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What It's Like To Be A Professional Gamer

What It's Like To Be A Professional Gamer

The dream job?

Mark McGowan

Mark McGowan

We've all been at that point where we get a new game or console and just wish we could stay off work for a few days and play it none stop.

You get to work and all you can think about is getting home, opening a big bag of crisps, sipping a cold beer while you go about completing your new game. For some people, though, doing this every day is reality.

The job title of 'Professional Gamer' is one I'm sure we'd all like, because from the outset it just sounds like someone who is paid to, well, play games.

Johnathan Wendel, also known by the gamertag Fatal1ty, is a man who has lived this dream. But what's it all about? We spoke to him to find the ins and outs of being a pro gamer.

Credit: Twitter/@FATAL1TY

"I played as a hobby, like everyone else, through the mid-late 90s," Johnathan told LADbible. "I went to tournaments locally and a few hours away from my hometown of Kansas City, Mo. I won my first tournament in the game Quake I in 1996. After that, I started training over the years to hone my skills at Quake I and eventually made the switch to Quake III Arena where there was an immense amount of money up for grabs.

"In 1999 I went to my first professional tournament that had $25,000 as a prize. I was able to place third there and take home $4,000 at the age of 18."

The dream? Going somewhere where you can just play your favourite video game and then leave with more money than most teens can dream of?

Of course, this'd get the pulses racing and you'd likely get addicted to it, as Fatal1ty did.

"I was super excited about this, and decided to devote all my time and energy to be the first full time professional gamer," he said. "I treated it like a job, and focused on winning as many tournaments in Quake as I could.

"The first year as a professional gamer I went on to win the 2000 Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) in Dallas, Texas for $40,000, the Gold Medal at World Cyber Games in South Korea for $25,000 and CPL Cologne in Germany for $10,000, along with other tournaments that racked up close to $100,000 in prize winnings."

In among the glory of taking your hobby to the next level, not to mention earning a lot of money from it, you might expect that in some ways the fun is drained out of it.

However, in a similar way that footballers relinquish playing in the park with their mates - heading off to big leagues to make top dollar - a gamer has to do the same.

It's goodbye to sitting on your mates sofa shouting at each other for screen-looking, or logging online and screaming about lag, it's more about getting some serious practice down. However, there's always room to go old school now and again.

"I was able to surround myself with great people and it really allowed me to not focus on it so much as a job, but more as a job I loved," Johnathan told LADbible. "I love practicing, training and playing in competitions for big stakes. It's the most exhilarating feeling in the world for me to compete.

"My friends were mostly guys who competed or enjoyed playing at a decent high level. I played with whomever I could get a challenge from online or on a local network.

"Traveling to LAN parties was the thing to do, as the best training was always on a closed network as the internet was still filled with LAG and UNREALISTIC situations that don't happen in tournaments."

However, any losses that may come from heading down the route of professional gaming also bring gains. Now a retired gamer, Johnathan is a businessman who owns the brand Fatal1ty, Inc, which sells gaming accessories. He later expanded this through business partnerships with the likes of OCZ Technology, Creative Labs, ASRock, Universal Abit, GamerFood and Southern Enterprises, Inc.

All of this came from wanting to be the best.

Credit: Twitter/@FATAL1TY

Johnathan told LADbible: "I sacrificed everything to train and be the best I could be. I had the focus to never give up and push harder than anyone else.

"My relentless pursuit of winning was my mission. I played even when I didn't want to play. I was insane about practice and becoming the best. I let nothing get in my way.

"If someone tried to slow me down from where I was going, I would remove them from my circle. I was on a mission to prove people wrong and show people you can really make a living playing video games and make a career of it."

He was right. And, just in case you wanted to follow in his footsteps, he's got some advice for you...

"Surround yourself with positive minded people who you enjoy playing with and also give you a good game," he says. "Build an alliance to make yourself better and share as much as you can.

"Enter as many tournaments as you possibly can and constantly test things out. Don't be afraid to approach a tournament where you're super aggressive the whole tournament, or super defensive. You will eventually learn the balance of the two, and be on the way to winning a lot of games."

Featured Image Credit: Twitter/@FATAL1TY​

Topics: GAMING