Quote:
|
Originally Posted by RITFencing Eh, a decent number of people get at least some money for giving lessons or reffing, even if very few actually get paid to fence. |
A distinction sould be made between a "professional fencer" and a "fencing professional." The latter, there are plenty of and there's a sizable chunk being exchanged to keep the industry afloat.
Also, while it's more glamorous to talk about the "professional gamers" in their publicized competitive form, I believe there's a far greater share of "gaming professionals" out there that operate "in the shadows."
I'm not talking about software engineers, artists, business marketers, etc here either. People who actually go through the physical motion of playing the games, but not for fun or enjoyment. Just for pay.
Everytime you come across the websites that offer "power levelling" or exchange between on-line currency from that of RealLife, there's a huge industry behind what makes it possible. It may be a pocket change for someone who lives in, say an American economy, to go around the system and essentially shave off their playing time required to attain whatever it is that they wanted. But that pocket change can translate into a siginificant chunk of money in other parts of the world where their countrymen can barely subsist in poverty.
There are pockets of such activities (usually in developmental countries with a burst of high-tech introduction) where it's very much a viable career option to take on the "labor of clients from a far away rich country" and get paid for such work and time, proudly putting food on family table. There are even instances, in the Far East, of "gaming stables" where they recruit, house, train and broker such "labor pool."
Highly frowned upon by the legitimate aspect of the gaming industry, perhaps. But insanely difficult to regulate from within the game's infrastructure. And after all, they do pay their share of the "business fee" (software cost and monthly fee) to conduct their out-of-game transactions.
Linear Mode
