Serious Gaming

2005

Serious Gaming was founded in 2004 by Bas Peeperkorn, the team's first signing was Painkiller player Niels van Tilborg. Painkiller was the game used for the US$1,000,000 2005 CPL World Tour and following van Tilborg the following players were signed and represented Serious Gaming throughout the tour: Fredrik Edesater and Stefan Timmermans. Highlights for the team included a ninth-place finish at the Chile stop and two players being among the 32 players in the world tour finals.[2]

In 2005 Serious Gaming also competed in televised competition at the World eSport Games in Seoul, Korea, being represented at the second edition of the event by a Counter-Strike division consisting of Finnish players.[3] This division would disband shortly after their stay in Seoul.

2006-2007

Following the 2005 World Tour the main focus of the first-person shooter Deatmatch scene switched from Painkiller to the newly released Quake IV and Serious Gaming followed. Contracts with van Tilborg and Edesater ended, Timmermans would take a management position and help guide two newly signed players in the professional gaming scene: Markus Andersen and Maciej Krzykowski. Andersen would develop into a champion player at the national level but never take the step to international competition. Kryzkowski quickly established himself as a major contender in international competition, being recognized as the newcomer of the year in all of eSports in 2006. Kryzkowski ended up winning the Quake competition at ESWC 2007 without losing a map, becoming the youngest Quake and ESWC world champion in history.[4]

2006 was also the year Serious Gaming established a Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne division, originally signing Oskar Rudberg and Jos Buijvoets. Rudberg would retire shortly after joining and Buijvoets transitioned into a managerial role. The team signed and released a variety of players including (now) professional gamers Benjamin Baker[5] and Daniel Spenst.[6] Eventually a stable line-up of players would emerge that represented the team for several years including Kevin van der Kooi, Nikolaus Cassidy and Hjalmar Högberg.

Serious Gaming also signed two separate European champion Call of Duty 2 teams, the first of which disbanded several months after joining and the second of which disbanded after unsuccessfully trying to transition to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.[7]

2008-2010

Following the collapse of the World Series of Video Games the focus of the Deathmatch scene switched back to Quake III in 2008. Serious Gaming signed Alexey Yanushevsky[8] in July 2008. Yanushevsky would win the 2008 Electronic Sports World Cup with Kryzkowski being unable to defend his title due to his visa being rejected.[9] Yanushevsky would later also win the professional tournament at QuakeCon 2008 which was the first time QuakeLive was used at a major professional gaming event, this game would quickly become the standard for professional Deathmatch competition and remains to be until today. The two would compete in various Quake competitions throughout 2008, 2009 and 2010 and in Tek-9 Network's inaugarul QuakeLive ranking (February 2010) Yanushevsky was ranked the world's number one QuakeLive player with Kryzkowski taking a third place.[10] Also signed November 1, 2009 was Adrien Denis "in full harmony with the teams philosophy of converting young talented players into tournament winners".[11]

Individual Serious Gaming players won tournaments at the national and continental level.[1] After signing Kim Dong Hwan the team also competed at the highest levels of team leagues, culminating in a third place at the Warcraft 3 Champions League season XVI. Kim was recognized as one of the most impressive newcomers in Warcraft III.[12] In 2010 Cassidy and Buijvoets would transition to form a StarCraft II squad competing in the newly released StarCraft II beta while both still filling a role in the WarCraft III division. This year van der Kooi would leave Serious Gaming to lead a Heroes of Newerth division for professional gaming team fnatic.[13] Added in 2010 would be Lennart Roest in order to ensure the team's viability in team competitions.[14] On May 21, 2010 van der Kooi re-joined the real-time strategy roster as part of the StarCraft II squad.[15] He would be joined by Dlovan van den Bosch on June 14, 2010 [16] and Alexander Hein on August 11, 2010.[17]

Serious Gaming also signed a French Defense of the Ancients division in 2008.[18] Several months after announcing the team the Electronic Sports World Cup announced the inclusion of Defense of the Ancients at their main event.[19] Serious Gaming Defense of the Ancients ended up winning the French championship and qualify for the 2008 Electronic Sports World Cup where they would take 7th place.[20] Following this tournament the Serious Gaming organisation and its Defense of the Ancients division parted amicably.

• Hjalmar Högberg, 2007-2010 (retired)[22]
• Benjamin Baker, 2006-2007 (signed with Four Kings)[23]
• Daniel Spenst, 2006 (signed with SK Gaming)
• Stefan Timmermans, 2005–2010 (Deathmatch manager and player)