A Pakistani Teen Gets Rich in E-Sports | Hacker News Reader

A Pakistani Teen Gets Rich in E-Sports

bloomberg.com

116 pointsadventured54 comments

I've been watching this game for years, and I can say with confidence that Sumail is the real deal. He has skills that few can match. Right now he's playing the middle of the biggest tournament in e-sports history and he's about 10 games away from winning $6 mil (of which he'll keep $1m). The tournament, organised by Valve has a prize pool that's mostly crowd funded, so its likely to be a steady source of income for the top players of Dota 2 for a few years at least.

I guess we'll know by next Saturday what Sumail's fate is.

For more info

* Free to Play, a documentary about 3 Dota players - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjZYMI1zB9s [75 mins]

* Dota 2, a game that's free to play - http://store.steampowered.com/app/570

* The International tournament - http://www.dota2.com/international/overview/

If anyone has any questions about this I'll be happy to answer :)

> he's about 10 games away from winning $6 mil (of which he'll keep $1m).

Why the $5M difference?

those damn teammates want a piece

It is a team sport

Ah, so 'they' are 10 games away. I get it now, thanks.

By extension, he also is 10 games away.

The number of games they'll play will depend on their performance. The main event is structured as a double elimination tournament, and most of the matches are best-of-3. If EG wins every single game they play, they'd be done in 9 games. If not... I think it could be up to 20 or so? It's complicated. :)

And, as it so happens, they ended up playing 13 games in the main event. And Sumail is now considerably richer. :)

Read the friendly article: they're a team of five and they split the winnings equally, plus the manager also takes his cut.

Here is Sumail's player profile for TI5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoX_-eX2ByM

If he practiced the game living in Pakistan, he has played the game at a latency of 170-250ms. And it varies depending on the time of the day with 5-30% packet loss at peak times.

The lag of ~200ms makes a huge difference when compared to players from EU and NA who play at latency of 10-30. Now that's what makes it even more impressive. Adapting from playing at high latency to low latency also takes quite some time.

Perhaps that should have been the most highlighted fact considering it's Hacker News.

He must have played on LAN.

That might be true but that would have meant he was practicing against very casual players of very different skills. Someone with access to his match history might be able to tell better, but I am pretty sure he had to play online to let match-making find players of similar skills.

Matchmaking was accessible to all players starting in 2012 when Valve released Dota 2 publicly. Before that finding a game with opponents of equal skill was difficult if not impossible. Playing in a LAN cafe as Sumail did was probably your best bet to get good games.

even then, he'd have still been limited by his region. I don't know much about the DoTA scene, (I mostly watch counter-strike) but in CS living in a region like the middle east would be a serious setback in terms of LAN play. you might not have the same ease of access to LANs and your region might not have any LANs at all, leaving you to foot the bill for travel to Europe and the US to take part.

A counter-strike brazilian team recently moved to North America so they would have better access to teams and leagues. it really can be a game-changer for developing talent.

I guess the most important fact here is, his parents somehow supporting him through all this. I am an Indian and I know firsthand how controlling Asian parents can be.

Here is a documentary about hyhy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fC74gSReUtE . Today his former teammates make more than 100K USD/annum. But owing to variety of factors(which I suppose includes big opposition from Family) he missed the boat big time.

Have you played games before? Higher latency has nothing to do with more skill. It makes the game awful for for the player and the people he's playing against, not harder, just worse. If anything playing at that latency has held his skill back, not served as a barrier to increase his skill. I say this as a top 200 global SC2 player.

It depends on the lag compensation of the game in question. For instance, in league of legends, you can't do a few champion combos (like Alistar's headbutt + pulverize) on a lag greater than 200ms. But enemy skills register just fine.

Packet loss is even more awful when your skills don't register or you don't know what's going on for a second or two.

This does puts the players at an unfair disadvantage.

Like most sports, the top make great money at the cost of tremendous time and possibly physical investments eg. surgery on their arm. Everyone else doesn't do so hot. The cutoff is drastic.

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32996009

and (most) of the top earning e-sports competitors average (around) the lowest salaries in the NBA. there is added complexity because most e-sports earnings are through competition and merit, their salaries are minimal.

so yes, this kid "got rich quick", just like Derek Jeter "got rich quick".

But people in athletic sports who don't get to the top, still have a useful physical strength to serve them in life, not just RSI and a non transferable twitch reflex.

As someone who failed to reach the top of the e-sports scene a little less than 10 years ago, I can tell you that I developed valuable skills and tenacity that serve me well today.

Anyone who struggles for the top will be transformed.

As a Pakistani myself, I don't find it charming, because back in home it means nothing, playing games with such devotion only would lead one jobless or burden on the family. But still I applaud the efforts of this lad. But this is something we 3rd world are far from seeing as a career or money making opportunity. I wasn't surprised that only this year China has allowed the manufacturing and sales of Game consoles., previously it was all banned. I myself had to stay from gaming away in my teenage despite all the excitement I always managed myself to keep it at distance, to lead a healthy career. Today is one of those days I realize that me and my US cousins live in a different world, a really different one.

I don't agree with you on this one. Being a Pakistani myself and an avid gamer. I think gaming has had a very positive effect on my life and my career. It doesn't matter which part of the world or class you belong to. Sumail is himself an example of that for you, I am pretty sure he belongs to a middle class Pakistani family himself, so do I.

Game dev and console manufacturing is entirely non-related here too.

I think you and your US cousins live a different life because you yourself avoided the things that were common between you.

You missed his point:

> As a Pakistani myself, I don't find it charming, because back in home it means nothing, playing games with such devotion only would lead one jobless or burden on the family

For most individuals, this is not a valid or even possible career path. Attempting such would create such a burdne.

That's hardly limited to Pakistan.

I live in the US, and my family was middle class growing up. If I had focused on gaming to the extent that Sumail or another professional gamer had, it is doubtful I would be able to make enough of a living to support myself even at a very basic level, much less have a solid career.

> playing games with such devotion only would lead one jobless or burden on the family

I agree - if Sumail was not so talented, if he was merely very good instead of world class - then his life decisions so far would seem like a bit of a waste, if the bloomberg article is accurate.

As things stand, he is in a position to make a fair bit of money over the next few years.

I am curious what pro-gamers will do when they retire from professional play. There's a tolerable article that suggests a few related pathways: moving into esports coaching/management, switching to poker, commentating [1].

[1] http://www.cnbc.com/2014/02/01/pro-gamers-story-get-big-burn...

Seth Killian was one of the first Street Fighter players to make a name for himself. After he stopped competing, he was hired at Capcom to help develop Street Fighter 4 (The boss character, Seth, is named after Killian), and is now working with Radiant Entertainment to release Rising Thunder, a game that's currently in alpha.

Peter 'Combofiend' Rosas was a professional fighting game player who competed at a high level in both Street Fighter and Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (and possibly others that I'm forgetting). A few years ago, he was hired by Capcom to work as a community liason, and he's apparently had some pretty significant input into the balance decisions in Ultra SF4 and the upcoming SF5.

In addition, there's always the commentating, coaching/management, or switching to another game that you mentioned.

edit: A large number of players supplement their income by streaming; people can subscribe to the player's channel on twitch for a monthly fee, and players get a cut of that.

Perhaps you should avoid all forms of culture or sports then, because they rarely lead directly to jobs. Of course, as Sumali said himself, you only devote a large amount of time if you have talent and commitment to be at the top. But I find it as good practice of social interaction, coordination, fine motor control and overall strategy as any other sport. The largest difference is you don't exert much physical activity, which has upsides/downsides (less injuries but less exercising).

Valve has done a brilliant job creating a virtuous cycle around professional Dota.

They host The International (TI), the biggest tournament of the year. Dota is free to play, and financed by selling in-game cosmetic items. Every year around TI-time, Valve releases a collection of items, with 25% of proceeds going towards the tournament prize pool. Some people buy the items because they look cool. Some people buy the items because they "want to support esports". It turns into a virtuous circle because e.g. reddit gets hyped up like a kickstarter "how high can we make it go?!". Each year breaks the previous sales record, leading to PR, and higher sales. Higher sales leads to a larger prize pool, leading stories like these. Larger prize pools also attract pro players from other esports, leading to more PR and hype, etc.

The probable reason this got posted today is that the big The International tournament is currently happening. Group stages happened earlier this week and the elimination bracket happens next week in a Seattle stadium.

http://www.dota2.com/international/overview/

and MSG on the east coast!!

MSG-theater, not the arena. :/

yes but, i'll take what i can get. considering it's the second year they're doing this it must have been somewhat successful, which is exciting.

also... LCS NA is going to be at MSG proper, if i understand correctly. which is amazing.

The top esports earnings, broken down by player, game and country: http://www.esportsearnings.com/players

Interestingly, Sumail is 50th, w/ $300k. The next highest pakistani is $500.

It's also worth pointing out that Dota is somewhat skewed in terms of earnings. Most of a Dota player's income comes from tournament prizes, as opposed to say, corporate sponsorships, which are more popular in Starcraft. This has lead people to claim that SC2 earnings are probably understated, because their sponsorship revenues aren't public.

The top 5 players on this list are from the Dota team that won The International (TI4) last year, so it's a good bet that the winners of TI5 next weekend will be the highest paid players in esports.

Take note kids: stay in school.

Oh for sure. Dota has ~11M MAU. The #100 top earning player's lifetime earnings are lower than a fresh out of school programmer's starting salary.

Dumb question, but how did he start playing Dota 2 at the age of 7? Surely thats a mis-print - it's not been out that long? Development only started in 2009...

They probably meant Dota 1. Dota 2 is an HD remake of Dota1 with the exact same units and game mechanics so most players consider both games to be the same thing.

Dota was originally a custom map for the Blizzard game Warcraft III released circa 2005. In 2011 Valve hired the developer of the custom map to make a full standalone game and that became Dota 2. Most players (including me) played the original game before shifting to Dota 2.

"Sumail started playing Dota 2 as a 7-year-old. Now 16, he’s still..." Dota 2 was released in 2013.

They mean the original Dota.

Maybe they meant Dota 1, which was released in 2005? But that still makes no sense.

If he was 7 in 2005, then he was born in 1998 and is now 16 or 17. Makes sense to me.

They would be meaning playing DOtA since age 7. The original DOtA has been played since pre-2005 under various guises. Dota 2 is largely identical to the original dota as far as gameplay goes.

Exactly where DOtA starts and ends can be a little bit fluxy. It has evolved in a rolling fashion over many different patches that often tweak gameplay in large ways.

Video games are "e-sports" now? When did this happen?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esports#History

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