I have always envy people doing what they love as a living, or in other words rather being paid to play. One such “occupation” is being a professional gamer.

If you have watched TMNet UniFi’s advert on TV or if you drive along the federal highway and see the UniFi ads, you would probably know about Ashley Khoo aka Summer Ash, an online gamer made popular by that UniFi adverts in addition to her good looks.

Credits to cikliliputih.com

Apparently she is a female expert in the game “Sudden Attack” which is a Korean version of Counterstrike, to put it simply. Its rare that a girl is such an expert in video games, what’s more it’s a first person shooter game she is good at. She has a blog on online gaming http://summerash.wordpress.com/ where she tells about her whole TMNet ambassador experience as well as her gaming experience. But it has not been updated for some time. Same goes to her personal blog http://summerash.xanga.com/weblog/ . Probably she is busy with her promotion schedule and studies at the same time.

But I don’t want to talk about her too much. This post is about being paid to do something you enjoy and what it takes to do that. Taking Summer Ash as an example, I will dissect what actually made her an ambassador of TMnet and what you need to have to earn form doing what you enjoy.

• The rule of thumb is companies have products, products need advertising and advertising needs a public figure that reaches out to their product target market. Online gaming is and activity that depends greatly on stable internet connection, which UniFi provides. Ashley, being a pro online gamer, a girl and a pretty one on top of that fits a description of a unique person to be the TMnet Ambassador.
• Notice that I mentioned 1) a pro online gamer, 2) a girl, and 3) a pretty girl . That’s because if you take out one of those attributes, it just doesn’t work. I mean if you were a gamer, but not a pro, you have no credibility. If you were a guy instead of a girl, you wont be unique (at least in the cyber games field) and if you were not pretty, you wont be able to turn heads (as cruel as it seems, its true).
• But the hardest part is creating a reputation in your field of expertise. I’m sure it took a long time for Ashley to gain a reputation  to finally get noticed by TM Net. She had probably been playing since who knows when and joined countless Cyber Games.
• Timing is also important. If you were a pro Cyber gamer during the Streaymx era, TM Net wont really be looking for you just yet. If you are good at riding the wave, you would be lucky.

Of course for other fields other criteria apply, but the basic rules as above apply (Niche, Attractiveness, Reputation and timing). The type of field you choose is also closely related to whether you can actually make a living from it or not. The internet and telecommunications are big business and pay big buck for advertising, so there’s big money involved there.  But if your niche is in the keropok industry…well, maybe you should stick to your day job

So the bottom line is if you want to earn doing something you like, make sure you take note of the criteria’s above. It’s not impossible, but tough to achieve it. Luck also has a small part to play as well. Just remember it’s all about advertising. As such, one must always keep promoting products in mind….

However, like waves that subside over time, fame does not last forever, so does the sponsorships. Unless you turn your interest into some kind of business that is sustainable, you might find yourself jobless at the end of the sponsorship contract. And the ability for you to capitalize on that opportunity to set up a business will decide whether you live your dream or go back to reality.

Good luck though.

iMyn