Professional...yes Professional gamer Victor M. De Leon III who is currently 9 years old and in the third grade, has been playing video games on the professional level for five years. That would make him 4 years old when he first started playing professionally. Victor goes by the online alias of Lil' Poison is though to be the world's youngest professional gamer. Come this Friday (June 8th) he is to be amongst 2,500 other gamers in a three day tournament "Major League Gaming Pro Circuit Event" which will be held at Meadowlands in New Jersey. The game in question is XBOX's Halo 2 with prizes ranging up to $20,000 USD.
When pressured into answering about his gaming career he mumbled "I don't know. I didn't think about it.". How did he get into gaming? It doesn't help to have a father who is also into gaming. Starting at 4 years old Victor emulated his father. In response to critics who suggest that he is ruining his sons childhood, Victor's father just shrugs and notes that he only trains for competitions and gaming time is on average approximately 2hrs a day.
The article mentions that Victor has a deal worth $20,000 USD annually, plus expenses for trips to tournaments from sponsor 1up. How would you like it if your 9 year old child makes just as much as you and all he has to do is play games?
Most recently commented on by on Jun 10, 2007








Comments
But that's pretty interesting. I guess people are getting into gaming at a younger age these days.
If I had a kid making more money then me for playing video games...I'd be pretty pissed
Fatal1ty is a guy that held a contest a few years ago to anyone that could beat him at Doom 3, suffice to say no one did and his $10,000 prize wasn't leaving his wallet.
To be a pro gamer isn't easy, if it was we would all be billionaires with our own range of "Existenz" sound cards and GPU's heh... But we aren't, yeah the average skirmish in Gears of War is a lot of luck, some skill sure but when you are in a contest with sometimes upwards of $100,000 on the line, you bet your ass, if you are banking on luck to win you will be leaving with nothing more than a memory.
These guys practice day in, day out it is their life, sure this kid doesn't have to live off of his winnings, but other pro gamers do, if they don't win they won't be living pretty for the rest of the year.
I don't know how you can play it properly at 4, let alone professionally. Were his parents tech people or something? Working for a company so they get stuff free I wonder?
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