Dennis Fong Connects Gamers
Dennis “Thresh” Fong (方鏞欽 born 1977) is an entrepreneur and retired celebrity pro gamer.1 Fong has been called “the Michael Jordan of video games”,2 a “Top 20 Entrepreneur Under 35” by Red Herring magazine,3 and voted as the “Top North American E-Sports Figure of All Time”4 by the E-Sports Entertainment Association, and is best known for: co-founding Xfire, an instant messenger and social networking site for gamers which was acquired by Viacom for US$102 million in April 2006; co-founding Lithium, a leading Social CRM company with clients such as AT&T and Barnes & Noble; and winning John Carmack’s Ferrari 328 in a 1997 Quake tournament.
Fong was born in Hong Kong and came to the United States when he was 11 years old.5
Fong initially chose the pseudonym “Threshold of Pain”, which meant being able to withstand enemy fire and suffering. However, as many games had an eight-character limit and the truncated “Threshold” did not sound cool, he went with “Thresh” and liked the meaning of the word, which is, “To to separate the grain or seeds from a cereal plant or the like by some mechanical means as by beating with a flail.”67
In games, Fong is known for his reflexes, intuition, and tactics. People coined the term “Thresh ESP” to describe his unnatural knack for knowing exactly what his opponents were doing. [8]9
The highlight of his gaming career was at the Red Annihilation tournament in 1997. He and Tom “Entropy” Kizmey emerged from a crowded field to face off in the Quake level E1M2 “Castle of the Damned”, where Fong, playing as “Thresh”, defeated “Entropy” 14:-1.10 In his gaming career, Fong rarely lost, winning tournaments over a five-year span in many games including Doom I and II, Quake, II, and III, and StarCraft.
Using his prize winnings and endorsement money, approximately $100,000 a year over his gaming career,11 Fong and his brother Lyle started GX Media, the parent company of Gamers.com, FiringSquad, and Lithium Technologies. Fong was the CEO of the company and Lyle was the Chief technical officer; together they grew the company to 100 employees.
In 1999, GX Media raised over US$11 million dollars from CMGI and built gamers.com, a popular web portal.1213 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 acquired by Ziff-Davis.
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 magazine, and co-authored the official Quake II strategy guide.
GX Media spun off Lithium Technologies, a leading Social CRM platform provider that counts AT&T, PlayStation, Verizon, Comcast, and Best Buy as some of its customers. The company has raised over $40 million dollars from Benchmark Capital, Emergence Capital, Shasta Ventures, DAG Ventures, and Tenaya Capital.
Fong went on to co-found Xfire, an IM designed for gamers, that was acquired by Viacom in 2006.
In 2007, Fong founded Raptr, a social network and related software client for gamers. The company has raised over $12 million dollars in financing from Accel Partners.
Fong currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area.
[edit]