As more and more colleges offer degrees in video-game programming, gaming enthusiasts are discovering that they can make designing shoot’em-ups their life’s work. But the most optimistic of young gamers may already be fantasizing about an even more lucrative way of living in a state of arrested development: a career as a professional game player.
The Cyberathlete Professional League, the Xbox obsessive’s answer to the NFL, holds a series of tournaments for the cream of the gaming crop. And those tournaments, which attract throngs of excitable high-school and college students, offer surprisingly lucrative purses: Over the last year, the tour has given away $1-million in prize money. (The New York Times)
