How I earned money though 'coaching' video games

If you're an avid fan of any sort of competitive multiplayer game, chances are you've seen advertisments for online lessons offered by top dogs of their respective playerbase. The idea seems ludicrous to most people, but why should it? Many people invest money on bettering their skills, even if it's a simple recreational activity. Certain hobbies (such as shooting at a gun range) have a mandatory instructor, whether it be safety reasons, or simply just difficulty in picking it up.

"People pay money to learn from others, what the hell?"

To get anywhere in poker, plenty of people are willing to fork over tons of cash in 'poker school courses' or hire personalized instructors to watch over their matches. The same applies for chess, yet skeptics scoff and poke fun at professional gamers and the fans that follow the growing giant that is 'Digital Sports', or 'eSports' for short.

The Dota 2 International held in 2015, totaling a massive prize pool of $18,429,613 million

However, my post today won't be about whether eSports is legitmate or not. Many other people far more experienced and involved in the scene, have covered said subject all around. To touch on that quickly, like it or hate it; It takes a lot to be the very best at anything in life, and that includes video games.

No, my blog is about being one of the very few people who teach dota for money, how I got there, and what it takes. For starters, here is a summary of my DotaCoach Profile, a popular platform where I get most of my bookings for lessons!

My fee of 9.50 USD an hour may shift a couple of eyebrows here and there, but there are people who charge as much as 20 dollars an hour, and perhaps even more shockingly to you, a large amount of people on a waiting list for a coaching service that costs 50 dollars an hour, courtesy of popular youtuber and dota personality PurgeGamers

But why you ask? The answer is simple: getting good in Dota is hard. Really, really hard.

This combined with video gamers generally being lazy, lead them to believe that is the 'get rich quick scheme' of skill that will bring them to the top. All but the most casual of dota players struggle and strive for a top ranking, yet so many are belted into mediocrity and are frustrated to no end. Why do you think there are so many compilations of video gamers losing their shit and going absolutely bananas. (besides them being sad, deprived and or immature) After all, video games are primarily a source of stress relief.

This isn't just a special case for dota either. There are well established teaching platforms for Counterstrike: Global Offensive, League of Legends, Overwatch and get this; even Hearthstone, a freaking collectible card game!

A coaching platform that also offers coaching for several games, not just dota

Secondly, the 'teachers' have the credentials to prove it. My shiny matchmaking rating of 6102 might not mean much to most of you, but I stand within the top 99.87th estimated percentile. This means I'm considered one of the best, standing with 1300 players out of 12,239,287 active players last month. I've personally stopped trying to 'climb the ladder' about a year ago, while most of my 'colleagues' are leagues ahead of me in rank, some of which also particpate in tournaments in addition to teaching.

Coach ImmortalFaith for example has a 1072 higher mmr than me, which puts him at a whopping 99.98th percentile as one of the top 150 dota players worldwide and nearly 5 times the amounts of total bookings I've had.

But the biggest factor of them all?

People pay me, and other coaches money because we are able to help them make progress much better than they ever could. Dota has an extremely steep learning curve, many mistakes/shortcomings that a majority of the playerbase makes goes unnoticed. It's not to say that it's impossible to get to the top on your own, considering that's how most of the coaches are here, but it helps immensely to have someone with experience beyond yours to hand guide you, to exactly where and what you need to be doing.

This is the end of my introduction to a life of a 'video game teacher'. Are you interested in more? Am I completely insane? What should I write for part 2? Please let me know what you think in the comments.

On that note, here are my old students who've had something to say about my lessons. Thanks for reading friends, I hope you've found this eye-opening or at least slightly interesting.