Dota 2 Player 'Suma1L' Earns Millions? Game's Prize Money Higher Than Wimbledon?
It is popular belief that many people grew up dreaming of getting paid to play games. However, who would have thought that playing video games for a living could potentially turn you into a millionaire?
Sumail "Suma1L" Hassan Syed, the teenage Dota 2 prodigy from Pakistan playing for team Evil Geniuses, has been estimated to have earned $1.6 million dollars in his first year as a professional gamer, according to Gamespot .
After the culmination of Valve's 2015 International Dota 2 Championship held at the KeyArena Center in Seattle, Washington, Dota 2 player Sumail Hassan Syed helped the rest of his team secure first place in the tournament. The 15-year-old gamer led his team to victory, which garnered them a total prize of $6.63 million dollars.
"Suma1l" Hassan Syed became the youngest gamer to earn $1 million in eSports winnings. But it wasn't just him breaking records. The USA-based team, Evil Geniuses, is the highest-earning team in eSports, as reported by Guinnessworldrecords .
As of 11 August 2015, the North American organization had earned a total of $11,185,866 (£7,175,441) from participating in 463 professional tournaments, which also includes competitive eSport games such as StarCraft, Halo, and Counter-Strike, according to source.
It is undeniable that eSports has largely grown over the past five years. This is even made more prominent by the growing prize money that came with it.
ESports' media coverage has grown too large to ignore that even ESPN has covered the fifth annual Dota 2 International tournament; having pointed out that the money at stake in these virtual games is substantially more than that of Wimbledon, the Masters, and the Kentucky Derby, as noted by Digitaltrends.com .
Competitive gaming has become a huge business over the past five years, with professional video gaming tournaments offering more prize money than some of sport's biggest events, based on News.com.au .
It is worth noting that the $18,429,613 prize pool for the recent 2015 Dota 2 Championship towers over than that of the prize money for winning in the Superbowl ($US8.5 million), the ICC Cricket World Cup ($US10 million), and UEFA's Europa League ($US9 million), based on reports.
