Ryan Hart now semi-professional

We closed a sponsorship deal with Logitech today.
Ryan Hart is now officially sponsored by Logitech. He is a semi-professional fighter.

Yes, he has to wear some cool Logitech gear at the tournaments.

He's getting well payed.

It's about time arcade gamers got sponsored.

We should have about another 20 sponsored players by mid 2002.

 

Yeah im sure its something like,

Hey logitech, were doing a tournament wanna sponsor us or give us some free prizes?

Logitech: Sure heres a few cap's, t-shirts and a wireless keyboard/speakers/controllers etc...

Derrick: Ryan is now semi-pro and well paid!!

CrewNYC

 

Hey, don't knock it. If somebody could figure out a way to get paid to play videogames, more power to 'em. I think it would be really cool if kids actually became "professional" videogame players (like skate- and snowboarders, for instance). As long as it doesn't end up becoming something cheesy ala "Starcade."

Still, you're probably right. Poor kid was probably just pimpin' out for some free stuff. Hell, reminds me of the fanzine days.

 

Regardless of whether he gets paid or gets free stuff, he is THE FIRST semi-professional video games player in the world. And in a country where we tend to get the games last out of the major three countries. So in my opinion, he's already in the history books... I bet if anyone was sponsored, they'll have a very positive attitude about themselves...

 

Actually, he's not "THE FIRST semi-professional video games player in the world."

But you guys can still enjoy whatever luxury it implies in the UK, I guess.

-Chanchai

 

well then who is "THE FIRST semi-professional video games player in the world"????

 

What, you guys have never heard of Dennis Fong aka Thresh? Although I don't know if he was actually the first.

And I'm pretty sure they have semi-pro players in Korea too.

 

Thats nuts of you to say, the first sponsored players are of course from Japan, and there have been MANY MANY sponsored players who get free stuff for playing games at shows like E3 in the States and im sure there have been others way before Ryan in the UK.

CrewNYC

 

Thresh from Firingsquad? I heard he won a ferrari from John Carmack in a tournament he won. I also heard he got a job at PC gamer and of course runs the site firingsquad.com which is a very good site IMHO.

CrewNYC

 

I don't think he runs it... I think he owns it. and that Gamers site too! I'm sure he owns something else as well apart from the F50, (which he probably sold by now)

Anyway, name me one sponsored "arcade games player"... I'm sure we've had enough PC sponsored player for a lifetime...

 

You guys obviously havent heard of Starcraft
There's at least thousands of professional Korean Starcraft players. But i believe he's talking about -ARCADE- games. Anyway, while Thresh played for awhile and was probably one of the earlier progamers, there are tons of Korean Starcraft progamers who have sponsors too, and practice 10 hours a day, every day. X'ds~grrr.. a player from Quebec who moved to Korea to play, is sponsored by AMD for example.

 

Sure I think, tragic (ben cureton) a famed tekken game player among other games he plays has been a big part of Nacmo's booth at E3 and a part of making books etc because of his ability to play the game. Also im guessing Alex Valle of SF fame has had similar experiences.

CrewNYC

 

Well, you originally said "videogames" player and I would assume that includes computer video games. I don't personally think Thresh is the first in the world, but he's one that did manage to get some form of headlines (particularly for winning Carmack's Ferrari--one of them anyways). On the topic of computer games, we have computer mice selling with recognized Quake and Counter Strike players' pictures on the box.

However, since you're curious about arcade games, I'm sure that there were quite a few, at least "semi" professional (as you counted Ryan) "arcade" game players that were at least sponsored in Japan. Since at least the VF2 days, most likely before then.

If we talked about modern days, I'm sure some bemani game (DDR, Beat Mania) players have been sponsored in Japan and Korea, and that must have at least been two years ago.

If you squeeze your definition enough, I'm sure you can lump Ryan as the first of whatever, but it's not the world's first semi-sponsored videogames player or the world's first semi-sponsored arcade game player. Logitech sponsoring Ryan (whatever scope it may be) is nice news and all, but it's nothing to go ape-shit over or create some weird declaration to the UK (whether or not the Dynamic League would like to think so). You're already trying to squeeze the definition since if you look at the definition of "sponsor" you're more likely to realize that "videogame sponsoring" has been done for who knows how long. Videogame player sponsoring included. On that point, don't tell me your videogame television shows were the first in the world either.

Many of us are happy to hear the good news, but Columbus did not discover America and Ryan Hart was not the first semi-professional videogames player in the world, despite propoganda.

-Chanchai

 

Argh you're right, completely forgot, the early tetsujin were at least partly sponsered by Sega (and Java Tea as well?).

 

first, Congrats to Ryan hart... second... chibita-san...etc,...

 

Just a quick note... it wasn't the top-of-the-line F50. Um, no way Carmack would have given Thresh the F50. It was an older "entry-level" model, but I forget which. =P

 

i think it was an F40 (late 80s)...

 

Okay, did a little bit of research. It was an '87 Ferrari 328GTS. Carmack had just bought a new F40 to drag race and donated the 328GTS to the Intergraph Quake Tournament, which Dennis Fong won.

 

ok, hands up!
who here:
a) uses threaded mode;
b) completely ignores uk_kid's posts?

bleah

 

Huh?