The prize money of the top Hearthstone players is now known. It amounts to just over one million US dollars. However, only a few could live off this.
Hearthstone is not on the way to becoming an eSport game; it is already one. This is also proven by the prize money that players can win. The 52 tournaments or “Series” that announced individual prize money of $1000 or more paid out a total of $971,471 to 265 different people in 2014. Additionally, there were team prize money of over $166,961.
15 of these 265 players earned more than the US minimum wage with Hearthstone, including the German player Jan “ekop” Palys in 15th place. The three top players earn around $100,000 (83,754€), which already allows for a comfortable lifestyle.
Most of the players at the top did not earn their money the “hard way” but rather cashed in during a big tournament.
In the Hearthstone scene, prize money is not the only way to earn money. Some popular streamers have established themselves who do not need tournament victories to make ends meet with Hearthstone. The somewhat controversial streamer Reynad is reported to earn over $3000 a day, as revealed by a supposed “oops” mistake from Reynad, which some consider to be a PR stunt.
The 15 Top Prize Money Earners in Hearthstone
- James “Firebat” Kostesich ($105,650)
- Wang “TiddlerCelestial” Xieyu ($100,250)
- “LiBo”($99,130)
- Drew “TidesofTime” Biessener ($41,025)
- Peter “Gaara” Stevanovic ($36,793)
- Aleksandr “Kolento” Malsh ($31,669)
- Guoyi “MagicWind” Zeng ($30,000)
- Cong “StrifeCro” Shu ($26,550)
- Janne “Savjz” Mikkonen ($26,550)
- Yuan “Nicolas” Jin ($26,350)
- Dima “Rdu” Radu ($22,847)
- Jason “Amaz” Chan ($21,519)
- Daniel “DTwo” Ikuta ($16,500)
- Seung-Ha “Kranich” Choi ($16,000)
- Jan “ek0p” Palys ($14,925)
