I make more money than NA pros without a salary or long-term sponsorship.

Zero Shingetsu·Sep 17, 2019·1 votes·1,662 views

Still looking into this, still disappointed. As of 2018, this article claims the average LCS salary for NA is around $320,000 US. The seasonal prize pools last year sat around $250,000 US, and Worlds winnings were $6,450,000 US. Those are split between five players, with cuts taken off by management and the like. I can't find any hard numbers on what individual players will make from sponsorships.

Now take my competitive play over the past four years. I'm not going to factor side tournaments like Tekken, because it's no longer my primary gaming income, but I do still compete now and again. Instead I'll look at Tsukiten.

Stable Income: $695,000 For sitting in the top 5, each member of my six-person squad earns 0.2% of all broadcast, ticket, and merchandising profits in and around Tsukiten. Last year, that amounted to 22,530,471,070円, or roughly $208.4 million USD, which was just under $695,000 for each of us, and it's risen steadily to the tune of about a million yen (around $10,000) every year for the four years we've kept our spot. We continue earning this, without anything cut off the top, no negotiations required, as long as we remain among the top 5 squads. This is the big incentive to play hard during the year (apart from pride), as the Worlds equivalent actually starts you out in worse shape the better you do during the season.

Sub-Tournament Winnings: $84,100 to $2,256,000 Every year, Tsukiten hosts 12 major sub-tournaments. The winnings last year ranged from 9,100,000円 to an impressive 244,000,000円 for the biggest sub-tournament, Shingetsu Taikai. (Me sharing a name is incidental; the word translates to "new moon", and I chose it for my name for a completely unrelated reason.) We managed to win Shingetsu Taikai both of the last two years, as well as five others last year: Shinkyū Taikai (10,000,000円), Wild Fang (126,470,000円), Kotsuniku (99,520,000円), Kagemura Taikai (42,650,000円), Red Moon (100,000,000円), and Makigari (15,500,000円). Altogether, last year's sub-tournament winnings amounted to 638,140,000円 for the squad. I got 20% of this as one of the two most veteran players on the squad, which added up to 127,628,000円, or $1,180,430 or so.

Invitational Tournament Winnings: $515,000 Invitationals are sporadic. They're basically dreamed up on a whim every year and usually feature special rules that all participants have to adapt to on the fly. Because of that, I can't really offer a solid range for winnings from this style of tournament. I can say however, that our squad won two of the four tournaments we were invited to last year, and they won me 55,600,000円 after dividing with my squad, which equates to almost $515,000.

Coaching Bonuses: $4,600 In Tsukiten, active players will often coach other players by simply playing with them in casual modes and improving their skills. Senku, the parent company of the developer, will guarantee this up to 1,200円 per hour of coaching to prevent scams that consume a pro player's time unnecessarily, but I've only heard of them having to do so twice. Last year, I charged a couple players 800円 per hour of actual gameplay and discussion for coaching four... roughly a month a piece? It earned me around 500,000円, which amounts to around $4,600 USD. (Note that I don't charge very much compared to other pros, as I don't have the time to really dedicate to clients. I try to juggle too many things... There's a guy on a rival squad, WhiteMemo, who dedicates more time and charges something like 2,500円 per hour; about $23 USD.)

Advertising Sponsorships: $1,035,000 I did a couple short ads for Tsukiten, as well as a TV ad for Resort Shōja, worth 58,520,000円 between the two of them. Onnaiko Magazine wanted me for an ad shot as well, and they gave me 663,000円 for it. Finally, I did a series of online ads with my squad for Club Netoge that earned me personally 52,690,000円 when you add all the ads up. I may or may not have been approached by a host club to do some billboard photos. I would have turned those down if I were. Truly. Ahem, in any case... Adding these together, I personally earned 111,873,000円 for advertising last year. This equates to about $1,035,000 USD - and I didn't even have to wear a shirt covered in logos!

Oseibo: $185,000 Senku offers pro players an end-of-year gift to thank them for their part in the company's business. Rewards are based on individual rank at the end of the year. Last year, I was considered second in the world (I'll catch you, Zenkyōkan! (งಠ_ಠ)ง) and was awarded a bonus of 20,000,000円, which is just short of $185,000 USD. First place gets 35,000,000円, while the vast majority (anyone below the top 20) receive only 10,000円. The company claims this value may fall depending on how the game is doing, but these have been the gift values for the past four years, so it's holding steady.

Idai Kaisen: $2,370,000 Idai Kaisen is basically worlds for Tsukiten. It's the "big one"; the tournament to end all tournaments. The top 32 squads (which is almost all the squads, to be honest) get a chance to compete, seeded based on their rankings for the year, but seeds don't decide where you get placed on a tree. Instead, the decide where you spawn. Teams with higher rankings spawn in less advantageous positions, forcing them to scavenge more actively and construct their own fortifications, or claim indestructible fortifications from lower-ranking teams. Idai Kaisen is what the game calls a kessen-style tournament (some of the sub-tournaments follow this format as well). Every participating squad is put out on the same huge map. In Idai Kaisen, permadeath rules are in place; once a player dies, he's out of the game. It's that crazy.

The payoff is big though. That kind of tournament, with all the best in one place, on the same battlefield, draws a lot of viewership. Viewership means sponsorship, and sponsorship means big prize pools. We managed to attain the grand prize of 1,280,520,000円 last year. I again got 20% for being one of the two veterans, as is custom, and it came to 256,104,000円 or almost $2,370,000 USD.

Final Total for 2018: $5,985,030 (approximated)

Granted, last year was a very good year for me. However, compare this to Faker's net worth which was estimated around $1.5 million in 2016. I made around five times that in one year! I can only attribute this to one of a few things. Either...

A. Riot is extremely stingy. B. Having to give overhead to managers, agents, and others is SEVERELY cutting into a League player's bottom line. C. Esports just aren't that popular abroad (although that shouldn't explain Faker's situation, unless League is all he plays professionally). D. There's just not a lot of money in LCS.

Whatever the case, it's extremely unfortunate. League has been a strong voice in the realm of esports for how long now? Yet still, LCS players are making incredibly little. Even lesser known athletes in other major sports in America make hundreds of millions, don't they? You would think LCS could do better for its players than $320,000... With League alone raking in around $2.1 billion per year, why do LCS players get so little even today?

15 Comments

SubdueSep 17, 20197 votes

Random unverified self-brag aside, the very premise of this article is flawed. You're comparing the earnings of someone who is Top 5 in Tekken to the average LCS player. Faker, for example, nets 2.5M / Year as salary from SKT. Furthermore, you're comparing LCS salary to the Tekken overall compensation. This is especially blatant when you take into account advertising for your calculation.

https://www.thewealthrecord.com/celebs-bio-wiki-salary-earnings-2019-2020-2021-2022-2023-2024-2025/other/faker-net-worth/

Zero ShingetsuSep 17, 20191 votes

{quoted}

Random unverified self-brag aside, the very premise of this article is flawed. You're comparing the earnings of someone who is Top 5 in Tekken to the average LCS player. Faker, for example, nets 2.5M / Year as salary from SKT. Furthermore, you're comparing LCS salary to the Tekken overall compensation. This is especially blatant when you take into account advertising for your calculation.

https://www.thewealthrecord.com/celebs-bio-wiki-salary-earnings-2019-2020-2021-2022-2023-2024-2025/other/faker-net-worth/

Fair enough. But if Faker nets $2.5 million per year, how is his entire net worth only $4 million? Has he seriously not invested any of it in hard assets? I mean I'd think even cash value is counted, is he seriously spending all that $2.5 million on consumables? Sounds like someone might be skewing numbers for some nefarious reason, but who am I to judge?

(Also no, I compared winnings as well. Also, if I'm being technical, none of this was for Tekken. I'd have also included advertising, but was having trouble finding hard numbers for LCS.)

ShyImagoghnarSep 17, 20194 votes

who are u

Zero ShingetsuSep 17, 20191 votes

{quoted}

who are u

Just a humble lover of video games who hopes to shed some light on how abysmal the income conditions are for LCS pros.

MrFawknSunshineSep 17, 20192 votes

man making $320k is so rough, hard to pay rent and ends meet.

Zero ShingetsuSep 17, 20191 votes

{quoted}

man making $320k is so rough, hard to pay rent and ends meet.

Comparatively, it is. I absolutely understand that it's a lot of money, don't get me wrong. However, when a Japan-only game can net its top players twice that just for being in the top five, and Riot is raking in billions per year... It feels a bit unbalanced, comparatively.

MrFawknSunshineSep 17, 20191 votes

dont i feel like a homeless bumb i only made $200 today

[zombie-nunu-bummed]

ChompyWulfSep 18, 20192 votes

I normally don't shy away from any chance to rail against the extreme profiteering of Riot. For a company with ONE game still after ten years, a large company with multiple campuses produces content at a relative crawl, neglecting some champions while others routinely get spotlight treatment, and still creates and reworks champions to be a balance nightmare. Add in a LOT of teams in LoL esports failed because Riot had no profit sharing and the team icon income was laughable. Riot could be a lot better for the money they make.

That said, there are issues here.

First, no, lesser known athletes in traditional sports do NOT made hundreds of millions. The NFL league minimum pay is 125,000 last I knew. The best "lesser known" athletes would at best be on par with Faker's yearly income.

Second, a simple Google search shows no game you name. None. Nada. Autocorrect wants a letter changed. Top result then is a Filipino company and nothing for a game. Tsukiten does not exist.

Third, if this game is that hard to find, I don't believe for one moment it brings in that much money. For it to make the kind of sums you say, it would have to be easily found even through Google's infamously spotty translation tech.

Finally, I actually just read an article today about Japanese Street Fighter pro Momochi Yusuke and his stand against Japanese laws which treat professional gaming as gambling and heavily limit the prize money that can be earned. Since only last year did an organization begin licensing players as official professionals so they can earn their full prizes, this goes COMPLETELY against everything you have claimed. Reading a little deeper, Japan has laws limiting the prize pools possible and the unreliable way around that is for sponsors to fill the pool and that can make consistent large numbers unlikely.

Your story just falls apart.

Zero ShingetsuSep 18, 20191 votes

{quoted}

I normally don't shy away from any chance to rail against the extreme profiteering of Riot. For a company with ONE game still after ten years, a large company with multiple campuses produces content at a relative crawl, neglecting some champions while others routinely get spotlight treatment, and still creates and reworks champions to be a balance nightmare. Add in a LOT of teams in LoL esports failed because Riot had no profit sharing and the team icon income was laughable. Riot could be a lot better for the money they make.

That said, there are issues here.

First, no, lesser known athletes in traditional sports do NOT made hundreds of millions. The NFL league minimum pay is 125,000 last I knew. The best "lesser known" athletes would at best be on par with Faker's yearly income.

Second, a simple Google search shows no game you name. None. Nada. Autocorrect wants a letter changed. Top result then is a Filipino company and nothing for a game. Tsukiten does not exist.

Third, if this game is that hard to find, I don't believe for one moment it brings in that much money. For it to make the kind of sums you say, it would have to be easily found even through Google's infamously spotty translation tech.

For one thing, it's a contraction. For another thing, you need to search in Japanese. I'd show you the actual name in Japanese but I've been warned twice for putting Japanese into my NA posts in the past. I will, however, give you the roman characters if you want to try and convert them to the proper Japanese: 「 gesshoku no rokuri no kazoku ten 」If it's that important to you, that should eventually get you where you going. Though Japanese is odd in that not everything is written in kanji, and there isn't any one accepted way to write a specific word for all its different meanings, so it'll... be challenging, unfortunately. I wish I could give you more, but it's not worth getting a boards ban over, considering I don't really care whether a random stranger believes me or not.

Finally, I actually just read an article today about Japanese Street Fighter pro Momochi Yusuke and his stand against Japanese laws which treat professional gaming as gambling and heavily limit the prize money that can be earned. Since only last year did an organization begin licensing players as official professionals so they can earn their full prizes, this goes COMPLETELY against everything you have claimed. Reading a little deeper, Japan has laws limiting the prize pools possible and the unreliable way around that is for sponsors to fill the pool and that can make consistent large numbers unlikely.

You're talking about fighter tournaments. The legislation on that is its own thing, because fighting games like Tekken and Street Fighter were their own big thing for a while, and there's not a lot of regulation that goes into the actual gameplay, by necessity. A very skilled player can lose to a less experienced player simply by spamming or luck, as Kusoru showed when he set out to deliberately mess with Western tournament play by having fun with a couple of very specific moves.

Games like Tsukiten are more rigidly regulated on the gameplay side, providing a more even playing field, which affords them greater freedom. Additionally, Tsukiten's prize pool is primarily provided by Senku, which as a private company has the right to provide "sweepstakes" rewards to users however they see fit. It's similar to the way a company can give out a free console to the first 1,000 subscribers, or the way mobile games can provide anniversary bonuses worth thousands of yen to those who climb the top of a competitive ladder. Technically speaking, pro Tsukiten players aren't even "pros". We're not licensed by any specific team, we're not part of a league, our teams aren't even rigid. We're just players that group together from year to year into squads and aim for top prizes. That was part of the point of my post; that some of our games have this system which allows players to thrive, while Riot insists on rigidly structuring its league such that players are forced to give up cuts of their winnings to third parties.

As an extra step, Senku makes clear to players in their user agreement that any income generated from ingame purchases, subscription fees, viewership fees, etc. may be used to generate prize pools for tournament play. Any funds provided by Senku itself that come from such sources - which is the vast majority of its earnings - are thus free of gambling regulation, as private citizens have the right to give their money to whatever endeavor they deem worthy. Technically speaking, most of the prize money is coming from other players, with their express consent. Legally, it's no different than a few million people each donating 1,000円 to a common cause. It just happens that Senku awards this money to players who win tournaments and excel at their game.

I appreciate that you researched this before weighing in, but with respect, please do not assume that a couple of foreign language articles can explain the depths of another country's law. I don't expect to know anything about American law just because of what little I hear in our media. You should probably not expect to get the full picture on Japan's state from yours, either.

ChompyWulfSep 18, 20193 votes

https://esportsflag.com/japan

I'll trust multiple websites before believing anything a faceless nobody claims.

Zero ShingetsuSep 18, 20191 votes

{quoted}

https://esportsflag.com/japan

I'll trust multiple websites before believing anything a faceless nobody claims.

You're missing the point. It's not an esport as designated by the west. The only games noted on this singular "multiple website" are western games that officially designate themselves as "esports". I play a strictly Japanese game that generates a lot of income and gives it to players to put on good shows for paying viewers. In Japan, we don't have an LCS or the like. We simply have games that are played for money. Why would such a thing show up on an English language esports website?

GeminiRuneSep 19, 20193 votes

It's not an esport as designated by the west.

Says what?! American controversy?

The only games noted on this singular "multiple website" are western games that officially designate themselves as "esports".

I think you're missing the point more right here. Just because it's a website that details the statistics of more profile titles doesn't dismiss other titles being established esports. If you were expecting or wanted every single title then that'd be a mess of a graph let alone weakening the essence of the data.

In Japan, we don't have an LCS or the like.

So I guess the LJL doesn't exist huh?

We simply have games that are played for money.

Aren't ALL games with a competiive scene and community played for money? Yes there exist some exceptions such as speedrun races or showmatches.

Why would such a thing show up on an English language esports website?

Because...competitive gaming is a global culture? Why not have as much outreach as possible? Why be skeptical over community data on an informational website which is honestly more reliable than what you've given?

Zero ShingetsuSep 18, 20191 votes

{quoted}

https://esportsflag.com/japan

I'll trust multiple websites before believing anything a faceless nobody claims.

Your singular "multiple website" is talking about western esports and which Japanese players compete in which games. I play a strictly Japanese game that doesn't fall under the official designation of an "esport". We don't have an "LCS" or "MLG" organization for most of the games we play. Like any Japanese game played for money, it simply considered to be a game like any other. It just happens to bring in a lot of income, which is given to players as a reward for drawing more players in through broadcast games. Why would you expect such a thing to appear on foreign websites? Just as our mobage websites don't mention Clash of Clans, I wouldn't expect an English language esports website to cover Tsukiten.

ChompyWulfSep 19, 20192 votes

Your continued insistence in spite of several articles detailing the struggles of Esports in Japan doesn't help. You offer no links and from everything I've read there is NO way a developer/publisher can offer the jackpots you claim. Stinks more and more like illegal money. I'm wondering if you will have to cut off your pinkie if you gave any real info or proof to support your brags.