How many hours does it take to become a pro gamer?

With the recent conclusion of 2014’s Dota 2 The International, and the $10 million plus dollars won by gamers, you would not be faulted for thinking these gamers have a pretty sweet life.

Playing their favourite game, getting sponsored by hardware manufactures, and taking home millions each year – sounds good to me.

But what does it take to become a pro gamer?

A good measure is to see how many hours have been spent playing their title of choice, which, thanks to Steam (with some public profiles) is possible. We took a handful of the world’s top Dota 2 players and checked out how much time they have sunk into the MOBA.

Pro Gamer	Time Spent playing Dota 2 through Steam
Clinton “Fear” Loomis	12,878 hrs/ 537 days/ 1.47 years
“SingSing” Weh Sing Yuen	8,450 hrs/ 352 days/ 0.96 years
Oleksandr “XBOCT” Dashkevych	7,421 hrs/ 309 days/ 0.85 years
Zhou “KingJ” Yang	4,717 hrs/ 197 days/ 0.54 years
Clement “Puppey” Ivanov	4,476 hrs/ 187 days/ 0.51 years
Joakim ‘Akke’ Akterhall	4, 144 hrs/ 173 days/ 0.47 years

Fear takes the cake here, putting in just under one and a half years of solid gaming. At 26 years old, this is no easy feat.

While impressive, it makes one wonder how that time could have been spent engaging in other activities.

Let’s take a look at what Fear could have accomplished if he was not a fan of Dota 2.

Activity	Accomplishments
Running	Run 154536km at 12km/h
Watching The Lord of the Rings Trilogy	Watched 1387 times (Trilogy: 557 minutes)
Studying towards a Degree	Completed 4-year honours degree (studying 8 hours per day)
Workings as a sales assistant for R19.83 an hour in SA	Earned R255,370