High School Dropout Says He Was "Born To Play Video Games" (Makes $250k)

[matcom]

<snip>

JUPITER, Fla. --When 18-year-old Tom Taylor dropped out of high school because he wanted to play more video games, most people were skeptical. Now he's 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.

"I take risks," he told The Palm Beach Post. "In order to get paid, you have to take risks. I think I took the biggest risk I could take, dropping out of school to play video games, and it paid off."

Six months after he started gaming full time, he signed his $250,000 contract. He also got a publicist, a financial adviser and media training.

"I guess some people are just born with talents in certain things," he says, "like Michael Jordan was born to play basketball. I feel like I was born to play video games."

http://www.boston.com/news/odd/articles/2006/10/09/dropout_makes_big_bucks_playing_games?mode=PF

[Giant Robot]

1. So I have a Masters and make

one tenth of that. Something just feels wrong here.

[Blue_Tires]

4. i feel you

i have a masters and i've been unemployed in my field for the past 16 months....ironically i also used to be a pretty hardcore gamer...


"I could've been a contendah??"

[Giant Robot]

5. And I'm working in my field.

Sadly I had to desire to get an MSW and not something that would score me big money.

Hmmm. Maybe if I start training now........

[Blue_Tires]

6. my M.S. is in journalism

great choices in my life!:silly:

[tigereye]

17. well, it ain't all about money

(fellow mental health prof. here) And, usually you will be able to sleep at night and live with yourself at the end of the day. ;)

but it would be nice if we made about twice as much as we do now. I recently have been getting calls from folks who want to organize the lot of us. That makes for some interesting discussions.

[BigMcLargehuge]

20. less study, more space invaders

Damn, I knew I was making mistakes in college!

[IdaBriggs]

2. My husband would love this as a career choice! nt

[BarenakedLady]

3. Ok

Where do I sign up!

[BreweryYardRat]

7. The phrase "fucked-up society" springs to mind here.

And the overpaid dickhead didn't even bother to finish his senior year and get a diploma? Hope he likes working for McDonalds when he's thirty and someone else has supplanted him.

[rockymountaindem]

8. Yeah

Nobody can be the best forever, and the list of pro athletes who blew everything they had accumulated is a mile long. That said, I wish good luck to this guy. He'll need it.

[hfojvt]

13. and your point is?

My lifetime earnings to the age of 44 are about half of what he is making this year. He can make enough money to last him the rest of his life before he is 25 - if he knows how to manage his money.

[ComerPerro]

14. That's the challenge, though

does he...

Hope so, for his sake

[Nikia]

9. You would think that he could have finished high school first

I don't think playing video games is a skill that only has so many years like most normal professional sports. On the otherhand, perhaps graduating with one's high school class is over rated and he'll have plenty of time for education afterwards just like my dad's coworker's son who played pro baseball instead of going to college.

[Jamastiene]

10. Are they taking applications?

That sounds like the job for me. :P

[Redstone]

11. Pretty fucking revolting, what that says about our society, isn't it?

Redstone

[Deja Q]

21. No doubt his job will be offshored the moment it becomes convenient too

[rug]

12. How is this different from baseball?

[ComerPerro]

15. or any professional anything

baseball, football, soccer, hockey... other fields, to, including artists, musicians...

Apparently there is a market for what he does

[OzarkDem]

16. Yikes, don't let my son see this

He wants to start playing in these tournaments. Looks as though they are pretty lucrative. IMHO, its no different than any other professional sport, though kids shouldn't pass up high school or college for it.

[tigereye]

18. our kids have a future!

:rofl:


just kidding. My son would rather play vids than anything else at this point. It's kind of scary. I think I'd rather support the game writing, though, rather than the professional game circuit as a career.

[Brewman_Jax]

19. Even His Airness graduated high school

This case is the exception rather than the rule. For every one of these incredible HS dropout success stories, there are probably at least 9,999 who will have little future beyond menial jobs.

There's no telling how long this will last. The statistical data of pay rates of HS grads vs. HS dropouts are well documented.

Stay in school.