Young Man Has Raked In $70K Playing Magic: The Gathering

[matcom]

<snip>

Growing up in San Francisco's Richmond District, 21-year-old Ken Ho loved a fantasy card game called Magic: The Gathering. All his free time was spent at game stores, dueling. His father found it an unhealthy obsession, yelled at him and threw away his cards.

Dad hasn't said much in the last year and a half, however, as Ho has raked in $70,000 as a full-time, professional Magic player. This week he hopes to win big in his hometown, at the $1 million Magic: the Gathering world championships at Fort Mason.

The fanatic devotion of fans of the fantasy game Dungeons and Dragons is well known, but since it was created 11 years ago, Magic: The Gathering has quietly attracted a worldwide following. The game is played by an estimated 6 million people in 70 countries, according to its makers.

The card game mixes elements of chess, fantasy baseball and role-playing strategy. It's usually played by two people, but can have multiple players. Gamers become part of a fantasy world of creatures, spells and artifacts where they battle opponents in head-to-head duels and try to weaken their competitors.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/09/01/BAGD58GS3K25.DTL

[ze_dscherman]

1. I'd like to know how much money the makers of it have raked in.

Actually, printing these cards is like printing money. Only they have no costly safety features ...

[truthspeaker]

2. $70K cash, or just store credit?

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

3. There is fairly big money in MTG tournaments.

A computer gamer from Korea pulled in 300K last year playing tournaments of my favorite game, Starcraft/Broodwar.

[lazarus]

4. sigh

I gave it up just as the pro tour was kicking off its second or third year.

What's most depressing is that I couldn't break into the pro tour, but I regularly beat the top players in the world at convention tournaments, etc. I was damned good at it, but it became an unhealthy obsession for me.