Earlier this summer I sent my 14-year-old son right down to a little bit town in Sweden called Jönköping. He was going to something called Dreamhack. For anyone who hasn't heard about it before it is a gigantic LAN-party held in big congress halls throughout Europe. The largest of all of them is that this one, in June, in Jönköping.

"Shouldn't you pack a sleeping bag?" I asked my son. My boyfriend checked out me and said: "YOU DO NOT sleep at Dreamhack". My son nodded.

So he borrowed my largest suitcase and that i helped him to pack his computer, screen and all of the other gear and drove him to the station. Since I knew Team PokerStars Pro Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier was going to be there I asked him to seem after a blue haired boy dressed up because the Russian guy in Rounders. A COUPLE OF days later I got a text from ElkY with a selfie with them together.

This was the type of event becoming more common world wide as year on year eGaming takes on an excellent higher profile, with professional players competing together while being watched by millions.

But what does it mean to be an entire time pro in Hearthstone or League of Legends? What is the difference compared the lifetime of a poker pro? I got the risk to determine here during EPT Barcelona, where two of the most important names in Hearthstone were playing the EPT.

Jeffrey "SjoW" Brusi and Janne "Savjz" Mikkonen both play for Team Liquid, one of the vital famous teams in eSports. It has a team for each game. Finnish Janne and Swedish Jeffrey are of their Hearthstone team, which rescruited ElkY a couple of weeks earlier.

In poker the pro player's income comes from tournament wins of money games. With regards to eSport tournament winnings are an overly small a part of it. Many of the money comes from sponsors and from streaming when you are playing. As a streamer you get money from businesses who advertise to your channel but additionally from subscribers who pay extra to get access to more material.

Team Liquid has several sponsors, PokerStars being considered one of them. They have got backing from a smartphone giant and a nutrition company among others, with players essentially sponsored from head to toe, from the chair they sit in; to the garments they wear, to the mouse they use.

Jeffrey "SjoW" Brusi, 29, made a reputation for himself playing Warcraft III and have been playing for so long as he can remember. In 2013 he started with Hearthstone and realised pretty quickly he was some of the better players and decided to do it seriously. He also began to stream while playing and in six months he was earning money from it. A year ago he started playing tournaments and recently won his first title in Hearthstone at Xfinity Invitational, and is second in his division Kinguin Pro League.

Brusi also discovered poker a few years ago, appreciating the similarities with gaming in that skill and the simpler player eventually prevails. Sometimes he uses it to combine things up on his stream, although at this time that's impossible given the permanent ban on his account.

"It was hacked a month ago and that i haven't had chance to mend it yet", he said. Since he has almost 140 000 followers on Twitch he should probably get it fixed soon.

Janne "Savjz" Mikkonen, 28, has always been a gamer but caught the Hearthstone bug about three years ago. Realising few people streamed it he decided to present it a go and located he had followers, and an income, almost instantly. Then two years ago he was recruited by Team Liquid.

Just like Brusi, Mikkonen has played poker for lots of years, spending time in Vegas and playing an enormous amount online. As an eGamer he's travelled the arena in much the similar was as ElkY, playing tournaments in China, Korea and in Germany previous to EPT Barcelona.

So, what does an ordinary day mean for somebody who's a Hearthstone pro? It looks so much like that of an entire time poker player and takes a large number of hours. Mikkonen streams 5 - 6 hours per day, five to 6 days a week. Sometimes much more. He has 17,000 followers on Twitter and 224,000 on Twitch, lots of whom pay to look him and to get access to all of his extra material, some paying years in advance.

When my son came home from Dreamhack he went straight to his room and slept for an afternoon and a half before he could even tell me about his experience. After seeing a couple of pictures and videos I realised this was such a lot bigger than I imagined. It wasn't only a congress hall where everybody sat quietly in front in their computers playing against one another. This was a huge festival with shows, events, celebrities and VIP-areas. It had it all.

It also had famous gamers from across the world, icons who sat there streaming in front of thousands of fans within the audience. There is not any better sign of the way big eGaming has become, and the way they've their very own "Negreanus" and "Iveys" and "Hellmuths". They have got names like ElkY, SjoW, and Savjz.

Lina Olofsson blogs for PokerStars in Sweden.

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