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10 People Who Played ONE Game For YEARS Until It Paid Off

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Ten gamers turned single-title obsession into life-changing paydays, and nobody’s climb tells that story better than Johan “N0tail” Sundstein’s.

gameranx’s rundown of “10 People Who Played ONE Game For YEARS Until It Paid Off” tracks a simple but brutal pattern: pick one title, grind it for years past the point of reason, and either walk away with nothing or walk away a millionaire. The video profiles competitors across Dota 2, League of Legends, StarCraft II and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, but the anchor story belongs to Sundstein, the Danish captain who turned a teenage Heroes of Newerth career into back-to-back Dota 2 world titles and the biggest prize total in esports history.

• Johan “N0tail” Sundstein started competing at roughly 15 in Heroes of Newerth with Fnatic, moved to Dota 2 in 2012, co-founded the OG organization in 2015, then won The International in both 2018 and 2019, plus four Valve Major titles, to become the highest-earning esports player ever.
• Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok’s years grinding League of Legends paid off in 2013, when he led his team to the World Championship and a $1 million prize.
• Kim “Serral” Jukka’s dedicated StarCraft II run culminated in the 2018 World Championship Series title and $270,000, while Amer “Miracle-” Al-Barkawi’s Dota 2 grind netted him $1.1 million at the 2016 Frankfurt Major.

Sundstein’s Road From Fnatic Bench to OG’s Captain

Sundstein’s competitive career didn’t begin with Dota 2 at all. He started as a teenager around age 15 playing Heroes of Newerth for Fnatic, cutting his teeth in a MOBA scene that was still figuring out what professional play even looked like. When Valve’s Dota 2 took over as the genre’s premier competitive title, Sundstein made the switch in 2012 and spent years cycling through rosters and premier tournaments before anything resembling a payoff arrived.

That payoff came when he co-founded OG in 2015. Rather than chase a superteam of established stars, Sundstein built a roster culture around adaptability and drafting creativity, and it eventually produced results nobody else in Dota 2 had managed.

Back-to-Back Titles That No One Else Has Matched

OG won The International 2018, the sport’s marquee annual tournament, and then did something unprecedented in Dota 2 by winning it again at The International 2019. No other organization has taken back-to-back TI championships. Layer in four Valve Dota Major titles across Sundstein’s career, and the résumé explains why gameranx singled him out as the centerpiece of a video about grinding one game into a payday.

Two straight International championships turned Sundstein into the highest-earning esports player in competitive gaming history.

The scale of that prize pool is what separates Dota 2 from most of the other titles in the video. The International’s crowdfunded prize pool structure — built largely off in-game Battle Pass sales — has made TI’s winner’s share dwarf payouts in almost every other competitive scene, which is part of why the list leans so heavily on Dota 2 names.

The Rest of the Grind Across Other Titles

gameranx’s list didn’t stop at Sundstein. Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok ground through League of Legends for years before capturing the 2013 World Championship and a $1 million prize, a run that made him the face of competitive LoL in South Korea. Du “Nisha” Lipeng’s years in Dota 2 paid off with a 2019 DreamLeague title worth $350,000, while Kim “Serral” Jukka’s StarCraft II grind ended in a $270,000 win at the 2018 World Championship Series.

The rest of the field spans continents and genres: Amer “Miracle-” Al-Barkawi ($1.1 million at the 2016 Frankfurt Major), Moon “MMA” Sung Won ($87,000 at the 2011 Global StarCraft II League), Peter “Dupreeh” Rasmussen ($20,000 at StarSeries i-League Season 4 in 2019), Kuro “KuroKy” Salehi Takhasomi ($200,000 at the 2017 Kiev Major), Nathan “NBK-” Schmitt ($50,000 at the 2018 V4 Future Sports Festival), and Sumail “SumaiL” Hassan ($1.2 million at the 2015 Dota 2 Asia Championship). Every one of them logged years of unglamorous practice before a single tournament run changed their bank account.

Factors Driving Diverse Payout Amounts

Put the ten side by side and the gap in prize money says as much about tournament economics as it does about skill. Dota 2’s crowdfunded majors and Internationals routinely dwarf StarCraft II and CS:GO events, which explains why Sundstein and SumaiL cleared seven figures while Rasmussen and Schmitt collected five-figure prizes for equally many years of grinding. Readers who want a closer look at how modern esports organizations train and prepare rosters for that kind of payoff can find more detail in gameranx’s own breakdown of professional gaming training regimens, and anyone wondering what kind of title demands this level of commitment in the first place should check out the network’s list of games that will consume your life.

Sundstein’s back-to-back TI wins remain the outlier even inside a video built entirely around outliers — nobody else on the list can point to two consecutive world championships in the same title, let alone the highest career earnings in esports history to go with them.