Ever been told that video games weren’t going to get you anywhere? This could be your chance to get your revenge. Dedicating yourself to eSports? This article explains the main points of developing into an eSports player.
If you are unfamiliar with eSports, they are competitive games, usually played by teams. The most popular are League of Legends, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, and Dota 2.
Professional profiles to dedicate yourself to eSports
Let’s take a brief look at the different professions you could pursue to make a life in the world of eSports:
Professional gamer
It is not only knowing how to play but also having the concentration capacity to be attentive for hours and knowing how to analyze the games and the rivals. To achieve this, players must practice for several hours a day. The training includes tactical and strategic practice. And they must even do physical training to strengthen the muscles of their hands, arms, and backs since the posture in which they spend long hours of play can cause pain and injuries.
Coach
If players have to train, there has to be a trainer, right? Many of the professionals who are taking this on are data scientists. Their job is to study how opponents play, analyze data and plan tactics and strategies to beat them in a challenge. They must be able to detail the strengths and weaknesses of the opponents, the most used tactics, and everything their players can use to have an advantage against their rivals. So, as a coach, you will sometimes feel like a free essay writer; many of your papers and tutorials may be in the public domain. Otherwise, you will have less chance of gaining popularity in the field.
eSports game designer and developer
Within these profiles, there are many specialties. There are those dedicated to creating environments, visual effects, and sound effects, studying physics to develop codes that make the characters’ movements and worlds they live in credible.
Other professions to dedicate to eSports
There are commentators and content creators whose job is to watch live games and comment on them through Twitch or YouTube.
Others are dedicated to esports marketing, marketing professionals who seek to promote the teams, promote their merchandise, get them sponsors, and manage the community of followers.
As players work for clubs, they also have physiotherapists and sports psychologists who help players learn to handle the pressure to perform better in big events and help them manage the frustrations of defeats.
And finally, there are the organizers of eSports events. A good tournament needs a serious organization with the capacity to manage events that attract more and more people. To give you an idea, a League of Legends World Championship final can be seen by more than 200 million people.
What should you study to dedicate yourself to eSports?
Here are some courses and careers that can turn you into an eSports professional:
Special courses
- The first is an introduction in which different games are analyzed to understand what makes one game better than another and what is needed to develop quality games. In addition, you learn about event organization from a commercial perspective.
- In the second course, they usually explain how to become a professional gamer. You will see contractual issues and learn how the media and the whole content creation ecosystem are handled.
- The third course can talk about eSports academies and how to develop a career in eSports.
- And the last course looks at the advantages and disadvantages of creating single-player or multiplayer organizations and analyzing branding strategies within the eSports world.
Marketing in eSports
If you consider dedicating yourself to eSports, you may enter as a marketing specialist. The fact that this industry is turning over more than the film industry is no coincidence. In addition to generating a lot of passion, you have to know how to manage communication well and apply very effective marketing strategies, so these professionals are precious to the industry. All of this can also be found in particular courses. This kind of training combines learning taught by professionals in advertising, marketing, and communication, with the knowledge that comes from the experience of those dedicated to doing business within eSports.
What about becoming a professional eSports player?
There are no courses to become a professional. Basically, you need to practice playing for many hours and analyze how the best players play.
However, some academies look for new talents and clubs that train players to represent them in their teams. If you search, you will find many eSports academies. Some are dedicated to a single game, and others train gamers for different games. Some of the best-known are Academy Stone, Clan Academy, and The Dog King Academy. In addition, each club has its academy, as if they were the quarries of a traditional club.
How much does a professional eSports player earn?
It will depend on many factors. For example, what game you play and the team’s category in which you compete. In other words, someone who plays Fornite does not earn the same as someone who competes in Hearthstone. The best players work for eSports clubs, which usually have several teams representing them in different games.
In Europe, the salaries of good players can vary between 40,000 and 100,000 euros per year, and top players who play the most popular games can earn up to 200,000 euros, and in some cases, they can also earn much more than that. In addition, if they win a tournament, they win some pretty juicy prizes.
