about a different kind of professional gamer,
Speaker 1: not someone who's testing out a product that's still in
Speaker 1: the development stage, but people who actually play games for
Speaker 1: a living. Yes, and you would imagine that, uh, anything
Speaker 1: where you don't have to sit at a desk and
Speaker 1: actually do typical work, um would be a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: But I think and and for video game testing, we
Speaker 1: talked about that it's not necessarily you know, hey, I
Speaker 1: get to play games all day. This is a lot
Speaker 1: closer to that. But it's not necessarily fun either. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of work involved in this. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: for video game testing, it's all about, you know, checking
Speaker 1: every square inch of a map to make sure there
Speaker 1: aren't any spots that you would excellently pass through and
Speaker 1: you know, and that players would discover could that could
Speaker 1: be an exploit or it could just be a bug
Speaker 1: that makes the game unplayable. It's not necessarily fun, uh now,
Speaker 1: professional gamers, and also there's an element of fun to it.
Speaker 1: There's an element of of competition obviously, but it's also
Speaker 1: a lot of work in the sense that you have
Speaker 1: to really put in a lot of time to get
Speaker 1: really really good at certain types of games if you
Speaker 1: want to compete on a professional level. Yeah, I did
Speaker 1: some reading on this, since you know, I'm not a
Speaker 1: professional gamer. Um, since most of these games you know
Speaker 1: aren't aren't you know Tetris? Kidding? I do play other
Speaker 1: games besides Tetris, but I don't play a lot of
Speaker 1: the types of video games because I'm not really a
Speaker 1: first person shooter kind of guy. I mean, I've played
Speaker 1: them in their fun, but it's not the thing I
Speaker 1: tend to do. I I tend to prefer strategy games. Um,
Speaker 1: there are some real time strategy was tournaments. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: was gonna say, don't pause the podcast and write to
Speaker 1: me and tell me that that's not the case. So
Speaker 1: I'm where StarCraft is a way up there. Oh yes,
Speaker 1: yes it is, um, but yeah, I mean for the
Speaker 1: most part, and and things like Civilization, so there's not
Speaker 1: they're not really tournaments for this, but yeah. The people
Speaker 1: who are are professional video gamers are really a very
Speaker 1: specific sort of breed there. They tend to be young people, um,
Speaker 1: and they tend to be people who are uh for
Speaker 1: a couple of reasons, but they also tend to be
Speaker 1: people who are really into uh techy and and uh
Speaker 1: scholarly pursuits. I would say there are a lot of
Speaker 1: people who are students, who are serious students who are
Speaker 1: really into video games, and there are a lot of
Speaker 1: this level. There are a lot of people who actually
Speaker 1: have a pretty good amount of discretionary income as well,
Speaker 1: because in order to be a pro gamer, you usually
Speaker 1: have to have a pretty decent gaming rig so that
Speaker 1: you can play a game at its at its best settings.
Speaker 1: Because here's the thing, about um, about a tournament. So
Speaker 1: let's say that you are used to playing a video game.
Speaker 1: Let's just argue for argument sake, let's pick one. Let's
Speaker 1: call it. Let's do Quake, because that's a really popular
Speaker 1: one in tournaments, all right, first person shooter game. So yeah,
Speaker 1: you've got a first person shooting game. You've got Quake,
Speaker 1: which you can play in competitive play one on one
Speaker 1: against other people. Um, and so you've got this, Uh,
Speaker 1: you've got Quake and you're you're pretty good it. But
Speaker 1: you have, you know, just a decent machine. So what
Speaker 1: you've done is you've turned the polygon count down and
Speaker 1: you know, you've turned off some of the effects so
Speaker 1: that the game runs more smoothly on your computer. And
Speaker 1: you've got you know, a decent mouse and a decent keyboard,
Speaker 1: and um see, you know you're good. Well pro gamer
Speaker 1: is going to be running that on a really fast
Speaker 1: machine with a really nice mouse and keyboard set up,
Speaker 1: maybe one that's almost customized for that gamer. Some of
Speaker 1: them actually do have custom units where they'll they'll play
Speaker 1: these games, and that can give them the edge they
Speaker 1: need in order to play at a professional level where
Speaker 1: you know, pretty good just doesn't cut it pretty good
Speaker 1: means you're out in the first round. You have to
Speaker 1: be astonishingly good. And one of the reasons you need
Speaker 1: to have a really good gaming rig is that you
Speaker 1: have to be used to playing at that setting, because
Speaker 1: if you're playing in a tournament, most tournaments, they're gonna
Speaker 1: want those settings cranked up. And the reason they want
Speaker 1: those settings cranked up is because it looks better. If
Speaker 1: you're promoting a tournament, if you are trying to get sponsorships,
Speaker 1: you want those games to look as good as they
Speaker 1: possibly can. So you don't want to have the polygon
Speaker 1: count turned down. You know, even if it makes the
Speaker 1: game smoother, You would prefer to beef up all the
Speaker 1: computers in the system rather than to have the graphics
Speaker 1: suffer because you don't want the cameras to pick up
Speaker 1: some sort of low polygon count video game because it
Speaker 1: makes it look more amateurish. Right, So you know, you
Speaker 1: need to have that that money just so that you
Speaker 1: have a gaming rig. And a lot of the professional
Speaker 1: gaming leagues and tournaments focus on PC gaming. Console gaming
Speaker 1: is also present, but it's not as big a market
Speaker 1: as PC gaming is in the tournament's realm, so you
Speaker 1: need the discretionary income for your rig, but you also
Speaker 1: need it because you need to be able to make
Speaker 1: travel arrangements. Because the way professional gamers, most professional gamers,
Speaker 1: I should add, make money is that they go and
Speaker 1: they play in tournaments. And if you want to make money,
Speaker 1: you know, only just play in tournaments. You gotta win tournaments.
Speaker 1: And those tournaments may not be just down the street
Speaker 1: from your house. They may be in another city, They
Speaker 1: may be in another country, and you will have to
Speaker 1: travel there. You might first have to travel to a
Speaker 1: preliminary event so that you can qualify to go onto
Speaker 1: the next round, which might be in a different country.
Speaker 1: So you're talking about a profession where you already have
Speaker 1: to have a certain amount of money in order to
Speaker 1: really to really compete at a at the top level. Um,
Speaker 1: and there are various pathways to get there. If you
Speaker 1: are not, you might be saying, well, why so you're
Speaker 1: centually telling me that professional gaming is for the independently
Speaker 1: wealthy and really it's just a way to waste time.
Speaker 1: Not not quite. There are ways of getting there, but
Speaker 1: we'll get into that. Yeah, it's um, I was trying
Speaker 1: to find a way to say this, but I think
Speaker 1: the best way to say it is a lot of
Speaker 1: people who are professional gamers, um fit into a stereotype
Speaker 1: for gamers because of the things you mentioned that discretionary income, um,
Speaker 1: and because also there are a lot of people are
Speaker 1: are younger. So there are people who are living in
Speaker 1: their parents basement because they don't have to pay you know,
Speaker 1: not because they are they're fitting into a stereotype, but
Speaker 1: actually they're probably fueling it. But the thing is, um,
Speaker 1: you know, they don't they don't have to worry about
Speaker 1: paying rent. They are you know, hanging out there. They
Speaker 1: probably have a job or you know, for the younger kids,
Speaker 1: you know, they're going to school and have a job
Speaker 1: to to help pay for these things. And um. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think that's part of why there there
Speaker 1: is that stereotype. But it's not it's a result of
Speaker 1: like I said, I think this behavior fuels that stereotype
Speaker 1: rather than them being us making the stereotype right right,
Speaker 1: It's just because a lot of the people One of
Speaker 1: the reasons that young people are such common competitors in
Speaker 1: these tournaments is that, um, you have to have really
Speaker 1: good reflexes, yeah, really good hand eye coordination and reflexes.
Speaker 1: I read some interviews with pro gamers and um, I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, a certain point, your visual acuity, your you know,
Speaker 1: your dextery sorts to to drop off, and you really
Speaker 1: don't see people over thirty, which of course rules me
Speaker 1: way out. Um, but yeah, I mean that's so that's
Speaker 1: why you see a lot of kids and you know,
Speaker 1: younger twentysomethings in these tournaments. So generally these are people
Speaker 1: who are not necessarily established already, or if they're established,
Speaker 1: they're tenuously established. And and and here's the thing about being
Speaker 1: a professional gamer is that, yeah, you can in theory,
Speaker 1: make some big money if you are really really good
Speaker 1: and you win some tournaments. For example, one of the
Speaker 1: one of the go to references, one of the ones
Speaker 1: most probably one of the most famous professional gamers in
Speaker 1: the Western hemisphere anyway, is uh is Jonathan Wendel, also
Speaker 1: known as Fatality. Yeah. Uh, and that the the eye
Speaker 1: and Fatality is the number one. Uh, he's solite. Yes,
Speaker 1: he actually won a tournament where the the grand prize
Speaker 1: was a hundred and fifty thous and dollars well for
Speaker 1: that year, that means he won grand on top of
Speaker 1: whatever else he might have earned in other tournaments or
Speaker 1: other other ventures, but there's no guarantee that that's gonna
Speaker 1: repeat the next year. So, you know, in order to
Speaker 1: in order to be a professional game or you may
Speaker 1: not be able to have a sustainable career in the
Speaker 1: sense of you don't know that next year you're gonna
Speaker 1: make that same amount of money, or even any money
Speaker 1: at all. It may turn out that, you know, you
Speaker 1: just have a bad day at the tournament, or or
Speaker 1: it may be that the next crop of players are
Speaker 1: just that much better. It may be that the tournament
Speaker 1: switches games. That's something that we really need to focus on,
Speaker 1: because think about this. When you are a professional athlete,
Speaker 1: all right, the rules for your sport rarely change in
Speaker 1: a huge way. They normally change in tiny ways, and
Speaker 1: even then you will hear players really complain. I remember
Speaker 1: back in the Olympics that there was some discussion about
Speaker 1: the soccer balls being used in the soccer games because
Speaker 1: they were slightly different from a standard that have been
Speaker 1: used previously. And I mean that sort of thing is
Speaker 1: a big deal because that tiny, little change can affect
Speaker 1: how well an athlete at that level can perform. But
Speaker 1: think about that, you know, like, that's the tiniest change.
Speaker 1: But if you're a professional gamer, the changes may be monumental.
Speaker 1: It may be that one year they're doing Quake and
Speaker 1: the next year they've switched to Counterstrike. Those are two
Speaker 1: totally different games with different physics, different there's different frame rates,
Speaker 1: there's different you're gonna have a different experience. You know,
Speaker 1: you're gonna move at a different speed, the weapons behave
Speaker 1: in a totally different way. Plus, you know, it may
Speaker 1: be that one game is a one on one style
Speaker 1: game and the other game is a team based game,
Speaker 1: which then affects not just the physics, but truly the strategy.
Speaker 1: You have to learn new maps, you have to you know,
Speaker 1: be able to really adapt to it. So professional gamers
Speaker 1: may have some pretty big hurdles from one year to
Speaker 1: the next, which means that it is really hard to
Speaker 1: say that you're going to make a decent amount of
Speaker 1: money year over year. Now you could do what Fatality did.
Speaker 1: He was really really smart. He ended up making his
Speaker 1: own brand, and he ended up partnering with uh various
Speaker 1: component manufacturers, things like video game graphics, cards, and gaming gear.
Speaker 1: And because of that he's able to make money through
Speaker 1: those means. Not just as a professional gamer, but through
Speaker 1: these licenses. So that's one way to continue to earn money.
Speaker 1: Even if you were to have, say an off year
Speaker 1: in the tournaments, you would still have this other source
Speaker 1: of revenue. It's also smart to do if you are,
Speaker 1: you know, creeping up on that age thirty and who
Speaker 1: knows when your your reflexes will start to just give
Speaker 1: a little bit, because remember again, at this level, the
Speaker 1: tiniest detriment can mean the difference between losing and winning.
Speaker 1: Reflexes a lonely child all in the reflexes. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there are there are other things too. Um
Speaker 1: you were mentioning that that StarCraft is huge, It is
Speaker 1: monumentally huge. In Korea. Yes, South Korea, professional gaming is
Speaker 1: actually viewed on a level that is probably approximately the
Speaker 1: same level as most professional athletes. Now that's most that's
Speaker 1: pretty unusual. I mean most other countries, that's just not
Speaker 1: the case. China is a little bit like that, but
Speaker 1: not to the level that South Korea is at. And
Speaker 1: in the United States, you know, there's an underground professional
Speaker 1: gamer uh culture, but it's it has never reached mainstream
Speaker 1: acceptance like it has in South Korean. South Korea, they
Speaker 1: will televise tournaments and on major networks and you you
Speaker 1: can tune in and watch as players play against each other.
Speaker 1: And there are events that they hold have thousands of
Speaker 1: spectators who will come in and watch the gamers play.
Speaker 1: In the United States, it's mostly gamers and other games
Speaker 1: who attend these things with you know, friends and family
Speaker 1: that spill out beyond that, and then a few fans,
Speaker 1: but only a few compared to what you would find
Speaker 1: in South Korea. So there's there's that difficulty too. Is
Speaker 1: just the fact that video games don't have the same
Speaker 1: kind of level of uh, fascination and respect in the
Speaker 1: United States as they do in South Korea. Right right, Well,
Speaker 1: I was I was reading an interview with Greg Fields,
Speaker 1: who I'm really not sure how I would pronounce his handle.
Speaker 1: I gotta put my glasses on capital I I'd say Idra, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I d R capital A. He's a he's a StarCraft
Speaker 1: gamer and he's spent a lot of time in Korea
Speaker 1: and they were talking about, uh they asked him about
Speaker 1: StarCraft and why he chose StarCraft, and uh, not only
Speaker 1: is he StarCraft gamer, that's you know, his game of choice,
Speaker 1: but he also specializes on one particular faction, and he
Speaker 1: was he was talking about you were you were mentioning
Speaker 1: what happens at the tournament changes games. Well right now, Well,
Speaker 1: at the time of the interview, he was saying that
Speaker 1: Blizzard had made his faction of choice UM sort of underpowered.
Speaker 1: I believe it was Zerg that he preferred UM and
Speaker 1: Terence were stronger, and he hoped that they would patch that,
Speaker 1: and they said, well, why don't you just switch to
Speaker 1: Terrence or something else, Like, well, if I do that,
Speaker 1: I'm going to have to learn their strengths. And you know,
Speaker 1: once Blizzard fixes this, as I think they will, then
Speaker 1: I'm going to be I'm going to have to go
Speaker 1: back to my old faction. And you know, I would
Speaker 1: have spent a lot of time preparing for a faction,
Speaker 1: and I really don't want to be playing until they
Speaker 1: patch this one. So I'm just gonna hang in there.
Speaker 1: And yeah, the little subtle changes to the games even, yeah,
Speaker 1: it can make huge difference. Yeah, professional gamers, you gotta
Speaker 1: keep in mind a lot of these guys spend hours
Speaker 1: each day playing games, playing against other people, seeking out
Speaker 1: people who are, you know, at least ranked better than
Speaker 1: they are in order to learn new strategies and to
Speaker 1: test their own skills and make sure that the things
Speaker 1: that they're doing actually work in a game setting. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, they're they're treating it like you would a
Speaker 1: professional sport. You know, it's not necessarily that they're playing
Speaker 1: for fun. They're playing to win, in order to win tournaments.
Speaker 1: And that might sound like fun to you, but it
Speaker 1: really is a very competitive and very high stress kind
Speaker 1: of thing to do, because you know, once you get
Speaker 1: to that level, once you get into the tournament, you
Speaker 1: know you pretty much have the one choice, one one chance,
Speaker 1: rather to to beat out all the other competitors, and
Speaker 1: there may be thousands of them. Now granted, you know
Speaker 1: you might beat them out by proxy, like someone else
Speaker 1: beats uh me and I'm out of the tournament, and
Speaker 1: then later on you managed to beat the guy who
Speaker 1: beat me, and that means that, you know, by extension,
Speaker 1: you beat me as well. You're very mean, both of you. Um,
Speaker 1: But but still you have to be good enough to
Speaker 1: get through all those multiple levels. And you gotta remember
Speaker 1: every single other person out there is thinking that he
Speaker 1: or she is just as good as you are, or better,
Speaker 1: or else they wouldn't be there, um, especially you know
Speaker 1: if they had to travel quite a distance for that tournament. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of them do have that. I was reading
Speaker 1: interviews with they do have quite a bit of swagger
Speaker 1: going on. I gotta say, oh, yeah, no, there's some
Speaker 1: there's some trash talking that that really is on the
Speaker 1: level of of of beauty and art truly between these
Speaker 1: guys um and and ladies. We should also mention there's
Speaker 1: another way of making money by being a professional gamer
Speaker 1: besides tournaments and uh and and sponsorships. Um, you could
Speaker 1: become an official Well it's kind of a sponsorship. There's
Speaker 1: a there's a professional gaming group called the frag Dolls.
Speaker 1: They are sponsored by Ubisoft and frag Dolls are it's
Speaker 1: this group of ladies who are all very very strong
Speaker 1: video game players, and they will enter tournaments as a
Speaker 1: team or as as a member of the frag Dolls
Speaker 1: and they represent ubi Soft. They're they're also there to
Speaker 1: represent the female gamer demographic and also just to kind
Speaker 1: of be another voice in in the whole video game industry.
Speaker 1: So they're kind of like spokespeople as well as professional gamers,
Speaker 1: but they're getting paid specifically by a company to do
Speaker 1: this sort of stuff, so it's a little different from
Speaker 1: the people who either join as a lone wolf in
Speaker 1: a tournament, or what's more common is that you'll see
Speaker 1: teams or clans of gamers joined tournaments. So you might
Speaker 1: have a clan of of gamers who are all you
Speaker 1: know of the professional level joined the tournament together and
Speaker 1: uh and either play and team based games or they
Speaker 1: may be playing one on one, but you know they're
Speaker 1: all you know. By by having a group of them there,
Speaker 1: they have a more likelihood of winning the big prize
Speaker 1: as a clan um. And to join a clan, you
Speaker 1: pretty much have to already show that you are a
Speaker 1: really good gamer, and then you essentially get uh. You
Speaker 1: gotta get lucky. You gotta have someone from that clan say, hey,
Speaker 1: you know there's this guy's an upcoming. He's showing promise. Um,
Speaker 1: I think you'd be a good addition to our team.
Speaker 1: And then you know, each team has its own way
Speaker 1: of determining whether or not they want to bring someone
Speaker 1: else new in. But then you might be able to
Speaker 1: join a clan. And the nice thing about clans is
Speaker 1: that they can sometimes get sponsorships as a group and
Speaker 1: sponsorships can sometimes help pay for things or at least
Speaker 1: offset costs like travel costs and lodging and all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. So it's one way that players can
Speaker 1: pursue a professional gaming career without putting as much a
Speaker 1: personal investment into it as as they would otherwise. It's
Speaker 1: still not easy, but it's possible. So so what do
Speaker 1: you want to What do you do if you want
Speaker 1: to become a professional gamer? I think the simplest you
Speaker 1: got to start out, as you said, with some serious hardware.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're using your two year old PC,
Speaker 1: it's not gonna cut it. I mean, yeah, you can
Speaker 1: get started, you can, you can learn how to play
Speaker 1: the game. I think that, uh is probably a primary importance,
Speaker 1: really is um you know, if you look at it
Speaker 1: at the manuals for games like this. Then, going on
Speaker 1: my personal experience, when I remember playing Warcraft three a
Speaker 1: few years ago, I never bothered learning the key combinations
Speaker 1: to make my troops form up on one another to
Speaker 1: you know, make squads, And I didn't bother learning about
Speaker 1: the bill orders that a lot of people were using.
Speaker 1: So then I'd go on battle dot net our battle Now.
Speaker 1: I'm sure a lot of people admit the dot um
Speaker 1: and I you know basically gets laughter. Yeah, And it
Speaker 1: wouldn't take any time at all because for me, I
Speaker 1: like figuring out It's like, okay, so what will I
Speaker 1: do here? Meanwhile, my opponent was sitting there going, Okay,
Speaker 1: I build this, I build this, I build that, I
Speaker 1: build that, and I'm ready to go and you're gonna
Speaker 1: go find him and I'm gonna kill him. And that's
Speaker 1: pretty much what happened every single time. Because you have
Speaker 1: to learn the commands, and you have to learn these things,
Speaker 1: you can move very very quickly. Speed is of the
Speaker 1: essence in these games. There's some great videos online that
Speaker 1: show professional gamers using those those key strokes and uh
Speaker 1: and the commands um at a crazy rate. Especially the
Speaker 1: Korean players who are playing StarCraft. They they are particularly
Speaker 1: known for that where they are using a crazy number
Speaker 1: of commands per minute. I mean it's it's it's easily
Speaker 1: more than a command per second. For a lot of
Speaker 1: these players where they are are are they've already got
Speaker 1: their strategy before they've even started the game, and they
Speaker 1: just started they just start implementing it as soon as
Speaker 1: the game says go, So it almost becomes a contest
Speaker 1: of not just whose strategy is better than than uh
Speaker 1: who's but who can type the fact or who can
Speaker 1: execute commands the quickest. Um. It's a combination of those two.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously, if you don't have the strategy, it
Speaker 1: doesn't really matter if you can execute commands more quickly,
Speaker 1: because someone with a better strategy may still be able
Speaker 1: to take you down. You have to have both. But yeah,
Speaker 1: the speed at which these players put those commands in
Speaker 1: is pretty frightening in a way. But yeah, you gotta
Speaker 1: you gotta learn all that stuff and practice all that
Speaker 1: stuff and you can start playing things like There are
Speaker 1: a lot of online tournaments now. Online games are always
Speaker 1: going to be a little different from most tournament based
Speaker 1: play because yes, online introduced latency. It also has an
Speaker 1: element where it makes it harder to prevent cheating. Uh.
Speaker 1: There are various modifications out there for games that allow
Speaker 1: players to to cheat. So there are times where you
Speaker 1: may run up against someone who's running that and you know,
Speaker 1: a mediocre player with a cheap program may be able
Speaker 1: to defeat a professional who's playing legitimately um, based depending
Speaker 1: upon what the cheat allows that that mediocre player to do. Now,
Speaker 1: what kind of satisfaction does someone get out of using
Speaker 1: a cheat program to beat someone? I don't understand that
Speaker 1: because that's not really you beating another person, you know.
Speaker 1: But anyway, that's beside the point. I'm sure that you
Speaker 1: know the n and emity that we've talked about that
Speaker 1: goes along with the internet um has something to do
Speaker 1: with it for some people because you can't no one
Speaker 1: would really be able to prove that you didn't do
Speaker 1: it right. So so you want to do things like
Speaker 1: you want to have land parties where you can play
Speaker 1: against other people. You want to make it more realistic.
Speaker 1: You want to look into any sort of local tournaments
Speaker 1: that are being held. Sometimes their tournaments being held by
Speaker 1: companies that are just doing as a promotional event, where
Speaker 1: you know, you might see like Microsoft is holding a
Speaker 1: game tournament nearby, and that it's a game one of
Speaker 1: the games that you're really interested in and that you
Speaker 1: you really know, then by all means you should go
Speaker 1: and enter that tournament. I've actually played in a tournament once. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was total fluke that I got in and uh
Speaker 1: and I was I was eliminated in the first round,
Speaker 1: but it was really close. I almost got to the
Speaker 1: second round, but my my opponent defeated me. Um, but
Speaker 1: it was literally within the last like thirty seconds of
Speaker 1: play that it came down to, and I was I
Speaker 1: was going to win until the least three second. So
Speaker 1: it just shows that I choke at the end of
Speaker 1: the game, kind of like the Braves. So um, yeah, hey,
Speaker 1: you know what, they've broken my heart anyways, not like
Speaker 1: the Thrashers though, oh my gosh. Anyway, that's any discussion.
Speaker 1: It's professional sports, not professional gaming. So yeah, you wanna
Speaker 1: compete in these local events as much as possible and
Speaker 1: then start looking into maybe some of the you know,
Speaker 1: if if you're actually winning these events, if you're consistently
Speaker 1: doing well, then it might be time to start looking
Speaker 1: at larger tournaments and see if there are any preliminary
Speaker 1: rounds there are within you know, a reasonable distance of
Speaker 1: where you live, and try and enter those as well.
Speaker 1: It might not quite be time for you to book
Speaker 1: a flight to Korea, but you can at least start
Speaker 1: playing on on a higher level and test your skills
Speaker 1: out against other professionals. Keep in mind that a breakaway success,
Speaker 1: like a brand new player just entering the video game
Speaker 1: world and taking it by storm is the thing of legend.
Speaker 1: It really does. It happened. Most professional gamers will tell
Speaker 1: you it can take a couple of years of dedicated,
Speaker 1: hardcore practice and tournament play before you start getting to
Speaker 1: a level where you can actually compete. I think though that, um,
Speaker 1: you probably as an actor will agree with me when
Speaker 1: I say that, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't enter
Speaker 1: a tournament and give up, because having even if you
Speaker 1: honestly fail miserably, you get the experience of having an
Speaker 1: opportunity to see what the environment is like and and
Speaker 1: sort of audition in that world. Um, you know, you
Speaker 1: might not you might, and my actor analogy, you might
Speaker 1: not get the part, but you see what a non
Speaker 1: addition is like, and so you can get an idea
Speaker 1: of how people behave at a tournament and what you
Speaker 1: can expect from other people and what the conditions are like.
Speaker 1: So you know, don't go in expecting to win, don't.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean you shouldn't try your best, but might
Speaker 1: who knows become that legend it is. It's that it's impossible.
Speaker 1: It's just that it's really improbable, and if nothing else,
Speaker 1: you'll learn, you know, different tricks that you may never
Speaker 1: have thought of for the game and see, like, you know,
Speaker 1: seeing how you were defeated can teach you how to
Speaker 1: play better the next time. And I mean that's really
Speaker 1: what tournament play is all about, is learning all the
Speaker 1: different tricks of the of the maps and the physics
Speaker 1: of the game and the various uh shortcuts you can
Speaker 1: take in order to really get the edge on your opponent.
Speaker 1: And you know, learning that by yourself is is pretty difficult.
Speaker 1: You pretty much have to learn it through experience unless
Speaker 1: you're just you know, some sort of prodigy on video games,
Speaker 1: which you know you could be, who knows, which is
Speaker 1: different from video games on prodigy which no longer. Um,
Speaker 1: I was just gonna say that, you know, the best
Speaker 1: part is probably going to be the practice, you know,
Speaker 1: because you that means you have to spend you know,
Speaker 1: two to ten hours a day working on your favorite
Speaker 1: video game, perfecting your moves and your your controls and
Speaker 1: your strategy for winning the game. But um, you can
Speaker 1: also use a tournament for an opportunity and just like
Speaker 1: in other types of jobs, with conventions and other get togethers,
Speaker 1: as an opportunity to network with other people who are
Speaker 1: good at what they do. Um, if you can meet
Speaker 1: some other gamers, maybe learn some tips and tricks from them. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe even get in you know, if you
Speaker 1: get a relationship going with them, perhaps when you're uh
Speaker 1: really good at your craft, you can you can join
Speaker 1: up with their group. Um. That's how how alliances are
Speaker 1: formed in these worlds. And and you know, not all
Speaker 1: of the tournaments are single player versus single players. Sometimes
Speaker 1: their teams and uh, you know, if you can get
Speaker 1: other good players around you, that's an advantage. Yeah. I've
Speaker 1: seen the frag Dolls play in person, and they were
Speaker 1: playing a team base game and uh, in their case,
Speaker 1: they had really um work. You could tell that they
Speaker 1: worked really well as a team together. For one thing
Speaker 1: they had, uh they had code names for different areas
Speaker 1: on the map, which did not immediately give the location
Speaker 1: away to the other teams. So they could tell tell
Speaker 1: each other, I've got Sector A covered, and they know
Speaker 1: what what which sector is Sector A? Because they have
Speaker 1: personally gone through and divided up the map and given
Speaker 1: it names. So the other players would say, all right,
Speaker 1: well sector A is covered, I'm gonna go move over
Speaker 1: to Sector B. And uh, you know, meanwhile, their opposing
Speaker 1: team has no idea what these sectors mean where they are.
Speaker 1: They have no clue which areas of the map are
Speaker 1: being covered, which ones aren't, and uh, and they were
Speaker 1: at a real disadvantage. Now, granted, when I was watching it,
Speaker 1: it was at CS and the opposing teams were made
Speaker 1: up of random people who wanted to step up and
Speaker 1: play against the frag dolls. And it was four random
Speaker 1: players versus three frag dolls. And you might think that
Speaker 1: that's an advantage, that the numbers game is an advantage,
Speaker 1: or you might think that, hey, that means the frag
Speaker 1: dolls have one extra target to aim at. How long
Speaker 1: did it take on average? Well, now, the games were
Speaker 1: played out, and I think it was that they were
Speaker 1: played up through a time limit. It wasn't that you're
Speaker 1: killed and you were out. You just keep playing and then.
Speaker 1: But no, the frag dolls would pretty much, you know,
Speaker 1: the number of kills on the frag dolls side versus
Speaker 1: the number of kills on the opponent's side was usually
Speaker 1: around five to one. Ratio was like the frag dolls
Speaker 1: will get five kills to the other teams one kill.
Speaker 1: In general, that's pretty efficient. There were some where you'd
Speaker 1: see the frag dolls really mop up on the on
Speaker 1: the opposing team, and that that was showed the value
Speaker 1: of teamwork. It wasn't just that the frag dolls were
Speaker 1: really good players, which they are. It shows that they
Speaker 1: work in a very well coordinated, organized way. So both
Speaker 1: of those components were very necessary to be able to
Speaker 1: be that leaked. Also, they were quite lovely and they
Speaker 1: still throw like girls. Oh uh, they tossed out T
Speaker 1: shirts to the crowd afterwards. Don't don't insult them, well
Speaker 1: they will pound me. Um. So yeah, I mean the
Speaker 1: professional gaming is kind of an interesting, uh route to take.
Speaker 1: It's it's one that very few people can make work
Speaker 1: just because the odds are really against you. I mean,
Speaker 1: you have to be really good and you have to
Speaker 1: be willing to put in a lot of money and
Speaker 1: time and effort in order to get there. Uh. It
Speaker 1: doesn't mean it's impossible, it's just really tough. And the economy,
Speaker 1: uh changed in the economy over the last few years
Speaker 1: really cut down on the number of professional gaming events. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there were so many. Couple of years ago, several leagues
Speaker 1: folded and some tournaments ended because they just the sponsorship
Speaker 1: money dried. Up and there was no money for rewards,
Speaker 1: and you know, without that, you don't have the you know,
Speaker 1: the bragging rights only go so far. So a lot
Speaker 1: of these tournaments have have sprung up and collapsed within
Speaker 1: the time frame of professional gaming really getting started. And
Speaker 1: you know, also you should keep in mind that if
Speaker 1: you are really good at a particular game, let's say Counterstrike.
Speaker 1: Let's say you're really good at Counterstrike, keep in mind
Speaker 1: that the version of Counterstrike that some tournaments play maybe
Speaker 1: a moded version that give you different option than the
Speaker 1: standard version. So that's something else you gotta look at.
Speaker 1: Is like we were saying, there's not necessarily a standardized
Speaker 1: platform for any particular game out there. Um, so when
Speaker 1: you enter a tournament, it may turn out the surprise,
Speaker 1: it doesn't behave exactly the way you expected it to
Speaker 1: because they're running a modified version. Um. You know. It's again,
Speaker 1: it's one of those things that professional athletes normally don't
Speaker 1: have to worry about. You don't usually have to say, like, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do the pole vault and the pole here
Speaker 1: is eleven inches shorter than what when I've been practicing with.
Speaker 1: What's up with that? You know, that's usually not going
Speaker 1: to be the case. But you do have to take
Speaker 1: into account things like weather conditions and temperature and sure
Speaker 1: you know, yeah there are other elements that can home
Speaker 1: field changes. Yeah, so anyway, it's fascinating. It doesn't really
Speaker 1: mean it's it's um, you know, not something that I
Speaker 1: think the general populace thinks of is something you could
Speaker 1: do for a living. And as as you said, it's
Speaker 1: there are very few people who really can make it work,
Speaker 1: make it work just because they're not as many opportunities
Speaker 1: is in that in that realm, But uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's really cool to watch and and to see
Speaker 1: people at that level play is incredible. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: so much different. Yeah, especially especially if you ever, like
Speaker 1: I said, go to YouTube and look at some of
Speaker 1: these tournament videos and you can watch them. Uh the
Speaker 1: players watch their hands on the keyboard and they never stop.
Speaker 1: They never it's never like even a pause to think
Speaker 1: about what to do next. You just see those fingers
Speaker 1: just flying over the various commands while uh while the
Speaker 1: you know, there's this one I saw where it was
Speaker 1: I think, um, four reporters for some some gaming website
Speaker 1: versus one professional gamer or maybe it was three three,
Speaker 1: three of the writers versus one professional gamer, and the
Speaker 1: three writers got to gang up on the professional gamer,
Speaker 1: and one by one you'd see the writers say oh no,
Speaker 1: until find there's just one left. He's like, I'm so
Speaker 1: alone and I'm just getting completely wiped out by the pro.
Speaker 1: And and the pro talk about how many commands he
Speaker 1: was able to execute per minute, and he said, compared
Speaker 1: to the Koreans, this is this is still slow, which
Speaker 1: to me was insane because I thought he was flying.
Speaker 1: And that concludes this classic episode of tech stuff. I
Speaker 1: hope you guys enjoyed it. Obviously, we can do a
Speaker 1: lot of different episodes about professional gaming and where it
Speaker 1: has gone over the last several years. It is just
Speaker 1: increased in popularity year over year. I expect that will
Speaker 1: continue as video games are seen as a legitimate form
Speaker 1: of competition, just as legitimate as other forms of sports.
Speaker 1: It's probably gonna take a while longer before your average
Speaker 1: sports fan considers a video game to be on par
Speaker 1: with some of the other types of sports they're familiar with.
Speaker 1: But it truly is the case that it requires a
Speaker 1: level of skill and dedication beyond what your casual player
Speaker 1: would be able to demonstrate is someone who loves to play,
Speaker 1: you know, flag football might really enjoy the game. They
Speaker 1: can't compete in the NFL. Same with video games. I
Speaker 1: love them. I wouldn't last a second in any competition
Speaker 1: with a professional gamer, so I think it is important
Speaker 1: to kind of recognize their skills. Guys, if you have
Speaker 1: any suggestions for future episodes, maybe there's a topic that
Speaker 1: we visited in the past and he would love us
Speaker 1: to hear and you know, update that, to revisit it,
Speaker 1: to talk about what has changed since we recorded the
Speaker 1: first episode. If you want to hear us talk about it,
Speaker 1: and by us, I mean me and whatever guest host
Speaker 1: ie pull in for that episode, send me a message
Speaker 1: let me know. My email address is tech Stuff at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com, or you can drop me
Speaker 1: a line on Facebook, Twitter or Tumbler to handle it.
Speaker 1: All three is tech Stuff hs W and we'll talk
Speaker 1: to you again really soon. For more on this and
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics, dot com