Want to Get Good At Videogames? Hire a Kid Online
Tom Taylor, 18, Quit School
To Become a Gaming Pro;
Big Bucks From Coaching
When David Estalote wanted to learn to play the piano, the 27-year-old New Yorker sought out a teacher at a local music college. To learn to play golf, he took lessons from a pro at his grandfather's country club. When he recently decided he needed coaching to play a videogame better, he turned to a teenager who lives 1,200 miles away in Florida.
One afternoon recently, his 18-year-old tutor, Tom Taylor, slouched in front of a television set connected to a Microsoft Corp. Xbox machine running "Halo 2," a popular combat videogame. Mr. Taylor, through an Internet phone strapped over his head, snapped commands at Mr. Estalote back in New York. Mr. Estalote, a computer programmer, pays Mr. Taylor $45 an hour for help improving his "Halo 2" skills.
Messrs. Taylor and Estalote convened the class over the Internet within "Halo 2," each of them controlling gun-toting characters in space suits sprinting around a concrete fortress. For the next hour, Mr. Taylor showed his student how to improve his grenade-throwing, melee and strafing skills. "After all the lessons, he'll have insane improvement and he'll be unstoppable," said Mr. Taylor, a high-school dropout wearing baggy jeans, flip-flops and oversize sunglasses.
For almost a year, Mr. Taylor has operated a Web site called Gaming-lessons.com where players can book lessons in two games -- Microsoft's "Halo 2" and Nintendo Co.'s "Super Smash Brothers Melee" -- choosing from a dozen instructors (average age: 19). Clients pay between $20 and $65 an hour for individual lessons, depending on the instructor's skill level and the demand for his services.
Gaming-lessons.com says its youngest "Halo 2" instructor is 8-year-old New Yorker Victor De Leon III -- better known by his online gamer name, Lil Poison -- who has given several lessons a month since late last year, fitting the classes in after he has done his homework. His father, also named Victor, says his son has used some of the money he earns from lessons (hourly rate: $25) to buy a hamster, named Cortana after a character in the game.
Richard Jefferson, a forward with the New Jersey Nets basketball team, says several professional gamers, including Mr. Taylor, have helped him "raise his game" through "Halo 2" coaching sessions. Mr. Jefferson, 26, says he didn't pay anything for lessons, though he did give away some tickets to basketball games.
Mr. Jefferson holds out little hope of ever defeating his instructors. "No matter how much I practice I couldn't do it," he says. "It's like comparing me to a high-school basketball player."
Several years ago, 23-year-old Craig Levine started his own game-lessons Web site, E-Sports Entertainment Association, while he was still an undergraduate studying business at New York University. A roster of game experts on the site, located at Esportsea.com, offer tutoring in the World War II title "Call of Duty," a combat game called "Counter-Strike" and several others. Mr. Levine says his instructors, whose rates range from $15 to $50 an hour, have collectively given about 3,000 hours of lessons since the site opened for business. Mr. Levine says he takes 15% or less of his instructors' earnings.
Players like Mr. Taylor, a competitor at game tournaments produced by a league called Major League Gaming, are attempting to forge professional careers and to make money from coaching when they're not training for competitions. The elite players who participate in MLG events and those of rival leagues compete for prize money.
The tournaments spur demand for game coaching among younger players, typically teenagers, who aspire to go professional. At the same time, videogames are now readily embraced by many people in their 20s and 30s who have money to spend on lessons, but not necessarily the hours of playing time required to perfect their skills on their own. Mr. Taylor estimates that about half of his 30 or so students want to play professionally, while the other half are adults who simply want to become more proficient.
Suzanne Clanton, a psychologist and mother of two in Portland, Ore., has taken "Halo 2" lessons from Mr. Taylor, in part so she could compete more seriously with her younger brother through online multiplayer versions of the game. Mr. Taylor taught her how to quickly reload weapons with ammunition for swifter kills and to jump better so she can more efficiently navigate the virtual environments of the game. Ms. Clanton, who is 31, says taking game lessons felt as natural as the training she went through to become a psychologist. "If I wanted to get better at tennis, I would take tennis lessons," she says. "I didn't see this as any different."
A game student signs up for a lesson on the Gaming-lesson.com Web site, paying for a lesson or package of lessons with a specific instructor using PayPal. Instructors and students then arrange a date and time for a coaching session through email. For "Halo 2" lessons, the two meet up on Xbox Live, Microsoft's online game service, where Xbox users can play against each other. Teachers communicate orally with their students in real time through a headset, which functions as an Internet telephone, a common accessory for the Xbox.
Ronald Kim, a professional "Counter-Strike" player from Dallas, often starts his sessions with students with some advice on properly configuring the settings on their computer mice, through which "Counter-Strike" players aim their weapons in the PC game. "All these little things add up," says the 22-year-old Mr. Kim, known online as "Rambo."
Mr. Taylor applies some time-tested coaching methods from other sports. He encourages his students to record videos of their game-playing and then email the files to him. Before a lesson, he'll review the videos to determine how he can best help his pupils.
Like other professional gamers, Mr. Taylor began playing at an early age, devoting more and more of his time to them as he improved. Mr. Taylor, who lives in Jupiter, Fla., with his mother, quit high school in the fall of 2004 to pursue his professional game career, though he says he plans to take a high-school equivalency test. Game coaching has turned into a lucrative sideline for him: He has made up to $2,700 in one week and he was recently able to raise his hourly rate to $65.
Patience and positive reinforcement are key parts of his teaching methods, as Mr. Taylor showed in his "Halo 2" lesson with Mr. Estalote, the computer programmer from New York. "Let me show you some grenades you can use to control the tower," Mr. Taylor told his student through his headset.
"Are those plasmas or frags?" asked Mr. Estalote. "It doesn't matter," Mr. Taylor responded. "Throw that grenade again."
In a phone interview later, Mr. Estalote said his money is well spent with Mr. Taylor. "I think my time is valuable enough that paying Tom for lessons is worth it if it saves me however many hours it would have taken to figure it out on my own," he said.
电游高手出少年
当戴维?艾斯特(David Estalote)想学习弹钢琴的时候，这个现年27岁的纽约小伙子请了当地音乐学院的老师教他。为了学习打高尔夫球，他请祖父所在的乡村俱乐部的专业人士授课。最近，艾斯特又想请人教他更好地玩计算机游戏，这次他拜的师傅是一位远在,200英里之外的佛罗里达州的青少年。
不久前的一个下午，艾斯特的老师、18岁的汤姆?泰勒(Tom Taylor)懒洋洋地坐在一台与微软(Microsoft Corp.)Xbox游戏机相连的电视机前面，玩著风行一时的《光晕2》(Halo 2)射击游戏。与此同时，他通过一台套在头上的网络电话，向远在纽约的艾斯特不断发布各种指令。身为电脑程序员的艾斯特向泰勒每小时支付45美元的学费，以提高自己的技艺。
泰勒通过互联网向艾斯特传授《光晕2》的机宜，两人手中各操纵一些身穿太空服的持枪射手，这些射手围绕一个混凝土制的堡垒快速奔跑著。在接下来的一个小时里，泰勒向他的学生展示了如何提高手榴弹投掷、混战及扫射技能。“全部课程结束后，他能获得空前的提高，变得战无不胜，”泰勒说。这个高中退学生身穿宽松的牛仔裤和凉鞋，戴著一副过大的太阳镜。
泰勒开设了一个名为Gaming-lessons.com的网站已经快一年了，网络游戏选手们可在上面预订两个游戏的学习课程，它们分别是《光晕2》和“Nintendo Co.的Super Smash Brothers Melee”。有12位授课教师，平均年龄为19岁。根据教师的水平及授课的要求，学生每小时支付20美元至65美元不等的学费。
Gaming-lessons.com表示，《光晕2》最年轻的教师是现年8岁的纽约人维克托?利昂(Victor De Leon III)，他的的网名“小利昂”(Lil Leon)更为人熟知。从去年晚些时候以来，小利昂利用做完作业后的课余时间，每个月都要教授几门课程。他父亲表示，自己的儿子已经用上课赚来的钱买了一只仓鼠，按照游戏里的角色取名为Cortana。小利昂的收费为每小时25美元。
理查德?杰斐逊(Richard Jefferson)是新泽西网(New Jersey Nets)篮球队的前锋。他说，包括泰勒在内的几位专业游戏选手通过《光晕2》辅导课程，提高了自己的游戏技能。现年26岁的杰斐逊表示，他并没有支付任何学费，不过他送了一些篮球比赛的球票。
然而，杰斐逊几乎没想过有朝一日能战胜自己的老师。“无论我怎么勤于练习，我也做不到，”他说。“就好比我是是高中篮球队队员，他们是职业选手一样。”
几年前，23岁的克雷格?列文(Craig Levine)创办了自己的游戏网站E-Sports Entertainment Association，当时他还在纽约大学(New York University)攻读商科学士学位。网络游戏专家在Esportsea.com上提供以第二次世界大战为背景的《决胜时刻》(Call of Duty)、战斗游戏《反恐精英》(Counter-Strike)等游戏的辅导课程。列文表示，从该网站成立以来，这些老师已经提供了大约3,000小时的课程，他们的收费从15美元到50美元不等。列文说，他从老师的报酬中最多抽取15%的佣金。
泰勒等游戏高手是Major League Gaming组织的网络游戏锦标赛的专业选手，他们试图在网络游戏中找到自己的职业生涯，并在参赛训练间隙为他人授课赚钱。参加MLG赛事以及其他同类赛事的精英选手们的目标则是奖金。
这些锦标赛激发了年轻选手们，通常是青少年选手们，对游戏教练的需求，他们立志成为专业选手。此外，电脑游戏如今越来越被二三十岁的年轻人所接受，他们有钱上课，但没有那么多时间去自己完善技巧。泰勒估计，在他总共三十个左右的学生中，约有一半想成为专业选手，而另一半是只想使自己的技艺更纯熟些的成人。
苏珊娜?克兰顿(Suzanne Clanton)住在俄勒冈州波特兰市，是心理学家和两个孩子的母亲。她拜泰勒为师，学习《光晕2》的游戏技巧，以便在多人联线对战中更好地与她的弟弟竞争。泰勒教她如何快速地填充弹药杀敌，以及跳跃之道，以便更好地遨游于虚拟的游戏空间。现年31岁的克兰顿太太表示，上游戏课就像当年参加心理学课的培训。“如果我想把网球打得更好，我就会参加网球课程，”她说。“我觉得这没什么区别。”
如果学生想报名参加Gaming-lesson.com的课程，他可以通过贝宝(PayPal)付款服务公司支付单门或几门课程的学费，并指定教师。然后，授课教师和学生通过电子邮件确定辅导课的日期和具体时间。对于《光晕2》课程，师生在微软的在线游戏服务系统Xbox Live上见面，Xbox的用户可以在上面对战。老师通过一种戴在头上的耳机与学生进行实时口头交流，这种耳机是Xbox的附件，功能类似网络电话。
罗纳德?吉姆(Ronald Kim)是来自达拉斯的专业选手，擅长《反恐精英》。他在上课开始时，常常让学生调整鼠标的设置，因为选手们是通过鼠标帮助武器瞄准的。“这些细节积少成多，效果就会很可观了，”22岁的吉姆说。他在网上的绰号是兰博(Rambo)。
泰勒将一些体育运动中的经久不衰的教学方法运用到网络游戏教学中。他鼓励学生将自己玩的游戏录制下来，然后通过电子邮件把文件发送给他。在下次上课之前，泰勒会观看有关录像，以便更好地帮助学生。
像其他专业游戏选手一样，泰勒很早就开始玩游戏了，随著技能的不断提高，花在游戏上的时间也越来越多。他和母亲住在佛罗里达州朱庇特市，在2004年秋天辍学，转而希望成为网络游戏专业选手。不过他表示，打算参加相当于高中水平的考试。游戏教练使他收入颇丰：他一周能赚2,700美元，最近还把收费提高到每小时65美元。
泰勒表示，耐心和正面激励是自己的教学特点，他教艾斯特玩《光晕2》就是个典型的例子。“让我教你如何使用手榴弹，以便控制炮楼，”泰勒通过耳机教导自己的学生。
“这些是血浆还是碎片啊？”艾斯特问道。“没关系，”泰勒说。“再扔手榴弹。”
艾斯特后来在接受电话采访中表示，他觉得花钱请泰勒教课很值得。“我认为我的时间很宝贵，花钱让泰勒教我是值得的，否则我自己要花很多时间琢磨。”
Nick Wingfield
