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 work (human activity), works in a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the partic ...

player of the

first-person shooter A first-person shooter (FPS) is a video game genre, video game centered on gun fighting and other weapon-based combat seen from a First person (video games), first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action directly through t ...

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 (1934–2020), Belgian cyclist * Debbie Doom (born 1963), American softball pitche ...

''. He is a co-founder of

Xfire Xfire was a proprietary freeware instant messaging service for gamers that also served as a game server browser with various other features. It was available for Microsoft Windows. Xfire was originally developed by Ultimate Arena based in Men ...

, an instant messenger and social networking site for

gamers A gamer is someone who plays interactive games, either video games, tabletop role-playing games, skill-based card games, or any combination thereof, and who often plays for extended periods of time. Originally a hobby, gaming has evolved in ...

, which was acquired by

Viacom Viacom, an abbreviation of Video and Audio Communications, may refer to: * Viacom (1952–2005), a former American media conglomerate * Viacom (2005–2019), a former company spun off from the original Viacom * Viacom18, a joint venture between Pa ...

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 ...

, a social

customer relationship management Customer relationship management (CRM) is a strategic process that organizations use to manage, analyze, and improve their interactions with customers. By leveraging data-driven insights, CRM helps businesses optimize communication, enhance cus ...

(CRM) company. In his playing career his highest profile victory came in 1997 at the Red Annihilation ''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 Carmack John D. Carmack II (born August 21, 1970) is an American computer programmer and video game developer. He co-founded the video game company id Software and was the lead programmer of its 1990s games ''Commander Keen'', ''Wolfenstein 3D'', ''Do ...

Ferrari 328 The Ferrari 328 GTB and GTS (Type F106) are Mid-engine design, mid-engine V8 engine, V8, two-seat sports cars created by Italian automobile manufacturer Ferrari. It was the successor to the Ferrari 308 GTB, Ferrari 308 GTB and GTS. While mechanica ...

. 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 British reference book published annually, list ...

'' 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 extern ...

", 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" and liked the word's meaning of "to strike repeatedly". Fong attended the

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

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

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

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 Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

. The highlight of his gaming career was at the Red Annihilation 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 $100,000 (~$ in ) 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 ESL Gaming GmbH (formerly known as Electronic Sports League) is a German-French esports organizer and production company that produces video game competitions worldwide. ESL was the world's largest esports company in 2015, and the oldest that ...

. 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. The magazine was first known fo ...

'' 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 A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

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. History The company was formed in 1968 as College Marketing Group by Glenn and Gail Mathews. At first, the company sold mailing lists ...

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 displayin ...

. 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. Founded in 1927 by William Bernard Ziff Sr. and Bernard George Davis, the company primarily owns technology- and health-oriented media websites, online shopping-related servic ...

. 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, first-person shooter game developed by id Software and published by Activision. It is the second installment of the Quake (series), ''Quake'' series, following ''Quake (video game), Quake''. Develope ...

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., an abbreviation for its predecessor's former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the w ...

PlayStation is a video gaming brand owned and produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), a division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. Its flagship products consists of a series of home video game consoles produced under the brand; it also consists ...

Verizon Verizon Communications Inc. ( ), is an American telecommunications company headquartered in New York City. It is the world's second-largest telecommunications company by revenue and its mobile network is the largest wireless carrier in the ...

Comcast Comcast Corporation, formerly known as Comcast Holdings,Before the AT&T Broadband, AT&T merger in 2001, the parent company was Comcast Holdings Corporation. Comcast Holdings Corporation now refers to a subsidiary of Comcast Corporation, not th ...

and

Best Buy Best Buy Co., Inc. is an American multinational consumer electronics retailer headquartered in Richfield, Minnesota. Originally founded by Richard M. Schulze and James Wheeler in 1966 as an audio specialty store called Sound of Music, it was r ...

as some of its customers. The company has raised over $40 million from

Benchmark Capital Benchmark is a venture capital firm founded in 1995 by Bob Kagle, Bruce Dunlevie, Andy Rachleff, Kevin Harvey, and Val Vaden. The firm is known for its equal partnership structure and focus on early-stage investing, typically leading the firs ...

, 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 backe ...

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 ban ...

. Fong went on to co-found

, an

instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of synchronous computer-mediated communication involving the immediate ( real-time) transmission of messages between two or more parties over the Internet or another computer network. Originally involv ...

client designed for online gaming, that was acquired by

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 a global 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 ope ...

. In May 2021, Fong backed Bright Star Studios in a $2 million investment deal for the company's

massively multiplayer online A massively multiplayer online game (MMOG or more commonly MMO) is an online video game with a large number of players to interact in the same online game world. MMOs usually feature a huge, persistent open world, although there are games t ...

sandbox game A sandbox game is a video game with a gameplay element that provides players a great degree of creativity to interact with, usually without any predetermined goal, or with a goal that the players set for themselves. Such games may lack any objec ...

Ember Sword ''Ember Sword'' was a planned massively multiplayer online role-playing sandbox blockchain game developed by Bright Star Studios for macOS and Windows. Presented from a three-dimensional isometric perspective, ''Ember Sword'' had players battl ...

''. Fong serves as an adviser for WeGame.com Inc and previously served in the same capacity for the defunct

Booyah, Inc. Booyah was a social web and mobile entertainment company. The development team drew its experience from the consumer web and social gaming space and entertainment studios such as Blizzard Entertainment, Activision, EA, and Insomniac Games. Booyah ...

Playing style

Fong was known for his reflexes, intuition and tactics while playing. People coined the term "Thresh ESP" to describe his unnatural knack for knowing exactly what his opponents were doing. In 1 on 1

deathmatch Deathmatch commonly refers to: * A particularly brutal type of hardcore wrestling * Deathmatch (video games), a free-for-all video game mode Death Match may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media *'' Tom Clancy's Net Force Explorers: D ...

, 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 A rocket launcher is a weapon that launches an unguided, rocket-propelled projectile. History The earliest rocket launchers documented in imperial China consisted of arrows modified by the attachment of a rocket motor to the shaft a few i ...

and armor in '' Quake''. Fong has been credited with popularizing the WASD key configuration commonly used in

PC gaming A personal computer game, or abbreviated PC game, also known as a computer game, is a video game played on a personal computer (PC). The term ''PC game'' has been popularly used since the 1990s referring specifically to games on "Wintel" (Micr ...

Personal life

Fong was born in

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

on March 11, 1977 and lived in

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

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

emigrated Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanentl ...

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

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. His interests include playing

roller hockey Roller hockey is a form of hockey played on a dry surface using wheeled skates. It can be played with traditional roller skates (quad skates) or with inline skates and use either a ball or puck. Combined, roller hockey is played in nearly 60 cou ...

. Fong has two younger brothers, Lyle and Bryant. Lyle helped him co-found GX Media. He resides in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a List of regions of California, region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose, California, S ...

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 mass 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 emigrants to the United States American technology chief executives American technology company founders Businesspeople from Berkeley, California Quake (series) players People from Los Altos, California American video game businesspeople 1977 births