Anyone know any Professional Gamers?

I'm currently penning a piece for publication on whether or not going professional takes the "fun" out of gaming and am looking for some pros to chat with. I thought the GB community might be able to help! Reply or message me if you know anyone.

I don't know any, but I'm pretty sure going professional at a game would take the fun out of it.

I know a guy who tried to go pro, but all he ended up doing was not shaving or washing for ages and playing counterstrike:source for over 700 hours. (not all in one go) 
 
I'd say its less fun if its less of a game and more of a job.

you might be hard pressed to find anyone free soon unless you're in the columbus ohio area, there's an mlg event this weekend, so that will probably take up a lot of halo, cod, and sc2 pros time.

I was once paid to play games so does that count?  ; )

I know a guy who is going to some MLG Starcraft thing in Texas or some shit does that count.

If you mean jobless losers that only play games all day, then yes.

No one knows the shirtless wonder Fatal One Thank You?

Don't know any sorry, but I'm gonna add my two cents. 
 
I don't think it would take the fun out of it. People who enjoy football (or any sport) when they're young, for example, tend to enjoy it just as much or more when they're competing at a professional level (and earning money while doing it). I would imagine professional gamers get similar levels of enjoyment from competing in their tournaments and leagues. Of course it's more work than just playing as a hobby, but since when did work suddenly equate to the loss of enjoyment?

Of course it's more work than just playing as a hobby, but since when did work suddenly equate to the loss of enjoyment?

@Binman88 said:

Of course it's more work than just playing as a hobby, but since when did work suddenly equate to the loss of enjoyment?

Not all work does but a lot of it can. I mean, take the Giant Bomb crew for example. The first time they went to E3 they were probably psyched out of their minds, like any of us would be, but you listen to them now and the word E3 just makes them sigh. Of course, that example is kind of different seeing as E3 is a once a year event and isn't really a typical work day for them.

Loving that I spurred a discussion! 
 
Yeah, I'm looking at this sort of like professional athletes, so if you know folks who've been doing this a while (even as sort of a weekend warrior), either message me their info or I can message you mine. 
 
@ Binman88   @Suicidal_SNiper This is the exact debate I'm looking at. Does working on something every day take some of the joy out? Yeah, you can love it, but the grind of it can kind of suck. 

You should ask on the MLG forums, I'm sure someone there would be willing to answer your question.

Try Justin TV. Zacaroni isnt MLG, but he has his own stream.

Have a friend who used to be sponsored by Steelseries and some other shit for playing CS

call of duty ones.
optic rambo
stainville
jkap
mrmerk

Im so Pro at Angry Birds, I challenge any of you to a one on one to probe it!

I don't know any personally but I bet if you go on Team Liquid and send a PM to a progamer telling them what you're doing you could get a response no problem.

@McGhee_the_Insomniac said: How is that different than a professional sport?

I'm the supervisor of a guy who is sponsored by several groups for playing TF2. We have a few GB community members are who top 200 star craft players.

I am IdrA's left testicle.

dudes in my old WoW guild said they used to be pro Tribes and CS players... but I don't take the word of online friends seriously most of the time.
 
Also, my WoW server (Tichondrius) used to have alot of proffessional Arena players, i'd see them time from time but i never really known them personally.  Team Pandemic, Team Fnatic,  MoB Turtleforce used to play on the server. Though i think most transferred off once popularity died down.

I'm a professional Transfarrer

no, i don't know anyone. my friend does game battles, it's sponsored by MLG. he does it for fun. 
 
i don't think it would take the fun out of it. it might if you lose but that is about it.

I know some pro fighting gamers that are around Texas.

A guy I played CS 1.6 with was a Quake 3 pro. He used to not show up to scheduled matches, and re-appear a few days later, my favourite of his excuses being "Sorry guys, QuakeCon was this week". 

His full-time job was a Tennis Coach, so he was no slob, despite what many people think about professional level gamers.

I sort of know an acquaintance's little brother is a top 600 player in League of Legends (even then that's a far stretch other than he's high ELO). Other than that, I don't know any pros personally other than being able to list a bunch of progamers.

I'm currently penning a piece for publication on whether or not going professional takes the "fun" out of gaming and am looking for some pros to chat with. I thought the GB community might be able to help! Reply or message me if you know anyone.

Thanks everyone! This has been very helpful thus far.

@king0fprussia said:

I'm currently penning a piece for publication on whether or not going professional takes the "fun" out of gaming and am looking for some pros to chat with. I thought the GB community might be able to help! Reply or message me if you know anyone.

If you want to interview SC pros you could try to go to Teamliquid, create an account, and PM some pros there (they all have accounts under their own names). I don't know if it'll work but they have interacted with randoms from the community in the past, as long as you appear professional, polite, and make sure it doesn't sound like a troll.

@Tanikaze said:

@DystopiaX said:

@king0fprussia said:

I'm currently penning a piece for publication on whether or not going professional takes the "fun" out of gaming and am looking for some pros to chat with. I thought the GB community might be able to help! Reply or message me if you know anyone.

If you want to interview SC pros you could try to go to Teamliquid, create an account, and PM some pros there (they all have accounts under their own names). I don't know if it'll work but they have interacted with randoms from the community in the past, as long as you appear professional, polite, and make sure it doesn't sound like a troll.

Yeah exactly. You don't even need to PM some huge name dude that gets thousands of messages like an actual member of Liquid or Incontrol or someone. Even I've had Nerchio respond to me on the forums and he's pretty good.

Jinro's responded to me lol.

But yeah a lot of pros are active on forums on stuff, especially the smaller names

My friend is the #3 Tager on Blaz Blue 2 apparently and he goes to a lot of tournaments and is training for EVO.  I guess he enjoys it but when I play against him it is not fun, like at all.  MvC3 is a bitch to play with him especially since I already don't like the game but because I play against him so much I'm decent at a game I don't like.  SSFIV is still fun although some fights just get down right tragic and annoying.