"Professional" Gaming

[Crows Serenade]

I Apologize if this is in the wrong section of these forums, It is my first time posting here, and due to the aim/topic of this post, it was here that seemed most appropriate

Greetings! I'm quite certain that no one here would know of me so i'll introduce myself to begin. I'm Crows Serenade, and I was somewhat recommended to these forums with the hope that i may find answers/rally more support/awareness for myself.

Basically, I've been a gamer all my life, starting from the age of 2 on the Sega Genesis where i would "play" games like Sonic the Hedgehog, Megaman and Rocket Knight to name a few favorites, and during my life i've always wanted to work in some area that involved gaming (Reviewing, Testing, Designing etc.) and most of all a "Professional Gamer"

Being Australian and somewhat out of the way from alot of the major cities that host "Professional Gaming" events it always seemed impossible that i would ever make it to any sort of events like these.

Recently i have discovered the "Australian Cyber League" and the chance to compete in a professional gaming event that i had always dreamed about, so i quickly called up my friends and they helped me create a team to try our luck at the tournament.

The issue arises given my current situation. As it would appear, this is quite possibly the only chance that i would have to attend an event like this---It is for this reason that i am trying to raise awareness/support for myself among the gaming community in the hopes to leave the largest impact possible and as highly unlikely as it would be, to attract the attention of sponsors/meet the right people to be able to live my dream of being a "Professional gamer"

It is for this reason I created this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLx8DPcA7WI

And this Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/CrowsSerenade

I suppose what i am also looking for is the opinion and feedback of any other "Professional" gamers -- People who have sponsors or even ARE sponsors, on top of anyone who wishes to wish me luck/drop me some constructive feedback.

Questions i'm interested in:

What can I expect from a "Professional" level?
How difficult is it to actually be noticed by someone looking to sponsor?
Is performance the downright determining factor or are there other things involved (I'm confident in myself to perform decently at a competetive level, by other things i mean, ability to draw a crowd etc.)
Do you think there would even be sponsors at the event?
Do you think that another team would approach other teams members and ask them to join?

On top of this all, I will once again apologize for how crude this all sounds (It's...Kinda late), And i say thank you in advance to anyone who helps me to chase my dream of becoming a "Professional Gamer" I know that i may sound completely insane, but it's a risk i'm willing to take in order to reach this goal, after all, If i never try, how will I ever know?

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well the entry into this scene is the same as professional sports, you win a bunch of events and you have it made, then either sponsors will contact you or at least pay attention when you contact them.

But you first and foremost haveto concentrate on the winning, being decent isn't good enough at the top level, you need to hit the highest places if you want to win some prizes and tournament spots.
So what you should do is get a list of events you can attend as a newbie and start training your ass off on the games they will be playing, because that is what everybody else will be doing and may already have been for years.

 

[distortedreality]

Before you worry about any of the other stuff, you should probably go do some gaming with/against the people you'll be competing with to see if you've got any chance of success. Pick your games and go from there.

 

[go-10]

or you could just help people and post it on youtube like Maximilian does?

 

[Crows Serenade]

Mmk, so i should be out and about searching for more tournaments? How would you suggest doing this, as i've been attempting to find things like these for years and this is the only one that I can easily attend.

As for seeing if i have any chance of success, I should clear up that I have a history of high ratings in gaming and have played with high rated players numerous times over the course of many years and come out the better -- on top of this, both my friends and I have researched and studied the level of skill displayed at this particular tournament across the different titles and weren't very impressed (I'd rather have avoided mentioning this because it makes me sound cocky and up myself, when the reality is the reverse.)

Last of all. Who is Maximilian? >_> could you perhaps provide me with an example of his work?

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Mmk, so i should be out and about searching for more tournaments? How would you suggest doing this, as i've been attempting to find things like these for years and this is the only one that I can easily attend.

As for seeing if i have any chance of success, I should clear up that I have a history of high ratings in gaming and have played with high rated players numerous times over the course of many years and come out the better -- on top of this, both my friends and I have researched and studied the level of skill displayed at this particular tournament across the different titles and weren't very impressed (I'd rather have avoided mentioning this because it makes me sound cocky and up myself, when the reality is the reverse.)

Last of all. Who is Maximilian? >_> could you perhaps provide me with an example of his work?

Here's his youtube channel. He commentates a lot of call of duty, which is how I know about him, but he does other games as well.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Miles923

 

[Lunar Templar]

welcome to the escapist, stay away from the basement

 

[distortedreality]

Mmk, so i should be out and about searching for more tournaments? How would you suggest doing this, as i've been attempting to find things like these for years and this is the only one that I can easily attend.

There's this thing called online gaming, I knew it's new and all, but it's really very cool.

Choose some games and go play, get in a clan and see how far you can go with that before worrying about anything else. Competitive gaming at high levels isn't just limited to face to face tournaments, in fact a lot of the time those sorts of tournaments get a large amount of poor quality players.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Mmk, so i should be out and about searching for more tournaments? How would you suggest doing this, as i've been attempting to find things like these for years and this is the only one that I can easily attend.

You should primarily be out and beating these tournaments so you have some notches on your belt that can take you further.
But yes you should look for anything you can get, esports is still a bit of an underground movement so you really find out most things from other people, get in touch with some competitive players/clans that can refer you further or take you under their wing.

Also look ahead to the bigger tournaments and how one gets to attend them, or rather who can get you in.

 

[isometry]

Make sure to read Sirlin's Play To Win, one of the all-time internet classics:

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw