The thought of playing video games for a living may seem an absurd concept, but for hundreds of young adults it represents the possibility of a six-figure payday.

Presented in the same way as professional sports, e-sports or electronic sports have become North America’s newest obsession, with numerous organizations providing professional platforms where high-level players compete head to head in front of live and web-based audiences.

Decent players can make a reasonable living from sponsorship, team salaries and prize money while the very best can earn hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

Kaitlyn Richelle, an aspiring professional gamer from Etobicoke, would like to be in that number.

“Watching people compete and seeing that this was something happening in North America and not just Korea made me want to play video games more seriously,” says Richelle. “From (last) August onwards playing StarCraft was basically all I was doing.”

While competitive gaming has flourished in South Korea since the late ’90s — matches are routinely broadcast on cable TV and live events fill up arenas comparable to the Air Canada Centre — 2011 saw e-sports explode into North America.

That year, Major League Gaming, a premium North American league akin to the NHL, saw a widespread rise in sales and profitability as increased advertising, sponsorship and prize money turned the once niche hobby into a multi-million-dollar business with StarCraft 2, Blizzard Entertainment’s futuristic strategy game, at the forefront of that growth.

Today, a number of team-based games have broadened the competitive gaming landscape in ways that were never thought possible.

In 2012, Riot Games’ League of Legends world championship tournament set a record with a nearly $2 million prize pool, but that record was shattered earlier this month by Valve’s DOTA 2 championship, which saw a pool of nearly $2.9 million split amongst its eight competing teams.

Youth-seeking brands such as Dr Pepper, BIC, Monster Energy Drinks, Red Bull and dozens of high-end computer companies have relished the opportunity to hit their target markets and have sponsored a number of major tournaments and professional teams.

With hundreds of these e-athletes competing worldwide and thousands of dedicated fans watching them play, the up-and-coming spectator sport is becoming a viable career path for many young adults, especially in Toronto.

Richelle, 25, has been watching international gaming competitions since high school, but she just recently got involved in the competitive gaming scene after volunteering for the North American Star League’s Season 3 Grand Finals (NASL) last July.

Featuring a $30,000 grand prize, the tournament, to date the largest e-sports event to be held in Canada, took place at Mississauga’s International Centre and attracted more than 2,500 fans and nearly 50,000 Internet viewers.

After attending the tournament, Richelle, an engineering graduate who aspires to one day become a doctor, put medical school on hold to pursue her gaming passion.

“I saw how people worked together at NASL, how teammates would work together and how people would collaborate when going over (their game) replays and that got my attention,” she said. “When there’s something that I enjoy in life I just want to do that and I can’t see myself doing anything else.”

Although StarCraft 2 may be seen as a trailblazer in e-sports’ rapid growth, the key factor in its success is the evolution of live-streaming technology.

Competitive gaming has played a prime role in the recent surge of live streaming culture as witnessed by 2011’s launch of TwitchTV, a website that provides gamers of all levels a free platform to broadcast live and recorded game play sessions.

With more than 28 million unique monthly viewers as of February, Twitch provides its worldwide fan base live TV-style coverage and gives aspiring professionals a chance to showcase their talents by broadcasting their matches from anywhere.

In May, Richelle signed a professional contract with Quantic Gaming, a well-respected North American team, after she was discovered through TwitchTV. Now, she spends nearly six hours a day honing her skills against online opponents with most of those matches broadcast online and watched by hundreds of dedicated fans. Her channel has amassed more than 760,000 views.

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Her dream: to one day compete against the world’s best players as a member of Quantic’s professional team.

“When Heart of the Swarm (an expansion pack for StarCraft 2 released in March) first came out, I was getting maybe 800 concurrent viewers when I was streaming,” said Richelle, who is currently assigned to Quantic’s academy team. “I’m a very hard worker and I’m really efficient when I’m working so I think it could be a possibility to be on the pro team in six months. It’s something that I want really badly.”

Despite the fact that some of the top e-athletes are from Ontario — Chris “HuK” Loranger and Sasha “Scarlett” Hostyn, two StarCraft 2 players, have combined for more than $135,000 in tournament winnings since 2010 according to a website that tracks winnings — Toronto’s large e-sports scene has remained relatively unknown to those not directly involved in it.

“In general, I would honestly say that the e-sports community (in Toronto) is dormant, but it’s a big bear that’s waiting to wake up,” said Franco Ricci, the advisory director for E-Sports Canada, a not-for-profit volunteer organization that aims to raise awareness of the industry. “We want people growing up knowing that e-sports is an awesome thing and not to have any stigma or prejudice for enjoying the competitive aspects of professional gaming.”

Ricci, 32, a risk and independence specialist at Deloitte, has helped E-Sports Canada organize events to encourage Toronto’s e-sports community to emerge from the shadows.

Founded in 2010, the organization has rented mid-size venues such as pubs for gamers to watch major tournaments but has had trouble finding venues to host large-scale events.

“We don’t have the money to facilitate an event with such enormous costs that include Internet usage, power usage and space usage,” Ricci said.

It appears that the only thing holding back Toronto’s e-sports community is finding sustainable funding, something that help attract major international tournaments and prove to major sponsors that there is a large untapped market waiting to be seized.

That time may be coming sooner than later.

On Aug. 11, it was announced that Toronto will host the 2013 StarCraft2 World Championship Season 3 Finals with E-Sports Canada playing a large role in the event.

What can only be described as the “Super Bowl” of StarCraft 2, the tournament is expected to take place Oct. 26 to 27 and will see the 16 best players from North America, Europe and Korea compete for the world title.

With a prize pool of about $150,000, this will be the largest e-sports event to be held in Canada and should garner the international exposure needed to make it a sustainable industry and career path for young Canadians.

But until then, aspiring gamers will have to keep pursuing their passion with the means available to them in the hopes of one day making it big.

“I don’t think it’s going to go away, it’s finally getting better in North America,” says Richelle. “I’m trying to find ways to make this more sustainable and monetize it so I can keep doing it. I don’t have a part-time job, this is all I’m doing.”