A former professional gamer gave me permission to write his story with the condition that I don’t mention his name. The story was too interesting to pass up so I agreed.
This story happened around 9 or 10 years ago when our professional gamer was hired by then ZPDee Cable Internet (now Sky Broadband) to play computer games such as Counter Strike.
This was the time of the dial-up and ZPDee was one of the first few service providers offering DSL-speed connections to residential subscribers (related: In 2005, ZPDee offered 64Kbps connection at Php690 a month).
Our gamer got noticed during LAN parties and gaming tournaments and was approached by people from ZPDee to be a professional gamer.
In order to increase sign-ups, they hired this 7th-grader to play Counter Strike and paid him Php500 per day. To attach the brand, the player was asked to append the brand name to his handle (e.g. cstriker-zpdee). Since our professional gamer is always online and played on public servers, other players would ask him why he’s so good at the game. He will have a canned answer — “Coz I use ZPDee at home!”.
The goal was to encourage others to sign-up to cable internet. In a way, this professional gamer is like an endorser. He did it for about 2 years while still going to school.
Unfortunately, professional gaming and going to school don’t really mix well. The kid flunked several subjects and had to take summer classes. That was the last of it — the kid stopped playing and joined “gamers anonymous”. It was a short stint but an exciting one.
I asked him how good he was and he answered he could do around 150 APM. Not fast enough to be a StarCraft champion but good enough to win a CounterStrike tournament.
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adam says:
Yeah I think this is only an ordinary story. Pero meron lessons learned. Don’t use ZPDee or you’ll plank on your subjects. Tama ba yun?
Let’s play and Download Plants vs Zombies full version free
mr. bogus says:
wala talaga nagagawang mabuti ang sobrang computer……….. ordinary story pa lang yan…. yung iba nga nagbebenta n ng property ehh may ipangpusta lang
defunct says:
kabitin naman ang story nito.. please more pa.
OR9L says:
wasted his talent because of the social status that everyone should be at school. look at our hero the pacman he got millions and millions of wealth from his endeavor to fulfill his dream from his cultivating talent until he perfected himself to became a genuine and world class dreamer >.<. sayang na malaki yung bata sayang sayang sayang
mcometa says:
I agree that gaming and school really don’t mix well! (Or maybe I am just not good at time management :D)
Even F4t4lity had issues with gaming and school and family.
gonkyouka says:
@IC its the bit.ly that facebook is blocking.
IC DeaDPiPoL says:
odd: when I clicked the link to this article it reported as:
“The link you are trying to visit has been reported as abusive by Facebook users.”
Teknisyan says:
story of my life… game adik din.. lols.. pero walang sponsor… heheheh… good for him.. I bet he still got those moves after all this years of staying away from “THE GAME” lols.
People will still remember him for his skills and not for anything else.
nice…
Lolo Tasyo says:
@Jedd: iho eto yung sagot sa mga tanong mo:
“Our gamer got noticed during LAN parties and gaming tournaments and was approached by people from ZPDee to be a professional gamer.
In order to increase sign-ups, they hired this 7th-grader to play Counter Strike and paid him Php500 per day. To attach the brand, the player was asked to append the brand name to his handle (e.g. cstriker-zpdee). Since our professional gamer is always online and played on public servers, other players would ask him why he’s so good at the game. He will have a canned answer — “Coz I use ZPDee at home!â€.
The goal was to encourage others to sign-up to cable internet. In a way, this professional gamer is like an endorser. He did it for about 2 years while still going to school.
Unfortunately, professional gaming and going to school don’t really mix well. The kid flunked several subjects and had to take summer classes. That was the last of it — the kid stopped playing and joined “gamers anonymousâ€. It was a short stint but an exciting one.”
moral of the story? magbasa ka muna bago ka magcomment.
gonkyouka says:
i don’t need the_excerpt() i want to read more the_content() :D
Jedd says:
How did ZPDee get hold of him? Did he have to be online everyday? For how long? How many years did he play games for pay? Were there perks that came with the job? Did it affect his studies? Did his parents know? What did they say to that? Did he know other gamers who were paid too? When did he stop, why? Why didn’t he want his name mentioned? What kind of job does he have today?
Sayang. You ALMOST had an interesting story, but you decided to put on your blogger hat instead of your journalist one.
ricpac says:
@abeolandres what’s “APM” in gamer-speak?
Andre Marcelo-Tanner says:
what does he do now?
btw its a nice tidbit but not much of a story :)
was hoping to find out more
bryanflurry says:
People ask me why do I always @reply so fast, I tell them “Coz I use Globelines at home!” ;) ;)
Ervin says:
Talk about earning money while doing something you love and incidentally good at.
abeolandres says:
@ricpac it’s linked to a previous entry I made about korean gamers. good read din yun.
ricpac says:
@abeolandres ok, will check it out. Thx.