Twenty-three years old – three years passed since I began the life of a progamer. It was also the most intense time that I had ever spent. I did not have the leisure to think about what was right or wrong. If there was a tournament, I entered it, and if I won, that would be the end of it. But little by little, I began to worry about the occupation of a progamer.

At first I was happy simply with the fact that I had become a progamer. I liked that I could feel at ease and play games openly. The meaning of a progamer, one’s mental attitude, vision and such were just momentary worrying of principles that brushed by. But this time I had the thought that something must definitely change. For a while, money was not a particularly important issue. Winning in games was the most important. But this was not everything. To a progamer, money was a measure of self-respect. No matter how much I said, “I am a progamer,” others would press with questions of, “That’s a profession? How much does that pay?” Before, I had thought, ‘Is money that important?’ but if I were to continue playing games with the profession of a progamer, I began to realize that I would have to fight all prejudice and win, including the issue of money. Adults could not easily accept that one could earn money by playing games. “Is playing games well also a skill? I guess one must at least be good at games, because he cannot study.” I wanted to send one flying to the adults that denounced progamers like this, with this ‘money’ that adults loved so much.

I decided to leave the company that I had been with for two years. The contract was over, but I did not renew the contract. Because the company I was with operated without sponsors and only with the income of prize money and revenue, I was financially quite poor. I felt things could not be this way. For a game organization to receive a stable support, a sponsor is most certainly necessary. It must be a sponsor that can support, trust, and invest in progamers so that they may only concentrate on the matches. For a progamer to be one of the professions, and to be recognized as e-sports, the support of a large corporation is absolutely necessary. It is the same for baseball or soccer. Without the support of a large enterprise, how can they support the salaries of so many professional players? Simply holding onto the aid of the prize money would not increase the size of the playing field. Of course, there must be a coach and players to practice with, but I felt that a sponsor should be first.

Right after the 2002 SKY Ongamenet Starleague was over, I left the company and started working on my own. Because it was a time by myself to meet a solid sponsor, the gold medal that I grasped at the 2002 WCG was more than just ‘gold.’ And afterwards, I concluded a sponsor contract with Orion that presented the best terms. The terms was receiving operating expenses in addition to the individual salary. The salary was one hundred million won. And like this, at the age of twenty-three, I became a progamer to receive a salary of one hundred million won.

Though it has been three to four years since the start of the occupation of a progamer, not all players lived with a salary. Receiving earnings through tournament prize money, performance fees and events was the entire income. Even if one were to exclude the operation costs, the actual amount of money received was not much. Though there were those that said earning that much for being in the teens or twenties was a lot, for games to be recognized as e-sports along with the development of the gaming industry, the treatment of progamers that stood at the center of it all must first change. If a senior progamer did not properly receive a salary and lived as a progamer, he could not give hope to the juniors. My receiving a salary of a hundred million gave hope to the junior gamers that they too could be hundred-millionaire. And I was also happy that I was the first to have achieved it.

People ask how I became a hundred-millionaire at the age of twenty-three. But my goal was not to become a hundred-millionaire from the start. If I had become a progamer while chasing after money, I would not have survived. They say that a person with a salary of at least a hundred million won works on average of 14 hours a day. In a word, they are ‘workaholics,’ that is, living in a state of addiction to their work. It means becoming a hundred-millionaire after living a life of working from early in the morning until evening. It is the same for me. At first, I started because I liked gaming. But afterwards I fell into gaming and barely slept, playing at least 16 hours a day. It can be compared to being a‘gameholic.’ And while acquiring skills like this, I unwittingly ended up at the top. There were also fans that liked my game plays, and the number of people that sought after me increased. A progamer must stake everything on his abilities and popularity. When I met these two conditions, large corporations that wanted to be a sponsor appeared. While living deeply with the work that I wanted to do, I had without realizing it become a hundred-millionaire.