How to get paid to play video games

Most people enjoy playing video games for fun, but wouldn't it be much more interesting if you can play video games and and get paid money at the same time?

Well, believe it or not, there are a lot of people doing just that. In fact, they are making a living from playing video games. The video game professionals or pro gamers – as they are known - play games in tournaments that have substantial prize money for achieving high rankings.

The earnings of top players can be substantial, many of whom enjoy the lifestyle we all dream about. There are cases where people with lucrative careers leaving to pursue a career as a pro gamer.

For the very top gamers, there is the added bonus of earning a full-time salary from gaming organizations on top of the prize money earned from competitions.

Online gaming

Many also participate in competitions in online gaming, where the participants compete for prize money playing popular online games against competitors around the world. Some gamers do both, while other may specialise in

What is required to be pro gamer ?

Just because its people involved playing games for money, one might get the impression that pro gaming isn't a serious industry. However, there is big money involved as well as corporations ranging from gaming firms to big media corporations, all wanting to get a share of the pie.

• Luckily, there is no age limit for gamers. There are gamers as young 10 years of age, who are accompanied by their parents to competitions.

• Some of the gamers are true professionals in the sense that this is their life; this is what they make their living from. They get sponsored; some even get big yearly contracts.

• It requires great dedication. Just like any other line of work, earning money by playing video games requires great dedication and hours and hours of honing skills and eradicating weakness in order to be among the best.

• You have to be a gaming expert. Its no good just playing, you have to have to be among the best gamers out there. The quality of gaming of top gamers that play for big money is incredible.

• Although this advice might not seem highly relevanty to a gamer, but it is important that gamers are well spoken and know how to handle the media and representatives from companies and other organizations that they will come in contact.

How to become a pro gamer

The best way to find the answer is to actually enter a pro gaming competition and see for yourself the attractions. Some of these tournaments attract thousand of participants, so it is good way to test the water.

If you cannot attend a competition on a pro gaming circuit, why not try to enter an online equivalent and compete with people all over the world. There are regular online gaming competitions of popular games like Halo on platforms like the Xbox.

If your performances in competitions - whether offline or online – are excellent, you will get noticed and improve your chances of carving a niche in this industry.

The best advice that could be given to amateur gamers wishing to become pro gamers is, you should not seek to become a pro gamer at the expense of getting an education or seeking a career in another industry. This is not an easy industry to crack and requires a lot of luck. Its best done in your spare time.

Downside

Although more and more people are earning money by participating in gaming tournaments, the number is still fairly small. As said earlier, the top gamers will earn a lot of money, but unfortunately, they tend to dominate most of these tournaments.

If you are interested in becoming a professional gamer, you need to get in touch with organizations that run the gaming circuit. There are competitions happening all the time in some of the major American cities.

Salary for pro gamers

Well, the top gamers can easily make over $100,000 a year, and that's just from prize money, when endorsements are added, this figure rises substantially higher.

The future of professional gaming

The future is very rosy for the professional gaming circuit. With big companies ploughing tens of millions of dollars promoting their line of games, they are keen to associate themselves with top gamers, who have substantial following with the ever increasing gaming public.

Professional gaming is akin to a new sport. Just like any other industry, there will be winners and there will be losers.