Melbourne eSports stars: Anathan Pham, James Giezen, Conrad Rymarek and more
Whether it’s Fortnite, Call Of Duty or Counter Strike, these young guns have earned big bucks just by playing popular online games.
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It sounds too good to be true, earning hundreds of thousands of dollars playing video games and making it your full time job.
But that’s exactly the lucky lifestyle which these eSports stars who grew up in Melbourne are living, triumphing in battles against players worldwide and playing for overseas-based teams.
Some have massive online followings, and when they’re not competing, they also earn cash simply by streaming themselves ‘training’ by playing at home.
Here are five of the biggest earning eSports stars linked to our city, according to esportsearnings.com
Anathan Pham
Player ID: Ana
Career Earnings: $8,739,240
Australian rich list spot: 1
Game of Choice: Dota 2
This 23-year-old grew up in Wheelers Hill is an international gaming megastar, and easily the most successful eSports player Australia has seen.
He left high school when he was 16 to move to China, where he was invited to join a local team as part of its in-house eSports competition.
He pocketed millions of dollars by winning back-to-back world titles with the Red Bull-backed OG team playing multiplayer combat game Dota 2 in 2018 and 2019.
His second triumph made him the 13th highest-earning sportsman across any code in Australia in 2019, trumping tennis ace Nick Kyrgios, cricketer Steve Smith, and the biggest names in AFL.
Pham initially announced his retirement from competitive gaming in June 2021, but has been a guest player at various tournaments, and was recently lured back to join South Korean-based team T1.
James Giezen
Player ID: TGLTN
Career earnings: $651,538
Australian rich list spot: 3
Game of choice: Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG)
Giezen, 21, ditched the first year of his university degree for an opportunity to try out for an eSports team in the US and hasn’t looked back.
Growing up in Beaumaris and attending Cornish College in Bangholme, he was initially a promising swimmer before a shoulder injury derailed his ambitions.
He spent a lot of time playing video games after surgery and was supported by his father, who owned an internet business.
Giezen is the best player in Australia for Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds, a “strategic shoot-em up”, and he scored a big payday with his team, Soniqs, when it won the game’s global invitational event in South Korea last year.
He now lives in Pennsylvania, USA, where his weekday routine includes six hours of streaming to more than 266,000 followers, interacting and practising his games.
Later in the day, he hits the gym and grabs some dinner, before practising with his team in the evenings.
Giezen told Leader last year he believes the stigma around eSports is changing and it is evolving into a billion-dollar industry.
“It’s getting mainstream, and there’s definitely a generation of gamers being born right now, especially as the technology gets better,” he said.
“In Korea you get recognised on the street, but in the western world its not so much like that.
“There’s a long way to go but over time, people will start understanding it’s a billion dollar business.
“Hopefully I can just game and retire when I’m 35.”
Baran
Player ID: Volx
Career earnings: $224,272
Australian rich list spot: 13
Game of choice: Fortnite
Baran, whose surname is unknown, has a Turkish background but is based in Melbourne, and has been playing video games since he was four.
Before the Covid pandemic hit, he was a member of the Raised By Kings eSports team and an avid player of Fortnite.
In a 2020 documentary with the team, he said he was going to move to the US with the team and had goals to win a world cup individually or as a team.
“When I first started Fortnite my parents didn’t really support me as much as they are now,” he said.
“But when I won my first event and got into the world cup, they could see the potential, and after that they’ve been supporting me 100 per cent.”
He later moved to the JFT eSports team, which announced a “temporary closure” in July due to “harsh personal circumstances within the ownership team.”
Baran has a following of more than 330,000 people on streaming website Twitch.
Conrad Rymarek
Player ID: Shockz
Career earnings: $179,292
Australian rich list spot: 21
Game of choice: Call of Duty: Black Ops III
Rymarek, 26, specialises in the wildly popular multiplayer shoot-em-up game and has competed in tournaments worldwide since 2012.
His biggest payday came as a member of the Paris Legion team which finished in the top 10 of the global Call Of Duty championships in 2020, earning him a share of $100,000.
Shockz’s most recent team was the US-based eSports franchise Renegades, until the team parted ways with the franchise earlier this year.
He’s since been competing in the game’s Asia Pacific tournament with teammates Max Zlantanovic, Luke Rigas and Lincoln Ferguson, winning two rounds in May and June.
According to eSports stats hub Fandom, he was also selected in the Asia Pacific All-Challenger team of the year for 2022.
Rick Mulholland
Player ID: Rickeh
Career earnings: $149,504
Australian rich list spot: 24
Game of choice: Counter Strike: Global Offensive
Mulholland, 30, has been playing in Counter Strike tournaments for more than five years.
While he calls Melbourne home, he’s been previously based in the US playing with teams including Renegades, Rogue, Complexity Gaming and ORDER.
One of his biggest triumphs came as part of ORDER’s team which won the Australia and New Zealand championships for Counter Strike: Global Offensive in May 2021.
He’s a free agent and has more than 10,000 followers on his Twitch and Twitter pages.
**Earnings are based on $US to $AU conversion. According to xe.com, $1US = $1.45AU as of August 23, 2022.
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