I have always dreamed of becoming a pro gamer but im not too sure what is the best way to start or break onto the pro gaming scene. Some of the pros say they started at LAN events but I'm not too sure of any present or upcoming LAN events in Australia. Does anyone know of any and if so can you tell me when and where? Or if theres a better way into the pro gaming circuit in Australia can you tell me how? Also if there is any pros on this forums it would be great if you could share your experiences.

you can't be a pro at RPGs.

wasn't there a thread like this a while ago?

Pro gaming in Australia pretty much doesn't exist. It's only really possible if you're living at home and are some how able to live off random promotional gear like mousepads and mice.

swizzie how old are you ? do you plan to do this as a career like a sportsman? I'm not sure there is all that much money in it - even if you win a big contest once or twice - you gonna keep that s*** up forever?
Don't let me dash your dreams or anything, but I reckon there is more you can do in the gaming industry than just being a pro gamer. Having an actual proper job related to gaming might make it much easier to justify spending the time becoming a pro, and gives you some security if you get your arse kicked. Think about what businesses want out of sponsoring pro gaming and try to give it to them. Somebody organising events or promoting games is almost guaranteed to make money, whereas competitors are often playing with fate.

While there is money to be made in some FPS and RTS games the market is so small you have to pretty much be within the top 10 players in the world.

I dont want to shatter dreams, but you are probably not that pro.

I'd be looking for a real job kid.

Try your luck with youtube. I came across a few 'pro-like' gamers who i'm subscribed to their Street Fighter 4 channels. Basically what they do is organise online recorded matches against other well known youtube personalities in an attempt to make a name for themselves online. From their on they can attend SF4 tournaments like Seasons Beatings and EVO (in the US) with a bit of credibility under their belts.

More online wins = more subscribers = more views = more recognition.

That obviously works for a select few beat em up games (like SF4) but i don't think it'll work for too many other genres. Plus you have basic setup costs like getting a decent camera, decent online connection, your own console/pc and not to mention you have to have the personality for it.

It's a long hard road ahead and the best you may end up with is a few donations if you are really, and i mean REALLY good at it. But hey, you asked for suggestions and you gotta start somewhere, right?


last edited by MatchFixa at 19:11:47 29/Nov/09

What game?

SGL is back apparently - http://www.sgl.org.au/

Move to Korea. Apparently they have 5 channels dedicated to gaming

dedicated to Starcraft and nothing else.

where is pureaussiegamer he'd give you a tip or two.

pureaussiegamer: "gaming scene in oz is s***, don't bother, it only gives you fits and a twitchy left eye, i'll tell you more if you subscribe to my channel, and that's why i give the pro gaming scene in oz 1.5 kangaroos out of 5".

This sounds like one of those expensive car or expensive house type questions: If you have to ask, you can't afford it.
Ie - if you don't already know the answer, you're probably not up to it in s many ways.

You have to know people, pretty much end of story... I could say to a mate hey ima go pro @ a game.. but he wouldn't sponsor me until i could prove that i can compete at the top levels in the world... (wayy too much effort) that's what you have to realize.. if you want to get a sponsor u have to be the best in AUS at your game (actually not that difficult really), but then you have to be competitive to keep that sponsorship (much more difficult)

last edited by Raider at 20:36:05 29/Nov/09

Raven, ever heard of layby or 12 months interest free

IMO a lot of it comes down to natural ability. If you don't have it then you may play for years and still not be competitive. Play for fun and if it takes you somewhere then all the better.

QGL wiki helps here:

fat gamer going pro

Love reading old posts I've made! I'm really a lot smarter than I think.

Although a year from now I'm gonna look back and see a gif of teenage boys wanking

last edited by thermite at 23:05:40 29/Nov/09

LOL that pic was great! just not great time management i spose.

pureaussiegamer: "gaming scene in oz is s***, don't bother, it only gives you fits and a twitchy left eye, i'll tell you more if you subscribe to my channel, and that's why i give the pro gaming scene in oz 1.5 kangaroos out of 5".

i'm so sad that he hasn't graced us with his presence. i expect a modern warfare 2 vid soon though.

I'd suggest sharpening your skills with airsoft.

lol

And this. If I'd been playing I'd have lost it ages ago.. f***ing annoying crowd.

ok, a question about sydney underground. How would they have been chosen to go to CGS? what did they do to get recognised as pro gamers in australia? Did they do it at LAN events? how?!!. Also when the aussie guy said he 'started playing counter strike' what exactly does he mean? Iv'e been playing Halo3 for a while now and still havnt been asked to go to CGS. What exactly did he do to make people think he is one of the best aussie counter strike players?

i expect a modern warfare 2 vid soon though.

The game only just came out. Give him 3 months.

he clearly pwned a lot of noobs to get where he is today

ok, a question about sydney underground. How would they have been chosen to go to CGS? what did they do to get recognised as pro gamers in australia? Did they do it at LAN events? how?!!. Also when the aussie guy said he 'started playing counter strike' what exactly does he mean? Iv'e been playing Halo3 for a while now and still havnt been asked to go to CGS. What exactly did he do to make people think he is one of the best aussie counter strike players?

You follow the scene for the game you're going pro at. Follow the scene means hanging out in IRC channels, on the right forums, on the sites that are dedicated to halo 3 in aus, halo 3 in the world, and general pro-gaming websites. That way you're on top of the news, the current scene, and who your competition is.

On those sites respective forums, and through general chat you will find out about the local qualifiers to go to the australian finals of stuff. Most of the finals are held in sydney, which will help you.

How do you get your name out there? for halo, i'd start on the halo forums at bungie and find out what sites there track the halo3 cometitive scene (i'd assume MLG [a big pro-competition in the states] website would also be another area to start at). Then you join a halo 3 clan, and, start winning.

There's one caveat, in Aus the local scene for any game, is not big enough for you to face a high enough level of competition, on a diverse enough basis, for you to play at the top level for long. We don't have the sheer number of great players for you to train against. It's why the best aussie at SF4 gave up, he went over seas and was mildly competitive, but had no one to really train against back here. And that story has been repeated time and time again.

you're not serious.

If you don't manage to becoming a gaming pro, you can always sign up to be a Pro At Cooking!

If that was meant to be funny, I think I got a 404 on that.

lol good one thermite hehehehehe

erm, was that boomser?

Also when the aussie guy said he 'started playing counter strike' what exactly does he mean? Iv'e been playing Halo3 for a while now and still havnt been asked to go to CGS. What exactly did he do to make people think he is one of the best aussie counter strike players?

Cheat, cheat and more cheat?

last edited by simul at 16:18:19 02/Dec/09

haha at the integ video... hardly watched it though. wheres his fat bro boomser

Just watch out for VAC... lolol

Pro gaming is dying.

I had a huge argument about this with a friend at a bar and it basically can be summarised as this:

How do regular sports hold spectators? Well they are personally invested. Often following the same team their fathers did, and their fathers father before that. They will watch it season after season.

How can you do that with videogames? Even if you liked a team, they'd only be playing that game for two years max and then they'd have to evolve onto the next popular platform else be left behind and not be invited to competitions.

Because videogames are so popular there are too many. Every year we pump out two or so next generation FPS blockbusters and a 3 year old one dies off.

Back when it was either CS Q3 or Starcraft was the best, strong tight knit groups self supporting each other for the sake of keeping an online fellowship. Thesedays online gaming is limited to the length of time the title has been out, and that's not even counted in years, but instead months. Go back and play online on some of your "old" halo2 games or something, are there many people playing? If there's less than 100000 globally you know you can't support a "pro gamer" in it no matter if it was the biggest release of its time. Meaning that you constantly have to retrain and move on, leaving any loyal fans behind each game generation.

Fans are how sports make money.

edit:

I'd suggest sharpening your skills with airsoft.

Wikipedia makes me think that's awesome! Is there somewhere to do that? Sounds better than paintball in many ways! (mostly with the wind not taking your ball in a massive loop towards the target)

last edited by skythra at 16:47:38 02/Dec/09

lol @ thread

Pro gaming is dying.

Tell that to the Koreans, or the players on salaries playing warcraft 3.. same with cs. It's just s*** in Aus.. not the rest of the world.

but seriously to OP.. if u don't even know how to go pro then don't even bother trying, you're obviously not cut out for it.

last edited by Raider at 20:16:53 02/Dec/09

I like that you put "serious" in "inverted commas". It's like you know it's a ridiculous concept.

get lessons from tegs, http://tegsgamer.com.au/

its the only way to go pro

Tell that to the Koreans, or the players on salaries playing warcraft 3.. same with cs. It's just s*** in Aus.. not the rest of the world.

Short of Starcraft and WC3(and from my experience wc3 is pretty small compared to starcraft still) there are no other real pro games in korea. Also those follow exactly the trends i was talking about.

The rest of the world pro circuit does suck. Seriously have a look. You've got a few big events but not an actual ongoing season. Nothing that you can actually live off as a "pro gamer".

Most of them live with their parents. They get a couple of sponsored events. A couple of winners take home some prize money but mostly they're lucky if they get a bit extra on top of the plane trip and hotel stays for the week long events which are few and far between. If you don't place, you've got to have a family member paying the rest of your life for you while you train.

Edit: Actually I'm lying, the only other game i realised is WoW. But again it follows that its been around long enough with a big enough playerbase watching some of the things that happen. So its only natural they can sell themselves as advertisement boards for companies because of the number of players that do see them.

Forgot about that.

So there you go. Go pro, go wow in western world.

last edited by skythra at 21:59:25 02/Dec/09

Someone needs to come up with a game/platform that has the sort of media pull that the internet craze sites like twitter have. Something with a bandwagon that celebrities and businesses could ride. Maybe then.

world of twits!

world of wankers

http://tegsgamer.com.au/

Holy f***ing s***

To live a living of Pro Gaming, you have to be among the best in the world at that game, then at the next game, then the next. Otherwise you could live off 1 game for 5-10 years max buy selling your name on brands, similar to Fatality.

If you want to go for, that's cool. Just make sure you have something to fall back on, such as a Uni Degree or some such.

haha pharcyde, the guy is dumb as dogs*** i've watched him at a few comps before way back in the day

it's no wonder he's trying to cling to gaming

hahaha "I have achieved what some gamers could only dream of."

quote from that site

I could take him

teq vs teg show down lets do it

(im serious, I'm a cs axe)

The reason Starcraft worked for gaming was full on action by the 2-3 minute mark, never lets up for more then a few seconds and then typically climaxes and finishes by ~10 minutes, 15 tops.

Great spectator game.

That's the future of mainstream e-sports, developers need to take that into account.

teq you would get smoked

Chub has highlighted the true barrier for pro-gaming to take off - people need to want to watch it. Unfortunately games are only really interesting to watch for the people that play them. Even then you need to ability to watch it in person in realtime because otherwise you can't really capture any drama, it just looks like a crappy game demo with cheesy commentating.

integ mentioned nothing about cheating with his bro for a solid year when they were in [DC]

funny that

no doubting he's good, i've watched him and even you nitro(nk always failing to f0 :p) back in the day at some of those big comps at the bunker

but man where do you draw the line, i thought it would be before actually trying to charge people for lessons in cs

lol holy s***, that tegs guy looks exactly like Phooks.

$20 an hour? That's less than bottom of the rung IT help desk rates. And he's 26. Sure as hell hope he's got a proper day job.

integ mentioned nothing about cheating with his bro for a solid year when they were in [DC]

funny that

I remember being on their lan team and playing against SAS in the city once for some kind of little tourny (first time i met the SAS boys) and i couldn't understand why they both sucked so hard, i pwned but it wasn't enough.. then a few weeks later the whole cheating thing came to light.. little naive me thought they both just had an off day.

That being said though they're not really that bad blokes.

last edited by Raider at 01:18:54 03/Dec/09

Chub has highlighted the true barrier for pro-gaming to take off - people need to want to watch it. Unfortunately games are only really interesting to watch for the people that play them.

Lots of sport currently given playtime is pretty boring as well, at least to me. I'm not saying watching games would necessarily be less boring, but I'd rather take a nap than watch a game of lawn bowls or golf etc.

To add on to your own line of thought, being a spectator for sports events is generally only enjoyable if the spectator has an interest in them to begin with.

last edited by icewyrm at 01:25:27 03/Dec/09

1 of the key factors to any spectacle sport is the commentators... if they're s*** watching it is painful.

Like i don't mind watching some NFL, get the 2 good commentators and it's pretty good.. watched it the other day with 1 commentator and it was f***ing boring as s*** and the guy was terrible as well made me turn it off.

Game was still good but without that commentary was meh

professional wow is where its at

that f***ing tegs guy has so much in common with me i hate myself

Hahaha I just can't get over it. I wonder if Boomser is jealous of his brother's newfound success in the professional gaming arena.

After dedicating over half a decade to cs i can tell you there is no way you can 'go pro' in aus. Even if you move to another country to practice professionally you wont be 'living the dream'. Fatality has been pretty successful but that's because he has merchandise.

The players that are at the top play their game all day everyday. The competition is crazy, pressure, stress, losing. I don't know about you but in retrospect there is more to life than mastering a computer game even if your making a living.

I never thought there'd be the day but i haven't been playing games for about 4 months. While i enjoyed my time meeting teammates and going to competitions i do feel i sunk too much time into the game. If you try to go pro and fail you don't have much to show for it. Watch some interviews of pro gamers and some of them are pretty anti social. If your not working out as well you sacrifice your health. I've got winged scapular and it's pretty fked.

If you are going to go pro choose a 1v1 game. That way its all up to you and you wont get let down by team mates.

/endrant




last edited by JakeG at 03:09:37 07/Dec/09

last edited by JakeG at 03:13:23 07/Dec/09