e-sports
SA’s flourishing gaming scene
The local gaming scene is flourishing, creating career opportunities undreamt of a generation ago
It’s time to abandon your last vestige of gamer prejudice. Entrepreneur Elon Musk credited video games for pointing him in the direction of software engineering. LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman says role-playing board games helped him develop a sense for strategy. Twenty-three-year-old Julia Robson is an SA professional gamer. She’s extroverted, thoughtful and eloquent, and tells the FM that going to gym and a sleep routine are as much a part of her weekly training regime as gaming is. Robson is keen to shrug off the stereotypes too. "I’m not a girl gamer, I am a gamer," she says. "Your skill is not determined by your gender, but by talent and how much time you put in." Robson, who was previously a competitive dressage rider, is making a kind of portfolio career from gaming. She plays for prizes, she consults for companies, and she monetises an audience on live gaming platform Twitch.tv. She is also sponsored by Acer and its gaming brand, Predator, and she is an Africa corresponden...
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