10 Things You Didn't Know About Professional Gaming

Fire in the hole!!!

I stumbled upon this article on TwitchGuru, telling us some of our misconceptions on professional gamers. To the not-so-gaming inclined, professional gamers are people who game for a living, taking computer gaming to the next level by competing in international tournaments and competitions with very very lucrative prizes (often in tens of thousands of USD).

Professional gamers are usually very competent in the game that they specialize in, and will most definitely, in netspeak, pwn your usual cybercafe ali, ah kow and raju. In some sense, we can almost equate them to the professional sportsmen which we always watch on ESPN, only that instead hitting/kicking something around (almost all sports involve that in one way or another) in the field or court, their sport can be played from the comfort of their bedroom by staring at a square screen accompanied by a two (sometimes more) button rodent and an array of clicking keys. Often you will need a broadband connection to be able to participate. However, usually for competitive gaming, they are usually held in large halls or convention centres.

Some professional gamers in action, there's actually a chick there :P

As much as their sportsmen counterparts, professional gamers have their fair share of glamour, both in the virtual and the real world, some of then even become celebrities and endorsers of products. I've come across some professional gamers endorsing the two-button rodents I've mentioned earlier and the surfaces in which they thrive on, and I think the list goes on. Heck, there are even dedicated sports channels that highlight the recent events in the professional gaming scene.

I'm only going to put the headlines. You can read the rest here.

10 Things You Didn't Know about Professional Gaming
10. Pro gamers aren't geeks - they are jocks
9. There are female pro gamers - for once, you can meet chicks while being good at CS or DotA
8. Trash-talking is the air, and so is sportsmanship
7. Pro gamers retire earlier than tennis players - how early do tennis players retire? Can somebody tell me?
6. Pro gaming has its own sports media - something like ESPN for gamers
5. Stats are more than just wins and losses - and they are confusing - not surprising cos' even badminton has stats nowdays
4. Pro gamers are divided over the games - some like vanilla, some chocolate
3. Pro gaming has stars - and you thought I was pulling your legs
2. Heated rivalries are ablaze
1. It really isn't about the money - really???

Time to brush up my Quake 3 railing skills :P