Dennis Fong

Dennis Fong, also known under the pseudonym Thresh, was a professional gamer best known for winning John Carmack's Ferrari at the Microsoft-sponsored Red Annihilation tournament in 1997. Not only did he win every tournament he attended, but he did it in a variety of games including Doom, Quake 1-3, and Starcraft. He is considered the first major star of electronic sports, during his career it is believed that he made over USD$100,000 in endorsements alone.

Related Topics:
John Carmack - Ferrari - 1997 - Electronic sports - USD$ - Endorsement

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Perhaps due to his considerable fame in the gaming industry, Dennis worked for a time as editor-in-chief at the gaming site FiringSquad. Based in Berkeley, California, he worked with brothers Lyle and Bryant to develop FiringSquad and sister site Gamers.com, earning venture capital financing in 1999 during the dot com boom. GX Media, as the parent company was called, spent $14.1 million dollars from CMGI to earn itself a position as a prominent web portal for games. Fong's Ferrari was parked in the lobby of the GX Media offices and the company threw a party at the Playboy Mansion during E3. In 2001, Gamers.com was bought by Ziff-Davis, and various other parts were spun off into separate entities.

Related Topics:
Gaming industry - Gaming - FiringSquad - Berkeley, California - Gamers.com - Venture capital - Dot com boom - GX Media - CMGI - Web portal - Playboy Mansion - E3

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Since GX Media, Fong has been involved in a number of online and gaming ventures including the Xfire gaming messenger. He currently writes a column for the monthly games magazine PC Gamer (UK).

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