Sorry Mom! I CAN Make a Living Through Gaming
- 31 Aug 2016
- Noel Alex
- Features
If you live for gaming then you probably had this dream. I’m talking about that moment when after 12 straight hours of CS 1.6 and when the whole world tells you to ‘get a life’- you think to yourself “Wouldn’t it be great if I could do this for a living”. Well... sing praise to the Gods of gaming, because your prayers have been answered. Get ready to have your mind blown as we bring you the biggest and highest paying (million dollars anyone?) gaming tournaments in the world. And where does Kochi fit in the gaming map?
Dota 2 - The International: $18,000,000 prize pool!
No that wasn’t a typo, there are in fact, those many zeroes. The fifth edition of The International, an eSports Dota 2 championship tournament was held this year at KeyArena Center in Seattle, Washington. The tournament awarded the biggest prize pool in eSports history, at over $18 million. The winning team, Evil Geniuses were awarded $6,634,660, with each player in the team taking home over $1.3 million each.
This graphic will give you a better picture of what we are dealing with here.
Smite World Championship 2015 – $2,612,259 prize pool
Although not very popular in India, SMITE is the world's No. 1 Action MOBA and puts players in control of mythological Gods from a third-person perspective. Held in Atlanta, Georgia last January, the winning team Cognitive Prime walked away with a cool $1,306,130.
pic courtesy: media1.gameinformer.com
LoL World Championship 2014 – $2,130,000
I mean League of Legends people! Trust me, if there was a contest that paid 2 mil for laughing out loud, I would be practising my lol-ing skills and wouldn’t be wasting my time writing this article.
The World Championship 2014 was a tournament hosted by Riot Games, in which sixteen qualified teams from around the world compete to determine the League of Legends Season 4 World Champions.The winners of the event were the Korean team Samsung Galaxy White, who collected their $1,000,000 paycheck.
No guys, we haven’t forgotten our dear Counter Strike
I know for a fact that this is one of the most popular games in India and definitely in Kochi. I recall some nights during my hostel days, where we would all gather together in my room with our drafters and graphics sheet ready to finish our college work like the good students we were and end up playing CS till day break. ELEAGUE Season 1 hosted the biggest CS- Global Offensive tournament this year with a prize pool of 1.4 x 10^6 dollars. A Polish team called Virtus.pro won the tournament with a $400,000 payday.
pic courtesy: img.cybersport.gg
If money isn’t enough incentive for you, the gaming arenas are absolutely phenomenal. How can you not feel on top of the world doing what you love, at stages like these:
pic courtesy : polygon.com
One thing is for sure, gaming has indeed become a real and lucrative profession if you are good enough. So sorry Mom! Sorry Anu aunty! I am not wasting my time by playing video games and now I don't need to travel too far to prove my might.
And now, it's Kochi's turn
Immortal Gamers, a group of young gaming enthusiasts based out of Kochi have taken it upon themselves to promote the gaming industry. They will be organising a tournament (with attractive prizes ofcourse) that will test the best of Kochi at Centre Square Mall. Get the ammo on the event here.
Immortal Gamers aim to raise the bar for gaming tournaments and provide the right platform to encourage the gaming culture in our city. With eager youngsters like these, who knows, we might find an Indian team competing in one of these world tournaments in the near future. So if you have practiced your moves, join the Immortal Gamers tournament, right here in Kochi.
Words: Noel Alex
