What it's like to play Street Fighter for a living

For most people, playing video games is nothing more than a hobby, and the adage of “do what you love” just doesn’t seem to apply to gaming for a living.

Unless you’re someone like Justin Wong.

Wong has spent the last 15 years traveling the world playing Street Fighter and other fighting video games professionally, competing in tournaments and becoming one of the most well-known figures in the fighting game community.

Wong will be in Canada this weekend for the Enthusiast Gaming Live event in Toronto, where competitive gamers from across the country and the world will be competing for prize money. Tournaments range from games like League of Legends and Counter Strike, to fighting games (Wong’s specialty) like the latest Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat games,. There are a dozen different fighting games to pick from in total.

While the prize money will certainly draw some, for a lot of players, the real appeal is playing in front of the crowds and showcasing your gaming prowess to the cheering masses. And the chance to get picked up by a sponsor.

For Wong, it was thee crowds that really made him love his first tournament, which he came into almost by accident.

“I was at the arcade just playing, and one day, my friends said ‘come with us to an event!’ So I went there and got fifth place in the tournament,” Wong said in an interview with Yahoo Canada.

“It was an amazing adrenaline thrill playing in front of a big crowd, just like, ‘wow!’”

While Wong attended as many tournaments as he could and gained notoriety through his performances, things didn’t really take off for him until five years ago.

“Once 2010 happened, I got a sponsor, Evil Geniuses, and they flew me everywhere to tournaments around the world,” Wong said.

In the gaming community, sponsors seek out well-known and talented players to sponsor, offering them some combination of cash and travel expenses, in exchange for promoting their brand at these events. You'll often see competitors sporting t-shirts or hats for brands, sometimes promoting other tournaments, Wong says. With the huge online following these tournaments have (in 2013, the League of Legends final was livestreamed by 32 million people), sponsors can get worldwide exposure.

And with a global interest in competitive gaming, Wong has had the opportunity to travel the world for tournaments. Over the course of his career, Wong has competed in Japan, South Korea, Kuwait, France, Australia, Peru, Chile and across the United States and Canada. The first year he was sponsored, Wong estimates he competed in 10 to 15 tournaments.

But success like that doesn’t happen overnight. Wong spent years before his sponsor came along paying his own way, which wasn’t always easy.

“A lot of times, I was working a 9-to-5, saving money,” Wong said, “The money I won at tournaments I used for the next event.”

From those years of working his way through the fighting game tournament scene, Wong also learned how key it was to travel with friends as a way to save some money.

Since Wong started, however, the widespread exposure of gaming tournaments has helped to increase the amount of prize money being won at tournaments, which goes a long way in helping competitors attend more of these events.

“It’s a really big difference from back in the day,” Wong said. “Before, you’d win $500, but now it’s $2,000, sometimes $10,000.”

And for competitors like Wong who don’t have financial support from their families, those big prize purses and sponsorships become even more important. When Wong first started competing, he hid it from his parents.

“Whenever they called, I’d tell them I was at my friend’s house in New Jersey,” Wong admits.

In fact, Wong never actually told his parents that he was investing so much time in fighting competitively; they found out by accident when they saw him on television. Flipping through channels one day, they saw Wong on season 2 of the SyFy series World Champion Gaming: Ultimate Gamer (he finished fifth in the show).

Now, at 29, Wong doesn’t see himself leaving the fighting game tournament community any time soon. When Wong finally gets to the point where he says “I’m tired, I’m broken, my hands are falling off,” he says he’ll find a different way to stay involved with the tightly-knit group.

“I do want to be part of the fighting game community, but internally,” Wong said. “I’d want to get a job internally, to continue supporting the fighting game community.”

Wong says that promotion of these events is key, as it’s an incredible opportunity for those who want to get into gaming competitively. Even in Toronto, where the scene has shifted in recent years, local tournaments help keep it going, whether it’s a massive event or one being held in a fan’s basement.

“A lot of the old school players from Toronto have retired,” Wong said. “There’s a lot of new blood. It’s cool to see [the community] still exists because a lot of times if a community dies, it’s hard to bring it back. But there’s a real desire here, and I don’t want that to stop.”

For those interested in turning their passion for playing games into a money-maker (and Wong warns that it’s unlikely most people who aspire to pro-gaming will actually succeed), he suggests watching some of the best competitors on YouTube to get a feel for their strategies, and attending local tournaments to not only get experience at competition, but also to be seen by potential sponsors. Much like a football scout attending a high school game, sponsors watch for high-performers at these tournaments, which can translate into a career as long and exciting as Wong’s.

To see Wong in action, visit Enthusiast Gaming Live in Toronto this weekend, or follow him on Twitch and YouTube. You can also find out about upcoming fighting game tournaments on Event Hubs.

Follow Tori on Twitter: @Floyd_Tori