World of Warcraft at Ten Ton Hammer

Can You Earn a Living Through PvP

Let’s face it, not many of us have the mad skills to earn the vaulted World of Warcraft PvP rating of 3,000. Only a few of groups have done it so far. Of the subset of players that vie for those honors, some are professionals. That means they get paid to play. Typically, they only get paid when they win; very few receive a salary. In a world where athletes like Tiger Woods makes $22+ million a year (plus endorsements of well over $100 million), can we earn enough playing video games like WoW to put food on the table? Well maybe, depending on your tastes.

When most American sports started out as club sports (i.e. football, baseball, basketball, etc.) the players earned very little. The pay was subsistence living where the players earned enough to live, and the reward was playing a game they loved instead of getting a real job. This is where video game pros are currently residing. Mainstream games such as Halo provide Tom “Tsquared” Taylor with over $100,000 dollars a year. There is money to be made, but even the PvP stars of WoW at the pinnacle of the sport can’t make six figures on winnings alone.

Making a Donkey Hybrid of Ourselves

In the hopes of making some realistic assumptions (and thus making an ass of ourselves), I am going to assume that a top rated PvP team can pull in two regional tournament wins ($8,000 each), one national win ($25,000) and a couple of lesser tournament victories ($2,500 each) to bring the total earnings of a 3v3 team to a whopping $48,500, or $16,167 per player in winnings. I think this is aggressive, but we’re talking about the best of the best, right? Add a salary to the winnings of $2,000 a month and we end up with $40,166 per player per year. This is not Park Avenue condo type money, but it isn’t bad for a side business.  

Let’s go to the tale of the tape: Wages across professional sports.

The following table illustrates the earning potential of the top players in each sport. All dollar figures are in U.S. dollars (not Euros, Canadian Dollars or any other currency that happens to be holding its value – unlike the U.S. version). All figures are from Sports Illustrated reports and do not include endorsements or playoffs:

As we can see, we should all drop what we’re doing and become a boxer since that is where the “real” money is. There are some very interesting numbers and some that we have to just throw out – like Floyd Mayweather; he “works” two nights a year at most. The annual numbers are similar, but the time spent playing each sport is dramatically different. A round of golf is a lot longer than a boxing match - that is certain. Back to the topic at hand, and I believe we can see that playing WoW isn’t going to put you in the big leagues with the stars of more established sports, but a good team can pay some bills. Really though, $9.56 per minute isn’t a bad hourly wage.

Wages per Minute per profession (excluding boxing):

Why no love for Warcraft PvP Wages?

There are many hurdles to WoW PvP becoming a true major sport. In the short term, the issue stems from a lack of venues. With the loss of some tournaments and the rumors of others being dropped (ESL seems to have an on-again off-again relationship with WoW) the club sport of WoW PvP may never reach its potential.

In the long term the most significant issue is this lack of audience participation or even engagement. What’s the difference between WoW and all the others in the table above? We currently have no viable way to gamble on WoW matches. Let me wager on SK Gaming versus Button Bashers in the second round at Blizzcon and all of a sudden I have a vested interest in that match. Just like porn created the internet (no offense Al), wagering created mega-riches in sports. This is just my not so humble opinion, but sports exist only to be wagered on, even if the payoff is just a beer at the pub.

I don’t expect kids to be dropping out of high school to seek their fortunes in PvP, but a teenager making forty grand a year isn’t too bad. There aren’t that many players who can achieve that level of play and pay.  So maybe we can’t all quit our day jobs, but someone out there right now is figuring out how to make their living by playing WoW. When you figure it out (whoever you are) send me a note so I can join you.