A few days ago we told you about some of the historical legends of the competitive universe of video games such as Daigo Umehara the beast of fighting games Mystik pioneer of streaming, or Volcano a former Counter-Strike player who now works for Riot Games in Valiant. Today we end this long journey that begins with the first esports champions in history recalling three of the greatest icons in the history of esports and we begin with the mythical Fatal1ty.
Johnathan Fatal1ty Wendel was one of the first global esports
ambassadors. An example of competitive improvement, he promised himself not to compete again if he did not win in his umpteenth attempt in 1999. From there, he began to win almost everything he played. His real feat was to go from game to the game getting victories in Painkiller Quake III Arena, Unreal Tournament 2003. and accumulating in his showcase a total of five world championships four of them from the Cyberathlete Professional League CPL and one World Cyber Games (WCG). He was also one of the main protagonists of various advertising campaigns, he sponsored his own line of peripherals and was even the commercial face of such irreverent products as gaming food.
Of Lim ‘BoxeR’ Yo Hwan it is the story
of the media star of an entire country. Within the game, he reinvented the way of playing with the Terran race, making it one of the most popular; Outside of it, he became an icon of South Korean popular culture, starring in advertisements and appearances on television shows. In addition, he got to have a massive fan club and star in several compilations on DVD with his best plays. Something unthinkable in the mid-2000s anywhere other than South Korea. His competitive achievements led him to occupy the highest position in all the rankings and to receive the qualifier of bonjwa a title reserved only for the best players in history. He was also the founder of SK Telecom T1 a club that would later become known worldwide thanks to League of Legends superstar Lee Faker Sang-Hyeok. After his retirement, he took advantage of his popularity to continue his competitive career in a very different scene: that of poker.
The decline of arcades ushered in a new era where internet cafes and LAN-Parties became the home of video game competitions.
In that context, a company and its games – Doom and Quake, by software – would forever change the way we compete with video games. At the dawn of online multiplayer, there was a player who has gone relatively unnoticed by the general public, but who was certified as the first professional player by Guinness World Records and whose name inaugurated the Esports Hall of Fame. Dennis ‘Thresh’ Fong became a competitive legend of the video game Quake and a true celebrity of the time. He was the winner of one of the first esports tournaments in history the 1997 Red Annihilation Tournament, whose prize was the Ferrari 328 GTS of John Carmack founder of software.
Since Thresh couldn’t drive Carmack had to pay for the transportation of the car from Atlanta to California. With earnings of $ 100,000 per year for sponsorships, Thresh won every tournament in which he participated for five years, and to him, we owe the popularization of the use of the keys WASD in shooters. And so, with the help of these three icons in the history of competitive video games, we close this story.
