2006/10/12

Teen drops out to play video games.

A high school dropout from Jupiter is earning six figures playing video games. Tom Taylor says people were skeptical when he quit school to concentrate on a career as a video gamer. Now the 18 year old has product endorsements and a video game tutoring business.

He's one of about 100 professional gamers associated with Major League Gaming -- a video gaming league founded in 2002. When playing well, pros can bring home a few grand a month.

Six months after he started gaming full time, Taylor signed a $250,000 contract. He also got a publicist, a financial adviser and media training. Taylor says he was born to play video games.

I went the wrong way in college. I learned programming in the hopes of one day designing and building games. Instead, I should have concentrated on playing them for money. Back then, however, the best thing going was Street Fighter 2 in the arcade.

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