Ten years ago esports was a joke, now it’s not a laughing matter, worth over a billion dollars its clearly not a joke. Teams are being valued at $100m+ while players are earning millions from playing the viral games such as CS:GO and Dota 2.
N0tail – $6,882,440.18
Johan was one of the world’s youngest aspiring competitive Newerth Heroes, where he played the mid-role stage. When he switched to Dota 2, Johan became popular for his performance as Chen and Wisp. Johan took on the support role. In this process, he developed his micromanagement skills rapidly, contributing to his popular Meepo game. Although still junior, Johan was the Fnatic.
Jesse Vainikka – $6,470,000.02
JerAx started his career in heroes of Newerth, where he played with “Dirty Minds” and “Man’s the Fuck Up,” “KD Gaming” (with Era), among other squads. He later served compulsory military service in the Finnish Marine and started playing Dota 2 after he finished it.
ana – $6,000,411.96
While playing Dota in Australia in December 2015, ana decided in order to continue his dream of becoming a professional Dota player from Melbourne to Shanghai, where he entered the in-house CDEC League, which enabled him to compete against highly-rated Chinese players.
He was dropped from high school on his invitation to play in China where his mom was originally a half-supporter, but the family later showed full support and kept doing so to this day after Anathan’s brother persuaded him.
Topson – $5,489,233.01
Topson began playing Dota at the urging of his brothers when he was only eight years old. He was ready to pursue his vision of becoming a Dota player for 10 years and more than 10,000 hours. Topson focused on streaming after trying his luck in several teams and ranked high on European servers early.
He then joined OG–a shock pick that paid dividends in what has now been called the most successful TI finish in all time. Today Topson continues to develop his talents to become one of the greatest intermediate players in history.
KuroKy – $5,414,446.17
KuroKy was born in Berlin, Germany. KuroKy had a handicap on his hands and would fail to use his leg. He said this vulnerability contributed to him playing video games yet he made close to $5.5m in his esports career.
