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Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hi, kids,
Speaker 1: welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Polette and
Speaker 1: I'm an editor at how stuff works dot Com. Sitting
Speaker 1: across from me enjoying himself profusely since the topic we're
Speaker 1: about to talk about is going to be fun, uh,
Speaker 1: is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. It's all about the game
Speaker 1: and how you play it, all about control and if
Speaker 1: you can take it, all about your debt and if
Speaker 1: you can pay it. It's all about the pain and
Speaker 1: who's gonna make it. I am the game. You don't
Speaker 1: want to play? Me? Nice? Thank you. I'm sure you
Speaker 1: don't recognize that, and I'll tell you where it's from later, Okay,
Speaker 1: But I will say that, I'm sure our long term listeners,
Speaker 1: who know our propensity for quoting certain movies about video
Speaker 1: games probably are very happy that you found a quote
Speaker 1: that had nothing to do with certain movies, had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with war games or tron or fighting for
Speaker 1: the users. Today, however, we're going to talk about professional gamers.
Speaker 1: That's one topic. That people have asked us to mention
Speaker 1: many times in the past. We have talked about similar
Speaker 1: topics though. Yeah, we talked about video game testers, the
Speaker 1: play testers who as a profession actually uh work with
Speaker 1: video game companies to test out video games in order
Speaker 1: to make sure that they are playable and they don't
Speaker 1: have any bugs. If you want to hear more about that,
Speaker 1: we have a podcast about and we also have an
Speaker 1: article on how stuff Works dot com about how video
Speaker 1: game testers work. But in this case, we're talking about
Speaker 1: a different kind of professional gamer, not someone who's testing
Speaker 1: out a product that's still in the development stage, but
Speaker 1: people who actually play games for a living. Yes, and
Speaker 1: you would imagine that, uh, anything where you don't have
Speaker 1: to sit at a desk and act will do typical work, um,
Speaker 1: would be a lot of fun. But I think and
Speaker 1: and and for video game testing, we talked about that
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily you know, hey, I get to play
Speaker 1: games all day. This is a lot closer to that.
Speaker 1: But it's not necessarily fun either. I mean there's a
Speaker 1: lot of work involved in this. Yeah. The for video
Speaker 1: game testing, it's all about you know, checking every square
Speaker 1: inch of a map to make sure there aren't any
Speaker 1: spots that you would excellently pass through and you know,
Speaker 1: and that players would discover, could that could be an
Speaker 1: exploit or could just be a bug that makes the
Speaker 1: game unplayable. It's not necessarily fun, uh now, professional gamers,
Speaker 1: it also there's an element of fun to it. There's
Speaker 1: an element of of competition obviously, but it's also a
Speaker 1: lot of work in the sense that you have to
Speaker 1: really put in a lot of time to get really,
Speaker 1: really good at certain types of games if you want
Speaker 1: to compete on a professional level. Yeah. I didn't some
Speaker 1: reading on this since you know, I'm not a professional gamer. Um,
Speaker 1: since most of these games you know aren't aren't you
Speaker 1: know Tetris? Uh kidding. I do play other games besides Tetris,
Speaker 1: but I don't play a lot of the types of
Speaker 1: video games because I'm not really a first person shooter
Speaker 1: kind of guy. I mean, I've played them in their fun,
Speaker 1: but it's not the thing I tend to do. I
Speaker 1: I tend to prefer strategy games. Um, there are some
Speaker 1: real time strategy was tournaments. Yeah. I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: don't pause the podcast and write to me and tell
Speaker 1: me that that's not the case. So yes, I'm aware
Speaker 1: of StarCraft is way up there. Oh yes, yes it is,
Speaker 1: um but yeah, I mean for the most part, and
Speaker 1: and things like civilization, So there's not they're not really
Speaker 1: tournaments for this, but yeah, the people who are are
Speaker 1: professional video gamers are really a very specific sort of
Speaker 1: breed there. They tend to be young people, um, and
Speaker 1: they they tend to be people who are uh for
Speaker 1: a couple of reasons, but also tend to be people
Speaker 1: who are really into uh techy and and uh scholarly pursuits.
Speaker 1: I would say there are a lot of people who
Speaker 1: are students, who are serious students who are really into
Speaker 1: video games, and there are a lot of this level.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of people who actually have a
Speaker 1: pretty good amount of discretionary income as well, because in
Speaker 1: order to be a pro gamer, you usually have to
Speaker 1: have a pretty decent gaming rig so that you can
Speaker 1: play a game at its at its uh 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 was a really
Speaker 1: popular one in tournaments all right, first person shooter game.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you've got a first person shooting game. You've
Speaker 1: got Quake, which you can play in competitive play one
Speaker 1: on one against other people. Um, and so you've got this, uh,
Speaker 1: you've got Quake and you're you're pretty good at it.
Speaker 1: But you have, you know, just a decent machine. So
Speaker 1: what you've done is you've turned the polygon count down
Speaker 1: on and you know, you've turned off some of the
Speaker 1: effects so that the game runs more smoothly on your computer.
Speaker 1: And you've got, you know, a decent mouse and a
Speaker 1: decent keyboard, and um, see, you know you're good. Well
Speaker 1: pro gamer is going to be running that on a
Speaker 1: really fast machine with a really nice mouse and keyboard
Speaker 1: set up, maybe one that's almost customized for that gamer.
Speaker 1: Some of them actually do have custom units where they'll
Speaker 1: they'll play these games and that can give them the
Speaker 1: edge they need in order to play at a professional level,
Speaker 1: where you know, pretty good just doesn't cut it. Pretty
Speaker 1: good means you're out in the first round. You have
Speaker 1: to be astonishingly good. And one of the reasons you
Speaker 1: need to have a really good gaming rig is that
Speaker 1: you have to be used to playing at that setting
Speaker 1: because if you're playing in a tournament, most tournaments, they're
Speaker 1: gonna want those settings cranked up. And the reason they
Speaker 1: want those settings cranked up is because it looks better.
Speaker 1: If you're promoting a tournament, if you are trying to
Speaker 1: get sponsorships, you want those games to look as good
Speaker 1: as they possibly can. So you don't want to have
Speaker 1: the polygon count turned down. You know, even if it
Speaker 1: makes the game smoother, you would prefer to beef up
Speaker 1: all the computers in the system rather than to have
Speaker 1: the graphics suffer, because you don't want the cameras to
Speaker 1: pick up some sort of low polygon count video game
Speaker 1: because it makes it look more amateurish. Right, So you know,
Speaker 1: you need to have that that money just so that
Speaker 1: you have a gaming rig, and a lot of the
Speaker 1: professional gaming leagues and tournaments focus on PC gaming. Console
Speaker 1: gaming is also present, but it's not as big a
Speaker 1: market as PC gaming is in the tournament's realm. So
Speaker 1: you need the discretionary income for your rig. But you
Speaker 1: also need it because you need to be able to
Speaker 1: make 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 this streak
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: citially telling me that professional gaming is for the independently
Speaker 1: wealthy and really it's just a way to waste time.
Speaker 1: Uh not, not quite. There are ways of getting there,
Speaker 1: but we'll get into that. Yeah, it's UM. I was
Speaker 1: trying to find a way to say this, but I
Speaker 1: think the best way to say it is a lot
Speaker 1: of people who are professional gamers UM fit into a
Speaker 1: stereotype for gamers because of the things you mentioned, the
Speaker 1: discretionary income, UM, and because also there are a lot
Speaker 1: of people are are younger. So there are people who
Speaker 1: are living in their parents basement because they don't have
Speaker 1: to pay you know, not because they are they're fitting
Speaker 1: into a stereotype, but actually they're probably fueling it. But
Speaker 1: the thing is, um, you know they don't they don't
Speaker 1: have to worry about paying rent. They are you know,
Speaker 1: hanging out there. They probably have a job or you
Speaker 1: know for the younger kids, you know, they're going to
Speaker 1: school and have a job to to help pay for
Speaker 1: these things. And um, so yeah, I mean I think
Speaker 1: that's part of why there there is that stereotype, but
Speaker 1: it's not it's a result of like I said, I
Speaker 1: think this behavior fuels that stereotype rather than them being
Speaker 1: us making the stereotype right right, It's just because a
Speaker 1: lot of the people One of the reasons that young
Speaker 1: people are such common competitors and in these tournaments is that, um,
Speaker 1: you have to have really good reflexes. Yeah, really good
Speaker 1: hand eye coordination and reflexes. I read some interviews with
Speaker 1: pro gamers and um, I said, yeah, you know, at
Speaker 1: a certain point, your visual acuity, your you know, your
Speaker 1: dextery sorts to to drop and you really don't see
Speaker 1: people over thirty, which of course rules me way out. Um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean that's so that's why you see
Speaker 1: a lot of kids and you know, younger twentysomethings in
Speaker 1: in these tournaments. So generally these are people who are
Speaker 1: not necessarily established already, or if they're established, they're tenuously established.
Speaker 1: And here's the thing about being a professional gamer is that, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can in theory make some big money if you
Speaker 1: are really really good and you win some tournaments. For example,
Speaker 1: one of the one of the go to references, one
Speaker 1: of the ones most probably one of the most famous
Speaker 1: professional gamers in the Western hemisphere anyway, is uh is
Speaker 1: Jonathan Wendel, also known as Fatality UH. And that the
Speaker 1: the eye 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 thousand dollars. Well for that year,
Speaker 1: that means he won fifty grand on top of whatever
Speaker 1: else he might have earned in other tournaments or other
Speaker 1: other ventures. But there's no guarantee that that's gonna repeat
Speaker 1: the next year. So you know, in order to in
Speaker 1: order to be a professional game or you may not
Speaker 1: be able to have a sustainable career in the sense
Speaker 1: of you don't know that next year you're gonna make
Speaker 1: that same amount of money, or even any money at all.
Speaker 1: It may turn out that, you know, you just have
Speaker 1: a bad day at the tournament, or or it may
Speaker 1: be that the the next crop of players are just
Speaker 1: that much better. It may be that the tournament switches games.
Speaker 1: That's something that we really need to focus on, because
Speaker 1: think about this. When you are a professional athlete, all right,
Speaker 1: the rules for your sport rarely change in a huge way.
Speaker 1: They normally change in tiny ways, and even then you
Speaker 1: will hear players really complain. I remember back in the
Speaker 1: Olympics that there was some discussion about the soccer balls
Speaker 1: being used in the soccer games because they were slightly
Speaker 1: different from a standard that have been used previously. And
Speaker 1: I mean that sort of thing is a big deal
Speaker 1: because that tiny, little change can affect how well an
Speaker 1: athlete at that level can perform. But think about that,
Speaker 1: you know, like, that's the tiniest change. But if you're
Speaker 1: a professional gamer, the changes may be monumental. It may
Speaker 1: be that one year they're doing quake and the next
Speaker 1: year they've switched to counterstrike. Those are two totally different
Speaker 1: games with different physics, different there's different frame rates, there's
Speaker 1: different you're gonna have a different experience. You know, you're
Speaker 1: gonna move at a different speed, the weapons behave in
Speaker 1: a totally different way. Plus you know, it may be
Speaker 1: that one game is a one on one style game
Speaker 1: and the other game is a team based game, which
Speaker 1: 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: The reflexes a lonely childhood 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: It is monumentally huge. In Korea. Yes, South Korea, professional
Speaker 1: gaming is actually viewed on a level that is probably uh,
Speaker 1: approximately the same level as most professional athletes. Now that's
Speaker 1: most that's pretty unusual. I mean most other countries, that's
Speaker 1: just not the case. China is a little bit like that,
Speaker 1: but not to the level that South Korea is at.
Speaker 1: And in the United States, you know, there's an underground
Speaker 1: professional gamer uh culture, but it's it has never reached
Speaker 1: mainstream acceptance like it has in South Korean. South Korea,
Speaker 1: they will televise tournaments and on major networks and you
Speaker 1: you can tune in and watch as players play against
Speaker 1: each other, and there are events that they hold have
Speaker 1: thousands of spectators who will come in and watch the
Speaker 1: gamers play. In the United States, it's mostly gamers and
Speaker 1: other gamers who attend these things with you know, friends
Speaker 1: and family that spill out beyond that, and then a
Speaker 1: few fans, but only a few compared to what you
Speaker 1: would find in South Korea. So there's there's that difficulty too.
Speaker 1: Is just the fact that video games don't have the
Speaker 1: same kind of level of uh, fascination and respect in
Speaker 1: the 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,
Speaker 1: I'd yeah, I d r capital A. He's a he's
Speaker 1: a StarCraft gamer and he's spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: in Korea, and they were talking about, uh, they asked
Speaker 1: him about StarCraft and why he chose StarCraft and uh,
Speaker 1: not only is he StarCraft gamer, that's you know, his
Speaker 1: game of choice, but he also specializes on one particular
Speaker 1: faction and he was he was talking about you were
Speaker 1: you were mentioning what happens at the tournament changes games.
Speaker 1: Well right now, Well, at the time of the interview,
Speaker 1: he was saying that Blizzard had made his faction of
Speaker 1: choice UM sort of underpowered. I believe it was Zerg
Speaker 1: that he preferred. UM and Terrence were stronger, and he
Speaker 1: hoped that they would patch that, and they said, well,
Speaker 1: why don't you just switch to Terrence or something else, Like, well,
Speaker 1: if I do that, I'm going to have to learn
Speaker 1: their strengths. And you know, once Blizzard fixes this, as
Speaker 1: I think they will, then I'm going to be I'm
Speaker 1: going to have to go back to my old faction.
Speaker 1: And you know, I would have spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time preparing for a faction that I really don't want
Speaker 1: to be playing until they patch this one. So I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna hang in there. And but yeah, the little
Speaker 1: subtle changes to the games even, yeah, it can make
Speaker 1: huge difference. Yeah, the professional gamers, you gotta keep in mind,
Speaker 1: a lot of these guys spend hours each day playing games,
Speaker 1: playing against other people, seeking out people who are, you know,
Speaker 1: at least ranked better than they are, in order to
Speaker 1: learn new strategies and to test their own skills and
Speaker 1: make sure that the things that they're doing actually work
Speaker 1: in a game setting. Uh, you know, they're they're treating
Speaker 1: it like would a professional sport. You know, it's not
Speaker 1: necessarily that they're playing for fun. They're playing to win
Speaker 1: in order to win tournaments. And that might sound like
Speaker 1: fun to you, but it really is a very competitive
Speaker 1: and very high stress kind of thing to do, because
Speaker 1: you know, once you get to that level, once you
Speaker 1: get into the tournament, you know you pretty much have
Speaker 1: the one choice, one one chance rather to to beat
Speaker 1: out all the other competitors. And there may be thousands
Speaker 1: of them. Now granted, you know you might beat them
Speaker 1: out by proxy, like someone else beats and uh me
Speaker 1: and I'm out of the tournament, and then later on
Speaker 1: you managed to beat the guy who beat me, and
Speaker 1: that means that, you know, by extension, you beat me
Speaker 1: as well. You're very mean, both of you. Um. But
Speaker 1: but still you have to be good enough to get
Speaker 1: through all those multiple levels. And you gotta remember every
Speaker 1: single other person out there is thinking that he or
Speaker 1: 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 Ubisoft. They're they're also there to represent
Speaker 1: the female gamer demographic and also just to kind of
Speaker 1: 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 up and coomer. He's
Speaker 1: showing real promise. Um, I think you'd be a good
Speaker 1: addition to our team. And then you know, each team
Speaker 1: has its own way of determining whether or not they
Speaker 1: want to bring someone else new in. But then you
Speaker 1: might be able to join a clan. And the nice
Speaker 1: thing about clans is that they can sometimes get sponsorships
Speaker 1: as a group, and sponsorships can sometimes help pay for
Speaker 1: things or at least offset costs like travel costs and
Speaker 1: lodging and all that kind of stuff. So it's one
Speaker 1: way that players can pursue a professional gaming career without
Speaker 1: putting as much a personal investment into it as as
Speaker 1: they would otherwise. Yeah, it's still not easy, but it's possible.
Speaker 1: So so what do you want to What do you
Speaker 1: do if you want to become a professional gamer? I
Speaker 1: think the simplest you got to start out, as you said,
Speaker 1: with some serious hardware. I mean, if you're using your
Speaker 1: two year old PC, it's not gonna I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can get started, you can, you can learn how
Speaker 1: to play the game. I think that, uh is probably
Speaker 1: a primary importance, really is um, you know, if you
Speaker 1: look at it at the manuals for games like this.
Speaker 1: Then going on my personal experience, when I remember playing
Speaker 1: Warcraft three a few years ago, I never bothered learning
Speaker 1: the key combinations to make my troops form up on
Speaker 1: one another, to you know, make squads. And I didn't
Speaker 1: bother learning about the bill orders that a lot of
Speaker 1: people were using. So then I'd go on battle dot
Speaker 1: net our battle now. I'm sure a lot of people
Speaker 1: admit the dot um and I you know, basically get later. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it wouldn't take any time at all because for me,
Speaker 1: I like figuring out. I was like okay, so what
Speaker 1: will I 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 keys, 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've
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. Yeah, you gotta you
Speaker 1: gotta learn all that stuff and practice all that stuff
Speaker 1: and you can start playing things like There are a
Speaker 1: lot of online tournaments. Now, online games are always going
Speaker 1: to be a little different from most tournament based play because, yes,
Speaker 1: online introduced latency. It also has an element where it
Speaker 1: makes it harder to prevent cheating. Uh, there are various
Speaker 1: modifications out there for games that allow players to to cheat.
Speaker 1: So there are times where you may run up against
Speaker 1: someone who's running that and you know, a mediocre player
Speaker 1: with a cheap program may be able to defeat a
Speaker 1: professional who's playing legitimately um based depending upon what the
Speaker 1: cheat allows that that mediocre player to do. Now, what
Speaker 1: kind of satisfaction does someone get out of using a
Speaker 1: cheat program to beat someone. I don't understand that, because
Speaker 1: that's not really you beating another person, you know, But anyway,
Speaker 1: that's beside the point. I'm sure that you know the
Speaker 1: anonymity that we've talked about that goes along with the internet,
Speaker 1: um has something to do with it for some people.
Speaker 1: But because you can't, no one would really be able
Speaker 1: to prove that you didn't do it right. So so
Speaker 1: you want to do things like you want to have
Speaker 1: land parties where you can play against other people. You
Speaker 1: want to make it more realistic. You want to look
Speaker 1: into any sort of local tournaments that are being held.
Speaker 1: Sometimes their tournaments being held by companies that are just
Speaker 1: doing as a promotional event, where you know, you might
Speaker 1: see like Microsoft is holding a game tournament nearby, and
Speaker 1: that it's a game one of the games that you're
Speaker 1: really interested in and that you really know, then by
Speaker 1: all means you should go and enter that tournament. I've
Speaker 1: actually played in a tournament once. Yeah, it was total
Speaker 1: fluke that I got in and uh and I was
Speaker 1: I was eliminated in the first round, but it was
Speaker 1: really close. I almost got to the second round, but
Speaker 1: my my opponent defeated me. Um. But it was literally
Speaker 1: within the last like thirty seconds of play that it
Speaker 1: came down to and I was I was going to
Speaker 1: win until this last three second, so it just shows
Speaker 1: that I choke at the end of the game, kind
Speaker 1: of like the Braves, so um, yeah, hey, you know what,
Speaker 1: they've broken my heart anyways, not like the Thrashers though,
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I want anyway. Anyway, discussions professional sports,
Speaker 1: not professional gaming. So yeah, you wanna compete in these
Speaker 1: local events as much as possible and then start looking
Speaker 1: into maybe some of the you know, if if you're
Speaker 1: actually winning these events, if you're consistently doing well, then
Speaker 1: it might be time to start looking at larger tournaments
Speaker 1: and see if there are any preliminary rounds there are
Speaker 1: within you know, a reasonable distance of where you live,
Speaker 1: and try and enter those as well. It might not
Speaker 1: quite be time for you to book a flight to Korea,
Speaker 1: but you can at least start playing on on a
Speaker 1: higher level and test your skills out against other professionals.
Speaker 1: Keep in mind that a breakaway success, like a brand
Speaker 1: new player just entering the video game world and taking
Speaker 1: it by storm, is the thing of legend. It really
Speaker 1: doesn't happen. Most professional gamers will tell you. It can
Speaker 1: take a couple of years of dedicated, hardcore practice and
Speaker 1: tournament play before you start getting to a level where
Speaker 1: you can actually compete. I think though that um, you
Speaker 1: probably as an actor will agree with me when I
Speaker 1: say that that doesn't mean that you shouldn't enter a
Speaker 1: tournament and 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 not that
Speaker 1: it's impossible, it's just that it's really improbable. And if
Speaker 1: nothing else, you'll learn, you know, different tricks that you
Speaker 1: may never have thought of for the game and see,
Speaker 1: like you know, seeing how you were defeated can teach
Speaker 1: you how to play better the next time. And I
Speaker 1: mean that's really what tournament play is all about is
Speaker 1: learning all the different tricks of the of the maps
Speaker 1: and the physics of the game and the various uh
Speaker 1: shortcuts you can take in order to really get the
Speaker 1: edge on your opponent. And uh, you know, learning that
Speaker 1: by yourself is is pretty difficult. You pretty much have
Speaker 1: to learn it through experience unless you're just you know,
Speaker 1: some sort of prodigy on video games, which you know,
Speaker 1: you could be, who knows, which is different from video
Speaker 1: games on prodigy, which no longer. Um, I was just
Speaker 1: gonna say that, you know, the best part is probably
Speaker 1: going to be the practice, you know, because you that
Speaker 1: means you have to spend you know, two to ten
Speaker 1: hours a day working on your favorite video game, perfecting
Speaker 1: your moves and your your controls and your strategy for
Speaker 1: winning the game. But um, you can also use a
Speaker 1: tournament for an opportunity and just like an other types
Speaker 1: of jobs with conventions and other get togethers, as an
Speaker 1: opportunity to network with other people who are good at
Speaker 1: what they do. Um, if you can meet some other gamers,
Speaker 1: maybe learn some tips and tricks from them, uh you know,
Speaker 1: maybe even get in you know, if you get a
Speaker 1: relationship going with them. Perhaps when you're uh, really good
Speaker 1: at your craft, you can you can join up with
Speaker 1: their group. Um that's how how alliances are formed in
Speaker 1: these worlds. And and you know, not all of the
Speaker 1: tournaments are single player versus single players sometimes their teams
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, if you can get other good
Speaker 1: players around you, that's an advantage. Yeah. I've seen the
Speaker 1: frag Dolls play in person, and they were playing a
Speaker 1: team base game and uh, in their case, they had
Speaker 1: really um work. You could tell that they worked really
Speaker 1: well as a team together. For one thing they had, uh,
Speaker 1: they had code names for different areas on the map
Speaker 1: which did not immediately give the location away to the
Speaker 1: other teams. So they could tell tell each other, I've
Speaker 1: got Sector A covered, and they know what what which
Speaker 1: sector is Sector A because they have personally gone through
Speaker 1: and divided up the map and given it names. So
Speaker 1: the other players would say, all right, well sector is covered,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go move over to the the sector B and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, and meanwhile their opposing team has no idea
Speaker 1: what these sectors mean where they are. They have no
Speaker 1: clue which areas of the map are being covered which
Speaker 1: ones aren't. And uh, and they were at a real disadvantage. Now. Granted,
Speaker 1: when I was watching it, it was at C E
Speaker 1: S and the opposing teams were made up of random
Speaker 1: people who wanted to step up and play against the
Speaker 1: frag dolls. And it was four random players versus three
Speaker 1: frag dolls. And you might think that that's an advantage,
Speaker 1: that the numbers game is an advantage, or you might
Speaker 1: think that, hey, that means the frag dolls have one
Speaker 1: extra target to aim at. How long did it take
Speaker 1: on average? Well, now, the games were played out, and uh,
Speaker 1: I think it was that they were played up through
Speaker 1: a time limit. It wasn't that you're killed and you
Speaker 1: were out. You would just keep playing and then But no,
Speaker 1: the frag dolls would pretty much you know, the number
Speaker 1: of kill is on the frag doll side versus the
Speaker 1: number of kills on the opponent's side was usually a
Speaker 1: round five to one ratio. Was like the frag dolls, well,
Speaker 1: get five kills to the other team's one kill. In general,
Speaker 1: it's pretty efficient. There were some where you'd see the
Speaker 1: frag dolls really mop up on the on the opposing team,
Speaker 1: and that that was showed the value of teamwork. It
Speaker 1: wasn't just that the frag dolls were really good players,
Speaker 1: which they are. It shows that they work in a
Speaker 1: very well coordinated, organized way. So both of those components
Speaker 1: were very necessary to be able to be that leaked. Also,
Speaker 1: they were quite lovely and they still throw like girls. Uh.
Speaker 1: They tossed out T shirts to the crowd afterwards. Don't
Speaker 1: don't insult them quickly, they will poon me. Um. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the professional gaming is kind of an interesting,
Speaker 1: uh route to take. It's it's one that very few
Speaker 1: people can make work just because the odds are really
Speaker 1: against you. I mean, you have to be really good
Speaker 1: and you have to be willing to put in a
Speaker 1: lot of money, in time and effort in order to
Speaker 1: get there. Uh. It doesn't mean it's impossible. It's just
Speaker 1: really tough. And the economy, uh changed in the economy
Speaker 1: over the last few years, really cut down on the
Speaker 1: number of professional gaming events. Yeah, there were many. Couple
Speaker 1: of years ago, several leagues folded and some tournaments ended
Speaker 1: because they just the sponsorship money dried up and there
Speaker 1: was no money for rewards, and you know, without that,
Speaker 1: you don't have the you know, the bragging rights only
Speaker 1: go so far. So a lot of these tournaments have
Speaker 1: have sprung up and collapsed within the time frame of
Speaker 1: professional gaming really getting started. And you know, also you
Speaker 1: should keep in mind that if you are really good
Speaker 1: at a particular game, let's say Counterstrike. Let's say you're
Speaker 1: really good at Counterstrike, keep in mind that the version
Speaker 1: of counter Strike that some tournaments play maybe a moded
Speaker 1: version that give you different options than the standard version.
Speaker 1: So that's something else you gotta look at. Is, like
Speaker 1: we were saying, there's not necessar early a standardized platform
Speaker 1: for any particular game out there. Um, so when you
Speaker 1: enter a tournament, it may turn out the surprise, it
Speaker 1: doesn't behave exactly the way you expected it to because
Speaker 1: 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 and changes. So anyway, it's fascinating doesn't really mean
Speaker 1: it's it's um, you know, not something that I think
Speaker 1: the general populace thinks of is something you could do
Speaker 1: for a living. And as as you said, it's there
Speaker 1: 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: in that in that realm. But uh, you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's really cool to watch and and to see people
Speaker 1: at level play is incredible. I mean, it's so much different. Yeah,
Speaker 1: especially especially if you ever, like I said, go to
Speaker 1: YouTube and look at some of these tournament videos and
Speaker 1: you can watch them. Uh the players watch their hands
Speaker 1: on the keyboard and they never stop. They never it's
Speaker 1: never like even a pause to think about what to
Speaker 1: do next. You just see those fingers just flying over
Speaker 1: the various commands while uh while the you know, there's
Speaker 1: this one I saw where it was I think, um,
Speaker 1: four reporters for some some gaming website versus one professional gamer,
Speaker 1: or maybe it was three three, three of the writers
Speaker 1: versus one professional gamer, and the three writers got to
Speaker 1: gang up on the professional gamer, and one by one
Speaker 1: you'd see the writers say oh no, until finally there's
Speaker 1: just one left. He's like, I'm so alone and just
Speaker 1: getting completely wiped out by the pro and and the
Speaker 1: pro talked about how many commands he was able to
Speaker 1: execute per minute, and he said, compared to the Koreans,
Speaker 1: this is this is still slow, which to me was
Speaker 1: insane because I thought he was flying. Um. And if
Speaker 1: you guys are interested in the big tournaments, there are
Speaker 1: two really big ones that happened every year, a World
Speaker 1: Cyber Games and the Electronics Sports World Cup. Um. I
Speaker 1: believe both of those are still running. Uh. There are
Speaker 1: other ones that I was going to name off, but frankly,
Speaker 1: some of them just don't exist anymore, so I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna go through the whole list. But yeah, it's interesting stuff.
Speaker 1: And if you guys have any questions about other topics
Speaker 1: you would like us to talk about, you should send
Speaker 1: us an email. That address is tech stuff at how
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