Reclaiming The Glory

Mar 12 2007 11:23AM

Dave Walsh is a 22-year-old from Grandville, Michigan, who begins his day like most other young adults. He wakes up late in the morning, brushes his teeth, showers, and then sits down at his computer to answer his e-mails. After that, it's off to business. Along with high school friend Mikey Sabo, Walsh has started a clothing line for gamers: Kiaeneto (Pronounced "Kuh-net-o"). The business has been rapidly growing since it began as a run-of-the-mill basement business. Their goal is to change perceptions about "nerdy gamers" and portray a new type of gamer; a fashionable one.

"Gaming is not something that's restricted to a select few anymore; it's a global phenomenon. Kiaeneto will be there every step of the way as the world of eSports grows," says Walsh. "I noticed there was nothing out there for us [gamers]. I'd go to tournaments and see everyone wearing other brands, but nothing really reflective of the atmosphere." Along with tweaking out new designs for the clothing line or filling some orders himself, Walsh can be found on the phone speaking with TIME Magazine about an upcoming article. He did not, however, simply slide into this lifestyle; it's something he worked very hard to claim, and something he still works on every day.

When he leaves the shop, usually around 4:00 p.m., he goes home and begins to warm up in some Free-For-All games of Halo 2. You see, Walsh is a professional Halo 2 player. Kiaeneto is doing so well because gamers know him as one of the premier players. His fans want to make a salary like he does from playing video games; however, they don't know just how hard it is to get to the top and stay there.

Staying at the pinnacle of his game, just like any other professional, is something Walsh takes very seriously. On an average day, Final Boss (his Halo 2 team) will practice for about three hours, going over strategies and actually scrimmaging against other teams. Walsh watches game footage from scrimmages and past tournaments using at least four different viewpoints in order to highlight his good and bad choices during a game. However, some days are very different for Walsh, including one in particular.

In early November of 2006, Gilbert Arenas of the Washington Wizards announced that he would become the official sponsor of team Final Boss. The deal would give Final Boss clothes and apparel from Adidas, as well as an occasional paycheck. In addition, the team got an invitation to Arenas' outlandish birthday party as VIPs. Yes, that's right; the four teammates attended the event along with other celebrities such as Busta Rhymes and host Sean "P. Diddy" Combs. As well as attending this event, Arenas sent two PlayStation 3's to each of the four members. The entire team was ecstatic to receive these gifts. With the help of Arenas, Walsh and his teammates are some of the most heavily promoted players in Console Gaming today.

It was not always like this for Walsh. He was your average teenager; he participated in his high school's wrestling team, performed well academically, and played video games on a normal basis. When he began playing Halo with his wrestling team after a couple of tournaments, Walsh started noticing something: he was easily able to defeat his opponents. Most kids are simply satisfied to be the best among his or her friends, but Walsh wanted more. He caught word of a local tournament and figured he'd give it a shot. He wanted to see how he performed against other "good" players. At the tournament, he ended up taking fifth place out of a staggering three hundred people.

He met many other players and started playing the game with a serious attitude as well as attending several LAN's. It was here he met two of the best players in Halo history, Dan and Tom Ryan. For those of you who don't know of the Ryan brothers, they're the "OGRE" twins. Originally, these two were on the team Shoot to Kill (StK). Team StK was known as Halo 1's elite and was respected by everyone who played. Walsh noticed this and formed his own team who ended up beating StK two tournaments in a row and began to earn some respect from players. After suffering that second loss in tournament play, the OGRE twins, when approached by Walsh, decided they should team up.

"They really liked the idea because we felt that we'd be unbeatable together," says Walsh. With the addition of another amazing Halo player, Ryan "Saiyan" Danford, these four have been playing for the past two and a half years, dominating the Halo 1 and Halo 2 scene in the most prestigious console league in North America, the Major League Gaming League.

The Major League Gaming organization is a console competitive league, one of the first to hold nationwide tournaments. It was a league that'd become very familiar to the four players, as they would become the top team. No one could stop them. Many people caught wind of the four spectacular players performing so well. In the 2005 MLG season, Team 3D manager Craig "Torbull" Levine offered up a dream to these four: a sponsorship with his team. They would accept this offer and begin playing as Team 3D, winning MLG sanctioned tournaments. However, little did they know what was about to happen.

MLG was growing very rapidly at the time and began to get more and more funding. On June 21st, MLG decided to offer a contract to the four players, a contract that still shocks many eSports fanatics to date: one million dollars split four ways over the course of three years. After a brief time with their new manager, the four would part ways with Levine and venture into a new age for the team.

With the name of Final Boss, Walsh, Danford, and the Ryan twins would continue to dominate the MLG Pro Circuit, never losing a single set of matches over the 2005 season. The four players were all top players in terms of individual skill - Walsh especially. As captain of the team, he began to rise to the top of league. Known now as the "glitch master," using an odd grip called the claw (playing with his full right hand instead of just his thumb on the right side of the controller), he's able to perform complicated techniques such as the B-X-R, an instant-death move that only the top players can pull off in tournament play. Walshy has mastered it along with several other button combinations such as the B-X-B (double melee attack) and R-X-R (double shot), thus making him one of the most feared players.

At the top of their game, Final Boss seemed unstoppable. However, this would all begin to change towards the end of the 2006 season. At the beginning, things played out as everyone expected them to: Final Boss would go on to win four straight consecutive tournaments. At the Orlando 2006 MLG event, Final Boss would run into an up and coming team, one that would defeat the "Kings of Halo" for the first time.

That team is known as Team Carbon. They consist of Chris "ShocKwav3" Smith, Ben "Karma" Jackson, Scott "Gandhi" Lussier, and Eric "Gh057ayame" Hewitt. All four players possess strong individual skill and group-play precision. Both Lussier and Smith had been on Team iGameSpot together, a team who had almost defeated Final Boss in the 2005 season, but ultimately failed. With the added slaying ability of Jackson (the top Free-For-All player in the league) the team was a force to be reckoned with. Quickly climbing the brackets with ease, they would face Final Boss for the first time in the upper bracket finals. It was a familiar place for Final Boss to be, a place where they would stay and relax, always waiting for the lower bracket to finish. However, this time around, they would be the ones to climb back through the lower bracket.

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