At the age of 22, Jvonn Williams is earning six figures from playing in the “Gears of War” tournaments. Statistics show that over the last two years, he had raked in $200,000 as prize earnings from competitive matches he has engaged in. This accomplishment, according to him, is a result of 12 years of commitment to mastering the game to becoming one of the top players of the “Gears of War” tournament.
From the initial stages, playing games was simply out of passion for Williams. At the age of 10, his attention was to engage his fantasy by creating content before becoming familiar with the Ian gaming events, which are open to thousands of game enthusiasts. When he turned 16, he competed in his first event, GameBattles. The online esports service allows participants to engage in tournaments with over $10 million in cash prizes.
In his first shot at the competition, Williams came out as one of the top 5 competitors. His style and name began ringing a bell in the ears of game lovers and analysts who considered him an elite player. But to better position himself as a force to reckon with, he formed a team comprising other players he came across from his gaming journey. In their first competition, the team showed class by emerging among the top 12, he said in an interview.
Now Williams does not only make money from competing in games, but, from deals he has signed on to. His brand has enabled him to monetize his art from the content he creates. According to him, because he commands a certain influence in the gaming industry, he is exploiting that window to make additional money. That gives him more monopoly over his earnings than the initial monies he was paid from prize contests. When he turned 19, he signed on to a deal offered by Rise, a black-owned esports organization. Though details of how much the deal was worth are not known, the money improved his living standard.
The secret to his success though is attributable to the dedication and sacrifices he made to becoming a competitive player. It ranges from watching films to engaging in activities that make him more disciplined to become a top-tier gamer. Another layer of his growth comes from the support he received from PURE Gaming, an American esports organization, who took an interest in him after his first contest. They placed him on a monthly salary of $1,500 and $2,000 to enable him to concentrate on improving his art. Though this wasn’t enough, it did help his career as it opened him to the world of monetizing his content to become financially independent.
Williams can comfortably say he has etched his name in the hall of fame of “Gears of War”. With that done, he has set his eyes on conquering the “Apex Legends”, a battle royale-hero shooter tournament built by Respawn Entertainment and promoted by Electronic Arts. His future goal however is to become a full-time content creator.
