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Want to be a professional gamer? Time to go to school!

KK Miller Feb 19, 2015
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Children growing up around the world these days are asking the same question, “How do I become a pro gamer?” In the past, all you could do was find a game you were good at, become really good at it, and then hope someone would pay you for it.

These days, the professional gamer has many avenues to explore. There are plenty of games out there that have a thriving professional circuit. If you like first-person shooters (FPS), you could get into Call of Duty. If you’re more of a real-time strategy game fan perhaps Starcraft II will be your thing. The versus fighting game scene has always been extremely competitive, and multiplayer online battle arenas (MOBA) like Dota 2 and League of Legends are breaking player and viewership records. But can you really say that those professional gamers are actually “qualified”? Well, if you’re looking for a school in Japan, you could become a qualified pro gamer with a pro gamer degree!

ESports are really starting to take off around the world. In 2014, 27 million people watched the League of Legends Championship Finals. The total cash prize for the top four teams was US$2.13 million, with the first-place team receiving $1 million in prize money. The International 2014, a tournament for Dota 2, had a $10 million prize pool with 20 million viewers. There is definitely money and talent in eSports, but can those involved like the players, announcers, and event coordinators be called “professionals” without having an official degree? That won’t be a worry in Japan, as the Tokyo School of Anime is now accepting applications for their pro-gaming major.

Images: Tokyo School of Anime compiled by RocketNews24

The Tokyo School of Anime is an established vocational school that has majors in Voice Acting, Anime Production, Anime Creation, Anime Design and Anime Business. Their brand new curriculum is focusing on the massive gaming world and they having created four new majors for the gamer student.

Image: Tokyo School of Anime

The new department supports the following degrees:

eSports Comprehensive Pro Gamer: A degree aimed at people who want to be a popular pro gamer known around the world or those that want to be managers of pro gamers. Students learn about tactics, strategies and professionalism in various genres and gaming titles.

eSports Business and Publicity Promotion: Courses here will focus on advertising and promotional aspects of eSports and the gaming industry. Graduates will have a firm understanding of business and marketing in the eSports world.

eSports Live Reporting and Announcing: Curriculum for this degree will focus on the presentation of live events and mastering the skills and knowledge necessary to report on the world of eSports.

eSports Events and Technical Staff: Students will learn about the production and logistics involved in eSports events and tournaments. Graduates will possess the fundamentals of event planning.

Image: Flickr (camknows)

While the curriculum does offer classes which can teach you “a method to right-click more than five times a second” and “precise mouse operations to rotate the view 180 degrees“, the four degrees seem to target very sensible areas for those who want jobs in the professional world of gaming. ESports continue to grow each year with more money being injected into sponsorship and promotion. It’s certainly a field that is beginning to blossom, so getting a degree in one of these areas seems like a pretty good idea. If this sounds like something you’re interested in, start fleshing out your application, grab a controller and, well, play more games!

Source: 4Gamer
Additional Information: Wikipedia (1, 2)
Top Image: Tokyo School of Anime, edited by RocketNews24