E-Sports - Starcraft 2 Pros make decent money | Hacker News Reader

E-Sports - Starcraft 2 Pros make decent money

sc2earnings.com

26 pointshybrid1124 comments

As far as I can tell, SC2Earnings details only tournament winnings (which makes sense as there's no reason other earnings would be public). That means a lot of these players could be making even more money off of coaching, sponsorships, or casting.

I'm sure all of the $200-300/hr coaching sessions adds up to a significant sum for most of these players. Casters definitely are making a lot more than players.

Also Huk is estimated to get a six figure salary from his team Evil Geniuses. Prize money is a bonus.

I think HuK and other "top end" players on A-list teams like EG are the exception, not the rule, though - I suspect many in the "long tail" of players making $10-$40k/year in prize money aren't getting much in the way of salary, which makes StarCraft look like a much less appealing profession.

It'll be interesting seeing people change careers and give retrospective-style interviews in the coming years - right now in terms of salary and coaching and casting money there's a lot of speculation and little data.

I am pretty sure almost everyone on that list also draws a salary from their team. The winnings are just a bonus, though some may have it in their contracts that their team receives a slight percentage of them.

Here is Destiny's AMA on Reddit from a year ago talking about how much he earns streaming/teaching (3.5K+1.5K) per month

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/g7q91/iam_destiny_i_qu...

Keep in mind a few things. Destiny is a pretty good player, in fact at one point he was so well known for his control of Infestors (a unit from the Zerg race) that a lot of Koreans knew of him (and his reputation) because of that alone.

He also is a Grandmaster at Starcraft, meaning he is in the top 200 of his region (there are 5 I believe, Americas, Europe, Korean/Taiwan, China, SE Asia). So even if he was the worst Grandmaster he is at least one of the 1000 best Starcraft 2 players in the entire world. However it would probably be very hard for him to ever crack this tournament earnings list mainly because he is at the level that is way better than average players, but not better than the top players. I'm not hating on the guy, but I think for the most part that is true. Even with his training in Korea it's still going to be pretty hard for him to gain a lot of ground on the Koreans mainly because their society accepts that playing Starcraft as a competition/sport.

With that being said, he mentions (from a year ago) that he earns 3.5K streaming with an additional 1.5K from teaching. That is ~60K a year from that alone. That is pretty decent money but still not something I'd quit my day job over. Then you have to keep in mind any traveling costs to compete at tournaments, the hours and hours devoted to keeping up your skill level and the fact that there are fewer SC2 players now than there were a year ago so he may not be earning as much from streaming.

This site has a really polished UI. One thing I would note is that these numbers are historic numbers not annual. The game has been out for almost 2 years if you include the beta time, so cut the numbers in half to look at annual income. It's still pretty good for the top players, but I've also noticed a trend that tournament payouts are actually decreasing. When the game first came out, it was the size of the prize pool that got the tournament press, where now the reputation and popularity of the tournament determines if it will get press and thus the players play in it for sponsorship reasons instead of for the prize pool.

Players also get money by streaming their daily practice sessions and playing ads. Some get tens of thousands of viewers for sessions lasting many hours.

Sponsorships are also a large part of their revenue. High end hardware companies are starting to realize that things like barcraft are becoming more common, and are capitalizing on the number of viewers. It's a slow start, but esports will likely follow the same pattern modern day sporting events take. A lot of the current difficulty is that video games are not designed for people who are just watching. This is changing pretty drastically right now. Valve is working heavily in making sure that the engine for Dota 2 isn't just good for playing the game, but also for broadcasting it. They're building a very robust platform for viewing, announcing, sponsoring, and filming in game actions. Once broadcasting is efficient, the larger number of views will bring in heavier sponsors. It'll be interesting to see where those paychecks are in five, ten years.

It seems like there's a huge drop off in prize money after about the top 11. I wonder how the drop off in salary is, if they are paid one at all. eSports is still growing and I don't forsee it being a viable career path unless you're a top 1% tier talent, which loosely mirrors professional sports as well.

Forget that shit. Basically if you are the TOP 10 players in the world or so, you will make what an average programmer will make or greater.

If you are in the top 23 players in the world, you will make a decent salary, comperable to a secratary at a decent company.

If you are in the top 50 players in the world, you will make just above the poverty line.

If you are anywhere below that, you will work at McDonalds.

AND NOTE: the best players play all day to practice. It is work for them.

EDIT: Compare that to anyone in the NFL. This is absolutely worthless as a money-maker. Maybe if you are in Korea and 10 bucks a month will sustain you.

Why is the jab at Korea necessary? Have you had experience living in Seoul for $10 a month?

You know not of what you speak. This is only prize money, and only for the 2 years that Starcraft 2 has been out (and even within those 2 years, the prize money has significantly increased recently). Some players have more regular sources of income, like sponsorships, salaries, coaching, or ad revenue from streaming. More live in team houses (mostly in South Korea) and thus get room and board. Sure, it still doesn't compare to the NFL, but it's probably comparable (or close to getting there) to professional athletes in sports without big TV deals.

That's prize money, not sponsorship money. If Tiger Woods has made $60 million in prize money, and about 15 times that much on sponsorship.

But any sport is a terrible career if you aren't the best. There's probably a million of guys in internet cafes wasting their time and money trying to get that good.

This is a good point. But my main point is: Being a developer (if you have the aptitude) you are pretty much guaranteed a decent salary, usually a good one. Playing video games and making cash is more of a pipe dream. Everyone would LOVE to play their favorite game and make money on it, truth is that those who do play that game like it's a job.

I'd even argue that those people winning at SC2 are probably the same who were winning in SC1, and possibly other games, so they may wind up being the few lucky ones. It's like hackers, not everyone will be the next Zuckerburg, but the average pay is damn good, whereas with gamers, not everyone will be the best, but the average pay sucks.

For the hours that top players are putting in, their hourly wage is probably close to something very average.

Don't forget, they get paid a salary + sponsorship on top of the earnings from tournaments

Very few get paid salary.

Even if they're not being paid much of a salary, anyone who lives in a team house doesn't have much in terms of costs (no rent or utilities, and probably most of their food is provided). What this means is that the mid-tier pro's might not be putting much money into the bank, but they also are living comfortably.

Depending on the team, the pro is actually required to pay a "live-in" fee to the team house, in addition to portions of any income through winnings and/or streaming.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they are slaves or anything, but it is not exactly glamourous either - even for those that make it to a team house. Long hours, modest living, dorm/frat house type housing with very little privacy... Unless you are talking about EG / the EG house which seems to provide quite well for their pros.

There's streaming revenue as well.

It's like most 2nd tier individual sports. There are a handful of people making pretty good money at the very top. The rest of the pros are just barely hanging on, hoping to get into that top handful.

Thirty of the top fifty players are South Korean, while only one is from the US.

Watching MCs reaction after winning was one of the best moments I have seen in sc2. You can tell he wanted to beat PuMa and win this more than anything. Congratulations MC

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