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Rio Rancho gamer earns $100,000 in tournement
It's a real job
The Championship Gaming Series, which just finished its first season, is a video game league modeled after many other professional sports league.
It has city-based teams, a draft, and pays players a base salary of $30,000 a year.
Rio Rancho's Jeremy Florence is a big name in the league. He may not be the Tom Brady of the CGS, but he is a star.
In addition to Florence's base pay, he received $25,000 as league MVP and several incentives because his team, the Chicago Chimera, won the world championship.
In all, he took home $100,000 this season.
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There were no cheers and no handshakes from a crowd when New Mexico's newest MVP walked off the airplane.
Jeremy Florence simply went home to Rio Rancho — quietly content and $100,000 richer.
Florence, 20, was named league MVP as his team captured the Championship Gaming Series over the weekend.
Playing under the name BlackMamba for the Chicago Chimera, Florence had what he termed a "mediocre" regular season in the fledgling league, in which some of the best video game players in the country compete.
Once the world championships started, Florence hit his second wind, slicing through opponents in the game "Dead or Alive 4" almost undefeated.
"I really didn't play up to my potential during the season, but in the playoffs I did a lot better," Florence said. "I shut out my first two opponents, and almost shut out the last one."
"Dead or Alive 4" is a popular fighting game played on the Xbox 360. The Championship Gaming Series has two divisions, male and female. The first player in each division to win five games takes the match.
Florence beat his nemesis, Ryan Ward of the Carolina Core, 5 games to 1, in the world championship after cruising through teams from Stockholm and Birmingham.
Ward beat Florence 5-2 earlier in the U.S. championship this summer, and Florence wasn't happy with the result. But he said his play in the finals makes up for it.
"It was satisfying," he said of his win.
Despite his stellar play, Florence said he never thought he'd make a career out of playing video games — certainly not a few years ago when he was gaming with his buddies in California.
"Not in a million years," Florence said. "I can't believe I made $100,000 in the last six months."
He has no plans to squander his new riches, though.
"I bought a few things, but I put most of it in the bank," Florence said. "Whenever I go back to school I'll have enough money for college."
He isn't planning to go back to college yet. He still has some good gaming years ahead of him before he eventually goes back to major in computers or film, he said.
"I'm just going to ride this for as long as I can," Florence said.
