Dennis Fong (), better known by his online alias Thresh, is an American businessman and retired

professional A professional is a member of a profession or any person who works in a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the particular knowledge and ski ...

player of the first-person shooter video games '' Quake'' and ''

Doom Doom is another name for damnation. Doom may also refer to: People * Doom (professional wrestling), the tag team of Ron Simmons and Butch Reed * Daniel Doom (born 1934), Belgian cyclist * Debbie Doom (born 1963), American softball pitcher * ...

''. He is a co-founder of Xfire, an instant messenger and social networking site for

gamers A gamer is a proactive hobbyist who plays interactive games, especially video games, tabletop role-playing games, and skill-based card games, and who plays for usually long periods of time. Some gamers are competitive, meaning they routinely ...

, which was acquired by Viacom for 102 million in April 2006. He also co-founded

Lithium Technologies Khoros, formerly Spredfast + Lithium, is a global customer engagement software company that provides online community management, social media marketing, social media analytics, digital care, and content management software and services to ent ...

, a social

customer relationship management Customer relationship management (CRM) is a process in which a business or other organization administers its interactions with customers, typically using data analysis to study big data, large amounts of information. CRM systems data collectio ...

(CRM) company. In his playing career his highest profile victory came in 1997 at the

Red Annihilation Red Annihilation was a ''Quake (video game), Quake'' competitive eSport event held in May 1997 that was one of the first nationwide video game competitions held in the United States. In the final match of the tournament, Dennis "Thresh" Fong defea ...

'' Quake'' tournament, where he placed first and won

id Software id Software LLC () is an American video game developer based in Richardson, Texas. It was founded on February 1, 1991, by four members of the computer company Softdisk: game programmer, programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer T ...

CEO John D. Carmack's

Ferrari 328 The Ferrari 328 GTB and GTS (Type F106) are mid-engine V8, two seat sports cars created by Italian automobile manufacturer Ferrari. It was the successor to the Ferrari 308 GTB and GTS. While mechanically still based on the 308, modifications we ...

. Fong is recognized by the ''

Guinness World Records ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...

'' as the first professional gamer.

Playing career

Fong began playing ''Doom'' at the age of 16 in 1993. He first chose the pseudonym

Threshold of Pain The threshold of pain or pain threshold is the point along a curve of increasing perception of a stimulus at which pain begins to be felt. It is an entirely subjective phenomenon. A distinction must be maintained between the stimulus (an external ...

, which referred to the ability to withstand enemy fire and suffering. However, as many games had an eight-character ID limit, he went with "

Thresh Thresh may refer to: *Threshing, in agriculture **Threshing machine * A minor character in the novel ''The Hunger Games'' and its film adaptation *Thresh (gamer) Dennis Fong (), better known by his online alias Thresh, is an American businessm ...

" and liked the word's meaning of "to strike repeatedly". John Carmack & Dennis Fong (Thresh), May 1997

Fong attended the

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

-sponsored ''Doom'' tournament Judgment Day 1995 in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

and defeated Ted "Merlock" Peterson to finish first among 24 competitors from across the US and

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

. The highlight of his gaming career was at the

tournament in 1997. He and Tom "Entropy" Kimzey emerged from a crowded field to face off in the Quake level E1M2 "Castle of the Damned", where Thresh defeated Entropy 14 to -1. At the peak of his gaming career in the middle to late 1990s, he earned approximately $100,000 a year from prize money and endorsements. He retired in 1997 to focus on his business ventures. On July 27, 2016, Thresh was the second person to be inducted into the ESL Hall of Fame. Fong has also been featured in ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...

'' for his gaming prowess.

Business ventures

Fong and his brother Lyle started GX Media, the parent company of Gamers.com, FiringSquad, and

. Fong was the CEO of the company and Lyle was the chief technical officer. The company grew to 100 employees. In 1999, GX Media raised over US$11 million from

CMGI Steel Connect, Inc. is an American company that provides supply chain management services to software companies. During the dot-com bubble, the company, which was then known as CMGI, Inc., had a market capitalization of $41 billion and owned the n ...

and built gamers.com, a popular

web portal A web portal is a specially designed website that brings information from diverse sources, like emails, online forums and search engines, together in a uniform way. Usually, each information source gets its dedicated area on the page for displayi ...

. Fong's Ferrari was parked in the lobby of the GX Media offices. In 2001, gamers.com was acquired by

Ziff-Davis Ziff Davis, Inc. is an American digital media and internet company. First founded in 1927 by William Bernard Ziff Sr. and Bernard George Davis, the company primarily owns technology-oriented media websites, online shopping-related services, an ...

. While running GX Media, Fong was also editor-in-chief at the video gaming site FiringSquad, wrote a monthly column in the popular

PC Gamer ''PC Gamer'' is a magazine and website founded in the United Kingdom in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future plc. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games m ...

magazine and co-authored the official

Quake II ''Quake II'' is a 1997 first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Activision. It is the second installment of the ''Quake'' series, but not a direct sequel to '' Quake''. The game's storyline is continued in its ...

strategy guide with Jonathan Mendoza and Kenn Spear Hwang. GX Media spun off

, a leading Social CRM platform provider that counts

AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile te ...

, PlayStation,

Verizon Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas ...

, Comcast and Best Buy as some of its customers. The company has raised over $40 million from

Benchmark Capital Benchmark is a venture capital firm based in San Francisco that provides seed money to startups. History The firm's most successful investment was a 1997 investment of $6.7 million in eBay for 22.1% of the company. In 2011, it invested $12 mil ...

, Emergence Capital, Shasta Ventures,

DAG Ventures DAG Ventures is an American venture capital firm based in Palo Alto, California. DAG Ventures works with startups in providing early stage and growth stage funding. Since its founding in 2004, by Tom Goodrich and John Cadeddu, the firm has backed ...

and

Tenaya Capital Tenaya Capital is a venture capital firm with offices in Portola Valley, California, and Wellesley, Massachusetts. Founded in 1995 as Lehman Brothers Venture Partners, Tenaya spun out to become an independent firm in 2009 following Lehman's bankr ...

. Fong went on to co-found Xfire, an

Instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and trigge ...

client designed for online gaming, that was acquired by Viacom in April 2006 for 102 million.Entrepreneur Launches His Third Interactive Computer-Gaming Company.
San Jose Mercury News. 01-SEP-03 In 2007, Fong founded Raptr, a social network and related software client for gamers. The company has raised over $12 million in financing from

Accel Partners Accel, formerly known as Accel Partners, is an American venture capital firm. Accel works with startups in seed, early and growth-stage investments. The company has offices in Palo Alto, California and San Francisco, California, with additional ...

. Fong serves as an adviser for WeGame.com Inc and also served in the same capacity to the now-defunct Booyah, Inc.

Playing style

In games, Fong is known for his reflexes, intuition and tactics. People coined the term "Thresh

ESP ESP most commonly refers to: * Extrasensory perception, a paranormal ability ESP may also refer to: Arts, entertainment Music * ESP Guitars, a manufacturer of electric guitars * E.S. Posthumus, an independent music group formed in 2000, ...

" to describe his unnatural knack for knowing exactly what his opponents were doing. In 1 on 1 deathmatch, he made it a priority to understand the level and "control" vital items using timed runs to repeatedly hoard them from opponents, such as the rocket launcher and armor in Quake. Fong has been credited with popularizing the WASD key configuration now commonly used in

PC gaming A personal computer game, also known as a PC game or computer game, is a type of video game played on a personal computer (PC) rather than a video game console or arcade machine. Its defining characteristics include: more diverse and user-dete ...

Personal life

Fong was born in

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

on March 11, 1977. He also lived in

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

for a while. His parents, David and Lena Fong, were educated in America and are US citizens. He and his family

immigrated Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...

to the United States when he was 11 years old, and he grew up in Los Altos,

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

. His interests include playing roller hockey. Fong has two younger brothers, Lyle and Bryant. Lyle helped him co-found GX Media. Thresh attended

De Anza College De Anza College is a public community college in Cupertino, California. It is part of the Foothill-De Anza Community College District, which also administers Foothill College in nearby Los Altos Hills, California. The college is named after th ...

Cupertino Cupertino ( ) is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States, directly west of San Jose on the western edge of the Santa Clara Valley with portions extending into the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The population was 57,8 ...

for a year in 1996–1997 before dropping out to focus on gaming. He currently resides in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

References

; Additional sources * (about DeathRow)
"Thresh: the legend of Quake"
Cyberfight.org

Washington Post.

Business Week cover story.

External links

Raptr

FiringSquad

Xfire

Thresh vs Entropy at the final of Red Annihilation 1997
( Quake Demo file)
Youtube of the above demo with commentary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fong, Dennis Living people American chief executives in the media industry American computer businesspeople American esports players American mass media company founders American people of Chinese descent American people of Hong Kong descent Hong Kong people American technology chief executives American technology company founders Businesspeople from Berkeley, California Quake (series) players People from Los Altos, California Video game businesspeople 1977 births