"I Make Six Figures Playing Video Games" - Choi Seong-Hun

(CNN New York) - What do LeBron James, Peyton Manning and Choi Seong-Hun have in common? People pay them a lot of money to play games. Seong-Hun, or "Polt" as he's known on the battlefield, is a professional video game player. He is currently one of the best Starcraft II players in the world, ranked number four in the game's global standings. And life as a celebrity among the Terran, Protoss and Zerg races is lucrative. For his work on the fictional planets of the Koprulu sector, Seong-Hun makes at least six figures a year in Earth dollars.

"People think we just play video games... [but] the game I'm playing right now is real-time strategy," Seong-Hun says. "I have to counter strategy to my opponent's. It's similar to rock, paper, scissors, if I keep playing rocks again and again, I will lose every game."

Polt (a name chosen based on a favourite character from childhood) has made a career in the rising industry of E-Sports. As video game tournaments gain popularity, events have come to resemble professional athletic events: spectators fill theatres, even stadiums, to watch gamers duke it out live in the virtual world.
It's a growing business. The number of video game competitions have increased from about 9,000 in 2011 to roughly 47,500 this year, according to Battlefy, a gaming statistics tracker. Competitions range from small, intercollegiate tournaments to this month's League of Legends world championship, which will be held in Seoul's 60,000-seat World Cup Stadium.

Beyond that, there's the huge audience such events garner online: more than 71 million people watch - that's watch, not play video games online or on TV, according to SuperData Research. Last year's League of Legends championship had a combined viewership of 32 million, compared to 26 million TV viewers for the NBA Finals.

In Polt's case, his standing has not only landed him endorsements, but remarkably, a P-1A U.S. visa -- the kind typically reserved for professional athletes in sports like baseball. He practices his craft six to eight hours a day for which he is paid a salary. So win or lose, gaming earns him a steady stream of income. "In terms of money, it's really good," Polt says.

Source: CNN