This is how close South Africa is to having its first full-time gamers

It’s every gamers dream, the opportunity to not only spend all day doing what you love but getting paid to do it.

Unfortunately, real life often gets in the way of our gaming time and the majority of us have to work in order to sustain our hobby.

However, maybe the opportunity to combine the two isn’t as far off as you think.

We asked nAvTV co-founders Nathaneal “BurningRed” Slabbert and DeWet “RidditZ” Lombard-Bovey about when we could expect to see the first full-time South African gamers:

Nathaneal Slabbert

South Africa is about 18 to 24 months away from having its first full-time professional gamers.

At this stage our work is very ad-hoc focused by its nature. We all have day jobs and the majority of money we earn from an event we put right back into the next one.

It all depends on how much money South African company’s are willing to put into the scene. For context next to Telkom and Mweb, nAvTV is right up there as sponsors.

DeWet Lombard-Bovey

One of the big proponents is a shift in the type of rewards gamers can now expect from competing.

For example, there had to be a big mindset change from offering hardware as prizes (which most people would just sell off anyway) and actual cash prizes that would make people want to compete for more than just for fun.

For the Mall Gaming Tournament (which offers a R150,000 cash prize to the winning team) we are now starting to see teams taking weeks of leave from their daily schedules to practice together for this tournament.

If you are doing this (and placing) consistently in the upcoming year, there is no reason you can’t be doing this full-time.