How To Become A Pro Gamer & Get Paid For Doing What You Love
With the incredible rise in the popularity of gaming and eSports, tons of career opportunities have been opening up for gamers as well. In other words, now it is not only the game developers and publishers that can make money through video games.
One of the most sought-after career paths for a gamer is becoming a pro gamer. What could be better than being great at a video game and being paid to play it? However, not many people know how to become a pro gamer. Here we will be discussing this topic in great detail and explain how to become a pro gamer.
Identify Your Skills
Before you start learning how to become a pro gamer, you must first decide which game or set of games you are good at. You might be good at a genre of games like first-person shooters like CSGO, Valorant, or Rainbow Six Sige because of your ability to aim. Or you may be great at only Rainbow Six Siege because you are familiar with the maps and know how to develop strategies that work.
To determine what game or genre of games you are good at, take a look at your gaming history. Ask yourself, what kinds of games did you play growing up, which ones did you like the most, and which ones you performed great at. Try thinking of video games that your friends would invite you to play with them because you helped them win. These are just some of the questions that you can ask yourself.
Identifying your skills is a really important step, and it can help save a lot of your time and money as you set foot on your journey to becoming a pro gamer. You will be required to spend tons of hours on practice and a lot of cash on professional hardware. You don't want to start doing that in the wrong field, or there is a chance that all that may go to waste.
Another important thing that you should make sure of before getting into pro gaming is whether you have been playing video games for a long time or not. If you are already over 18 years old and are just getting into video games, you are going to have a tough time competing with players that have been playing video games since they were 6.
Everything that we have mentioned above is not meant to discourage you. It is simply to inform you so you don't end up wasting your time and money. This does not mean that you can not become a pro gamer if you haven't been playing video games at a young age. Tons of pro gamers start late but because of their dedication and skill end up in the eSports scene.
How To Become A Pro Gamer
So you have figured out what game you are good at and that you want to start your journey of becoming a pro gamer. To teach you how to become a pro gamer, we have split the process into steps. Here are the main steps that you will need to take to become a pro gamer.
Upgrade Your Hardware
If you are thinking of becoming a pro gamer, you are probably good at a particular video game. However, you might feel that you are not performing at your full potential. This is probably due to the hardware limitations of your gaming computer. If your opponents have a high-end PC, they will always have a competitive edge over you if your PC does not perform well. It is because a low-performance PC will not be able to crank out a lot of FPS. High FPS, at least over 140 frames, is necessary for unlocking maximum performance. Or else you will always be limited because of issues like input lag.
To even the playing ground, you will need to upgrade some of the hardware components of your PC. This usually includes a graphics card or a processor. It is also usually quite expensive to make this upgrade. However, it is absolutely essential if you want to become a pro gamer.
Get Better Gaming Gear
Just as your in-game performance can be limited because of underperforming hardware, it can also be limited due to poor-performing gaming gear. Gaming gear includes things like a monitor, keyboard, mouse, and headset. If you are using an old monitor that does not support low enough response times and high enough refresh rates, you are at a serious disadvantage. You should definitely consider investing in a gaming monitor.
When it comes to gaming gear, a gaming mouse is one of the cheapest upgrades that you can do. It will also get you the most improvement in your in-game performance. You can get a decent gaming mouse for as little as 50 USD, and you will feel a massive improvement once you start using it. It will help your aim become more accurate and consistent. Other things that you also might need include a mouse pad, a gaming headset, and a gaming keyboard.
Improve Your In-Game Performance
Once you have made the necessary upgrades to unlock your maximum in-game performance, you can move on to the next step. Now you must take your in-game performance to the highest level. In other words, you should not be losing most matches in the video game that you are planning on becoming a pro gamer of. At this stage, you should focus on getting the highest rank in the game, and dominating almost any player that comes against you. If you want to start your journey into the pro gaming scene, you must prove yourself as a good gamer.
To achieve all this, there is no other way than to put in tons of hours of practice. The only way that you are going to be amongst the top players in any video game is just by playing a lot of it. Playing a video game over and over again will improve your aim, your game sense, and any other skill related to the type of game that you are playing.
Join A Team
If you are planning on becoming a pro gamer for a team-based video game then you will need to join a team. At this stage, the team does not need to be already participating in pro-level tournaments or consisting of pro gamers. All that you want at this stage are people who are as dedicated to winning and improving as a gamer as you are.
Your team can include some of your friends that you have been playing with for a while now or some gamers that you met online. Regardless of where you get a team or which team you become a part of, you definitely need one if you want to make progress in a team-based game.
Compete In Tournaments
Live streaming doesn't always work. It is simply because the market is saturated with tons of streamers. You will need to do something entertaining as you stream so that you get more viewers and land in the eyes of pro teams. However, this will only help you become a good streamer and not a good gamer. The other thing that you can do to get in the eyes of a professional eSports team is competing in local tournaments. As you get some success in these tournaments, you can make your way into national and then international tournaments. If your performance is great, you will surely get recruited by an eSports team.
Stream Your Gameplay
Now that you are a part of a team, and you are dominating most matches that you play with incredible coordination and teamwork, it is time to show the world what you are made of. To do this you will need to start streaming on a platform that you are comfortable with. The ideal platform is Twitch but you can try YouTube or Facebook as well.
Streaming your gameplay will show the world that you are a great player. It will put you in the eyes of a professional eSports team that may even start to consider recruiting you. Tons of gamers make a career out of streaming or get recruited by a pro-level team at this stage. If you have what it takes, your pro gaming career will start right here.
Final Words
Now that you know how to become a pro gamer, you should keep one thing in mind, which is that the path will not be easy and will require tons of dedication. Also, if you are not getting anywhere into becoming a pro gamer, you should not be afraid to change things up a bit. You can try changing the team or changing the game you are playing. Some of the best pro gamers came from other games being only average in them. The bottom line is that you should just put in the effort and let time do its thing.
