serious question from someone whos "dream" it is to make a living from league.

lil koda·12/12/2017, 8:31:31 PM·1 votes·493 views

after my father had forced me to tell him what i wanted to do for a living, he laughed and said it was never going to happen. iv been playing league for around 4 years now, im only plat 5 and trying to get better everyday, are these online league tournaments really worth trying? sites like competeleague and other things, or should i chill from all of those until i somehow manage to hit diamond or master? or should i just give up all together. whats the best way to get started with all of this?

7 Comments

CLus12/12/2017, 8:41:10 PM1 votes

Its never fun being told your dreams aren't going to happen, and being a plat player puts you toward the top of players in the game. However, "making it" is just not a realistic goal for most people in any elo.

I would consider this next piece more important than the above. Considering that if you love this game, presumably you do, and it becomes your JOB, it is very likely to change the way that you interact with and view the game. Is losing the recreational component to this game worth that? What long term hard skills would you be developing to carry you into your next career after League's life span is up?

I will never tell someone to give up on their dream, but most dreams are for sleepers. A meaningful and joy filled life isn't tied to a dream job. I'd love to sing to sold out venues and transcend musical genres even as I reinvent them, but I'm not going to give energy to that dream because there are other, way more realistic, routes to happiness. I hope I'm not coming across as too pessimistic, that isn't my intent. Best of luck with whatever you decide, mate.

Eunson12/12/2017, 8:57:56 PM1 votes

If you've been playing seriously for 4 years and have only peaked at Plat V your chances of going pro are very very little. If anything it be likely to stream but even that is very hard to be successful.

Vei12/12/2017, 9:20:18 PM1 votes

You would have to find success through streaming

but if you are only Plat 5 you would have to have a good personality and actually have people want to watch you as an entertainer

HalcyonDweller12/12/2017, 9:27:58 PM1 votes

Well you have to look at how it is that you want to make a living off of it.

If you want to be a pro player then you're going to have to find ways into competitive circuits, find a team / gamer house or a discord server that hosts tournaments regularly. Climb to the top so that you can get scouted for a pro team.

If you want to be a streamer then it's a little more complicated, but also a little easier in some ways. You need a good brand, something that will hold people's attention. A lot of that comes down to personality or jokes. If you can keep an audience captivated by cracking certain kinds of jokes at the right time or cultivating a unique community culture with inside jokes and such, that works really well.

I recommend watching streamers / youtubers who have either high viewership or consistent viewership, see how they set up their channels, see how they run them, and see how they maintain a 'brand' or style for their stream.

Another factor for streaming is rank. If you can get to higher ranks then you can draw an audience that way, by demonstrating that you have high skill and/or have managed to climb that far. Lower rank people will be drawn to that because they want to see if you do something different from them that helped you be more skillful than them.