Paid to Play Games

Rabies

Some of them make more than $100,000 a year.

But there is a price to pay. They live packed together in their company barracks, and are expected to spend 12 hours or more each day at a bank of computer terminals.

taken from news.bbc.co.uk
would you be willing to play games for long durations every day for $100,000 a year ?

Creamy Goodness

and are expected to spend 12 hours or more each day at a bank of computer terminals.

i do that anyways, i should be paid 100,000

Syth

I'd love to get paid to game, but you'd want to be careful that after all the pressure woldn't kill the loveof gaming in you. Now that'd be bad.

regeneration

Lemme see - I start work at 9, clock-off at 5.30. Spend most evenings listening to music/watching movies/playing games on the PC - so that's from 7.30 - 00.00; hmmm that's way more than 12hours, I think I could handle the pressure and ass-stress.

PiE

Yea but you're not "playing" the games for fun, you're expected to touch just about every section of each level to test for bugs, probably with godmode on.

Which undoubtedly gets boring after all of 5mins.

Syth

I don't think they are testers for the game. They just play the game loads and get corporate sponsorship.

CombatCow

Originally posted by PiE
Yea but you're not "playing" the games for fun, you're expected to touch just about every section of each level to test for bugs, probably with godmode on.

Which undoubtedly gets boring after all of 5mins.

Huh,you have to be really passionate about games to do that job,and for me it doesn't get boring.;)

money + playing games =

CombatCow

Retr0gamer

I play a silly amount of games (I haven't played any games in a week because of college and went through a cold turkey phase :ninja: ) but I wouldn't like that job.

Games testers are expected to play the same sections of games over and over trying to find bugs or what causes the bugs. I think this could kill your love of games.

As for corporately sponsored professional gamers, I couldn't play just one game for a long time. I got sick of CS years ago. I prefer variety in my games. I play one RPG until I beat it but I always have the quick bash einhanders, maximos and GTAs for when the swearing starts.

tHE vAGGABOND

I would think the guys getting paid are bloody good, near unbeatable at their games..

We had a phase of pro quake players during the dot com era, and Im sure there are a handfull of them left, but I dont think there are many..

I get paid to play games, well test games but its kinda the same thing

Sand

The top amateurs are near unbeatable - professionals who are practising anything up to 12 hours a day in the runup to tournaments must be almost untouchable. Pro-gaming has so far mostly been fps ( Quake 3 and Counter Strike ) on PCs - its probably going to move over to consoles and any variety of games - from sports titles to beat em ups. Depending of course on the ability of people to set up and regulate such e-sports.

And whilst the best of them can earn $100,000 a year its not the case for even a lot of them. I think Fatality would be the $100k kid and that was a once off afaik - though he has got something like 300k for the past few years of gaming. Hes got an incredible competitive record over 2 or 3 games though, most others are lucky to make 20,000 out of it - and these are the rest of the best.