With the rise of esports, millions of gamers are dreaming of being able to make a living from playing their favorite titles. Unfortunately though, just like with football, tennis, basketball, and other professional sports, only a small number of the most talented players actually turn it into a long and lucrative career.



If you love gaming, it’s still possible for you to find a career related to your hobby as there are plenty of other roles in the industry. If you’d like some inspiration, here are several of those other options.

Poker Dealer

There are plenty of articles across the internet that discuss professional poker players, how they got into their career, and what that career involves, but little attention is paid to the unsung heroes that make poker tournaments possible.

Poker dealers are the people you see sitting at the table, shuffling cards and dealing them to players. If you've played with friends, you will likely have spent some time fulfilling this role, but the poker dealers you see at major events are highly skilled, well-trained professionals that have made a career of sitting beside high rollers.

It's hard work. At big events like the European Poker Tour, you could find yourself working for as long as 13 or 14 hours in a single day, though you do get several breaks.

If that doesn't put you off considering a career as a professional poker dealer, then you'll be wondering how to get your foot in the door. Unfortunately, there's no set route into the job. You will find that many casinos regularly recruit for new dealers, though you'll likely find yourself working on other table games first.

Esports Commentator

If you’ve ever watched an esports tournament, you will have noticed that they are commentated on just like any other sporting event. Sometimes called a “shoutcaster”, there are two main roles involved in providing commentary for these competitions. They usually work in pairs or a trio, in a model that’s similar to other professional sports.

The first is the “play-by-play” or “lead” commentator. This is the person who does the majority of the talking, leads the conversation, and describes what they see happening in the game.



This role doesn’t necessarily require the most in-depth knowledge of the game, but it helps to have played it at least a few times to understand the basics.

The second type of commentator is the “color” or “brain” commentator. These are people that provide expert insight to complement what the play-by-play commentator has to say. They will usually interject with knowledge about the players, the team as a whole, past performance, and the different strategy options.

They’re likely someone who plays the game a lot themselves, giving them the ability to speak from experience.

The space is very competitive, almost as competitive as playing itself, so it’s worth understanding the factors that can help you to be successful in esports commentating.

Programmer

For people to be able to play games, someone needs to make them. That means teams of programmers are required to build the titles we enjoy today. On the biggest releases, often referred to as AAA games, there will usually be between 10 and 40 programmers coding away for months or even years to produce the content we have come to expect today.

Of course, if you want to get a job as a video game programmer, you will need to learn how to code. There are plenty of ways that you can go about this; many universities and colleges offer courses on computer programming, but you could also learn using the hundreds of free resources available online.

Project Manager

Programmers are supported by huge teams of designers, producers, testers, motion capture operatives, sound engineers, artists, scriptwriters, and more.

Another role that’s important in the production of a video game is the project manager. These are people who manage resources, control any changes that are made to the agreed scope, and help to keep progress on schedule.

There are plenty of routes into project management. You will often learn about it on a business studies course, though you can also earn professional qualifications in project management like PRINCE2 and APM Project Management.