A Lot of Money for Playing Games 239
knowhow writes "Tom Taylor took the risk of dropping out from high school just to play video games. The guy who is just 18 years old, was prompted to take this step; because of the reason that emerged from his love for gaming. After playing for six months on a full time basis the guy signed a contract for a staggering $250,000."
From the Article:"Now Tom taylor is known as Tsquared on the gaming circuit. He's earning six figures and has product endorsements and a video game tutoring business. He's one of about 100 professional gamers associated with Major League Gaming, a video gaming league founded in 2002. When they're playing well, pros might bring home a few grand a month."
How about ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Dilbert Rules for investing (Score:1, Interesting)
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Story.aspx?
Re:When the money dries up... (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunately you don't get there's a lot more to life than money. Money is a means to various services. Everyone needs to contribute to society in order to draw on the services of society. For those who no longer work, it's simply saying you've payed your dues(in the form of time) to society equivalent to those which you're drawing back from society.
To get those IRAs or dividends to the degree which you did, if you did it without advancing some field in a unique way, you had to work over 40 hours a week, had to work for the bulk of your life, or skimped and saved as much as theoretically possible. If you advanced an underdeveloped field, you benefitted society enough to deseve what you're getting*. If you worked significantly over 40 hours a week (unless you were one of the lucky few who truely enjoy their job) or if you skimped & saved every penny you could, imo you wasted a portion of your life... for possible returns. Albiet if you've reached the point of retirement those have payed off to a degree, but you're putting a down payment in either case, of significantly decreased short term enjoyment(which is guaranteed) for the chance or it paying off later. (what I mean by chance is both the method of investment, which carries risk, as well as the odds of survival for the # of years till it really pays off)
*undeveloped fields are systems which have not been fully developed, but are of benifit to society. Those who understand these systems both work them to their advantage as well as benifit the field to the gain of society as a whole.
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There is no free lunch. There is no easy answer. IRA's, skimping and saving, or even comprehending a field which no one else does, these have costs(personal) or benifits(societally) which end up resulting in retirement at some earlier than otherwise possible point/a more comfortable retirement. But they're not free, dont delude yourself into thinking that. You payed for that money/month.
Worst job in the World? (Score:4, Interesting)
For a start you're competing against millions of people who don't require any technical qualification to compete with you. Besides gaining knowledge on a subject most people go to College & University to set themselves aside from the pack, to make themselves look more attractive to employers. With pro-gaming you haven't got any of this, the only barrier to entry is sufficiently fast reflexes, a little intelligence and a competent PC.
This person is going to be a target for the rest of his playing career. The guy below him is gonna be aiming to usurp him to get his sponsorship, not to mention thousands upon thousands of upstarts actively seeking to relegate him to obscurity.
It's also the sort of industry where unless you are in the Top 10 or so players for an extended period of time you're anonymous. It's not like being a professional footballer where even if you're in the lower divisions you're still making enough money to live on. This guy has to realise that there are thousands of people below him who are making no real money to speak of just waiting for him to slip up.
No one really knows the terms of this $250,000 contract - whether he's actually been given this amount of money or whether that's essentially his "valuation" in pro-gaming terms, but if I were him I would invest all of it and work on the principal that his career could just fizzle out in a couple of years or so.
Re:Worst job in the World? (Score:4, Interesting)
But almost everyone has a degree these days, so if you want to 'set yourself aside from the pack', you shouldn't be wasting your time at university.
Re:When the money dries up... (Score:3, Interesting)
The joke around Boston is that you hire Northeastern grads to get the work done, MIT grads to be your CTOs, and Harvard grads to run the companies.
The joke is not quite true, since so many companies in Massachusetts have been started by MIT grads, but there's a kernel of truth. Northeastern trains people in skills that are immediately useful. MIT tries to give its students the fundamentals that back science and engineering in general, rather than training in specific technologies. In this manner it is hoped (and I think rightfully so, I might add) that even though the graduates are not as immediately productive as Northeastern graduates, they can always continue to easily learn whatever new methods, techologies, and ideas come down the road, and hence over their lifetimes, will always be current and productive.
So, a Northeastern CS grad is sure to graduate knowing Java and relational databases and to have implemented an airline reservation system as a class project, an MIT CS grad might end up graduating only knowing Lisp and Modern Alegebra and have implemented a Modula II compiler as their class project. (Actually, for quite some time MIT grads would have learned Java for training in concurrent programming, but I'm making a point, so facts be damned.)
Regarding ego, anyone who graduates from MIT is smart, and they're going to know they're smart. MIT is also a very humbling experience, though, since it puts you through quite a wringer. Almost anyone who goes to MIT is going to have met people even smarter than themselves and is going to have seen that there's so much to learn, they couldn't possibly know it all.
Regarding your hiring practices, it is well known in the Boston area that there certainly are companies who would prefer to hire Northeastern grads. On the other hand, most MIT grads have no problem finding jobs. I certainly have never had such a problem.
|>oug
Re:Quiting school is not a life sentence (Score:3, Interesting)