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2009: A Year in Review
As we approach the closing to a very eventful year, we now take a moment to look back and review the memorable highlights that came about to make this year so interesting.
By Samuel 'DarthBotto' Horton
Dec 30, 2009 23:38
As we approach the closing to a very eventful year, we now take a moment to look back and review the memorable highlights that came about to make this year so interesting.The Three Editor-in-Chiefs
To begin such a review, it is necessary to reminisce as early as possible in the timeline and indicentally, this story begins at square one. The Editor-in-Chief from the beginning of the year, Michal "Carmac" Blicharz, was ensuring a smooth transition for his trusted colleague and replacement, Lawrence "Malystryx" Phillips and was given only enough time to see SK Gaming off before moving on. Following his departure from SK Gaming at the beginning of the year, Carmac operates with the eSports pioneering company Turtle Entertainment as the Senior Product Manager for Intel Extreme Masters. Thanks to his thirteen months of service to SK Gaming, he would set himself as an example for his successors to follow throughout the entirety of 2009. As Editor-in-Chief of SK Gaming, Carmac won the esteemed Scene Journalist of the year Award, making him the only journalist to ever win the award twice.
With Carmac's immediate departure, the stage was set for Lawrence "Malystryx" Phillips to step in and fill his shoes as the executive editor for SK Gaming. Setting out to build upon Carmac's legacy, Malystryx began by seeking out only the strongest candidates the join the ranks of SK Gaming's web crew, with a prerequisite being to have past experience on other major eSports sites. Malystryx worked around the clock as a young husband and father while still maintaining a major news syndicate. Later in the year, Malystryx moved from the jolly old United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China, where he still lives in Jinan. In August of this year, Malystryx decided it was time to move on and he left the post of Editor-in-Chief to teach English as a college professor. Although originally intent upon continuing his work at SK Gaming, Malystryx has decided to end his work in eSports and to focus entirely upon his local life. His contributions to SK Gaming are greatly appreciated, as he published 1,013 articles during his stay, just shy of setting the record.
On September 1st, an old face in the eSports coverage arena but new face for SK Gaming stepped in and introduced himself as the new Editor-in-Chief. Duncan "Thorin" Shields, a man who has dominated the SK Gaming news section since his introduction, changed the direction and course of the news section and ensured his vision for the company. Having written approximately 460 articles over the last three months with SK, Thorin has solidified himself as a work horse for SK and sincerely coordinates the staff to bring forth new content on a frequent basis. With his interviews, reviews, commentary and neutrally-based coverage, Thorin has created a strong presence in SK Gaming.
The DotA Squad Bows Out
March 10th marked the end of an era with SK Gaming and represented the serene loss of five comrades. The SK Gaming DotA squad, originally recruited as "Team Team" in 2007, decided to part ways with the organization and sadly, dissolve as a team, altogether. Headed by the ever-popular Jonathan 'Loda' Berg, the team had built its reputation by its stay at SK and was recognized internationally as a tenacious force on the map. Sadly, all replays from their stay at SK are unavailable as Blizzard destroyed most JASS-coded scenarios with their 1.24 patch, which also resulted in IceFrog literally remaking DotA altogether.
Following their departure, the team went their separate ways. Tommy 'toMpa' Andersson discovered World of Warcraft and concentrated his skills upon that realm. Loda had a short tenure with Meet Your Makers , until ESNation went bankrupt and the MYM brand closed all operations. Thankfully, Loda teamed up with former teammate Edvin 'KwoM' Börjesson and several others to become a team that would evolve into the star team of fnatic . While talking with Timothy "merusame" Ellersiek at Dreamhack, Loda hopefully acknowledged that SK.DotA may return one day.
World of Warcraft Grows
On January 29th, SK Gaming went from one World of Warcraft team to three. Returning to the ranks of the organization was Vance 'Serennia' Phuoc, bringing with him Ryan 'Realz' Masterson and David 'Sck' Quick to become SK Gaming USA. Alongside the American team emerged the advent of SK Gaming ASIA, consisting of Hyuk Joon 'Hyoga' Jang, Eun 'Jaywalker' Chan and Kwang Rock 'Kwana' Park. From their origins in SK Gaming, the World of Warcraft teams have undergone some heavy roster changes to their current state at the end of the year. Today, the Asian squad remains entirely intact. The American squad, however, is very different, consisting with players of the likes of Alexander 'Glickz' Hloderwski from fnatic wow and Tim 'Kollektiv' Yen from Evil Geniuses . The European squad, meanwhile, has evolved to fit SK veteran player Valent 'another' Sebastijan, Alexis 'Enigmz' Martin and World of Warcraft 2008 Global Champion Patrick 'Inflame' Costales.
As Loda and friends were bowing out on March 10th, several new faces emerged at the same time. Sponsored by SK Gaming and Sansibar Sylt, a team of three young players emerged, leaving SK with a grand total of four sponsored teams. In August, three additional players consisting of Marvin 'Fraki' Moschner, Philipp 'Moldran' Karbun and Kai 'Noonia' Gade joined their ranks. Although there has been some backlash in the community, the team has exceeded all expectations by performing well at their tournament appearances and proving their worth of the SK tag. Currently, SK Gaming SANSIBAR rests in second place for Group Stage 2 in the EM 4 European Championship Main Round, behind SK Gaming EUROPE.
SK Gaming Gains Predator
Come May 5th of this last year, SK Gaming unveiled its leading partner with full intentions to promote eSports. Acer, one of the oldest and fastest-growing software companies that was founded in 1976, proudly showed support for the organization. Following in the line of the previous AMD and Intel, Acer continues to provide excellent support for SK Gaming's players and has created a bond that has benefited all parties.
QcK+ Limited Edition
A pop-up appeared in early June of this year that contained a blurry blue image of something to be announced. The community was given the opportunity to answer correctly what exactly it may have been. On June 10th, the management of SK Gaming gathered in their office to announce the mystery image as heads of a company. Before unveiling what exactly would change the world, bds discussed the original SteelSeries S&S Steelpad and how it was revolutionary in 2004. Following up on that, TheSlash discussed the SK Gaming edition SteelSeries Siberia Headset full-sized edition and its release in 2007. Finally, Alexander T. "TheSlash" Müller-Rodic unrolled it, (bds hurt his arm so it wouldn't have been practical). The mousepad would make its debut at Dreamhack several days later.
The Counter-Strike Shuffle
Perhaps the most confusing period of time for all of 2009 came with the roster changes to the strong and iconic Counter-Strike team. The long-time veteran of SK Gaming, Kristoffer 'Tentpole' Nordlund, decided to choose to focus on real life instead of Esports and, with mutual consent, retired from SK Gaming and Counter-Strike. On August 12th, Jim 'zneel' Andersson was announced to fill Tentpole's shoes and become the fifth member of the team.
Unfortunately, the team would undergo further roster changes, as the popular Marcus 'zet' Sundström had difficulties with his alarm clock and failed to board his flight to Gamescom. Furthermore, zneel, as talented as he is, did not fit the space needed for the fifth man. Thus, SK Gaming ended its contracts with zet and zneel on September 15th, leaving Jimmy 'allen' Allen, Robert 'RobbaN' Dahlström and Dennis 'walle' Wallenberg with a short team. Thankfully, the situation would improve to conditions better than before, with Johan 'face' Klasson and Frej 'kHRYSTAL' Sjöström ending their contracts with H2k Gaming and establishing a complete team within SK Gaming.
Merely two weeks following the induction of face and kHRYSTAL, the new SK Gaming Counter-Strike squad went to the EM 4 Global Challenge Chengdu. Following a close match against Evil Geniuses and TyLoo , SK Gaming won the tournament with a stunning victory against fnatic .
Thankfully, every party within this dilemma found refuge. zet joined up with a young group of talented Swedes to become Meet Your Makers swe. zneel and former SK legend Abdisamad 'SpawN' Mohamed filled the shoes of the two H2k players who left and coincidentally, fulfilled SK Gaming once again.
An Old Friend Says Goodbye
2009 also marks the end of an era, as well. Joining Schroet Kommando in 2001 with a group of Counter-Strike players known as Geekboys, Andreas 'bds' Thorstensson set out to merge the SK and Geekboys communities together, which initially was dubbed SK.Geekboys. For the eight years he was at SK, he created an immersive community and prompted a level of professionalism within eSports that managing directors of other organizations emulated with bds in mind.
Setting out on December 7th, bds pursued his web developer career with collected.info as his new direction. While managing the company, SK Gaming has won four eSports awards for best coverage as a website and has become very popular, with the #1 eSports ranking engine currently available. Although many fans see bds' departure as a death, he still is a partial owner of SK Gaming and continues to develop the website and community features.
When it was announced that Geekboys would be joining Schroet Kommando, an interested user called TheRage commented, "Wow, something tells me that team has the potential to be the greatest CS team in the world".
He was right.
A Blue Christmas Eve
On December 24th, long-time Warcraft III player for SK Gaming, June 'Lyn' Park, departed from the organization. He initially joined SK Gaming as a member of a team from World Elite , along with Sung Sik 'ReminD' Kim and manager Min-Sik "reis" Ko in 2007. Since his induction into SK Gaming, he has accumulated a tremendous amount of winnings, including a hefty sum of $100,000 from 2008.
After a performance that left Lyn feeling shaky in his final tournament, he decided to move on. With having Lyn retired from SK Gaming, the Warcraft III team rests upon his succeding teammates Hyeong Ju 'Check' Lee and Du Seop 'WhO' Chang.
Conclusion
We certainly hope that you all have enjoyed this article and very eventful year. Many things have happened over the course of twelve months and it goes to show how eSports changes faster than any other field of athletics. With several upcoming eSports releases booked for this year, such as StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty and World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, we guarantee new focuses and aspirations to be fulfilled on our end of the eSports spectrum. However, eSports certainly are not predictable and as such, SK Gaming will go where the world takes it.
We hope you are all enjoying the holidays and we look forward to an eventful 2010 and new decade.
To begin such a review, it is necessary to reminisce as early as possible in the timeline and indicentally, this story begins at square one. The Editor-in-Chief from the beginning of the year, Michal "Carmac" Blicharz, was ensuring a smooth transition for his trusted colleague and replacement, Lawrence "Malystryx" Phillips and was given only enough time to see SK Gaming off before moving on. Following his departure from SK Gaming at the beginning of the year, Carmac operates with the eSports pioneering company Turtle Entertainment as the Senior Product Manager for Intel Extreme Masters. Thanks to his thirteen months of service to SK Gaming, he would set himself as an example for his successors to follow throughout the entirety of 2009. As Editor-in-Chief of SK Gaming, Carmac won the esteemed Scene Journalist of the year Award, making him the only journalist to ever win the award twice.
With Carmac's immediate departure, the stage was set for Lawrence "Malystryx" Phillips to step in and fill his shoes as the executive editor for SK Gaming. Setting out to build upon Carmac's legacy, Malystryx began by seeking out only the strongest candidates the join the ranks of SK Gaming's web crew, with a prerequisite being to have past experience on other major eSports sites. Malystryx worked around the clock as a young husband and father while still maintaining a major news syndicate. Later in the year, Malystryx moved from the jolly old United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China, where he still lives in Jinan. In August of this year, Malystryx decided it was time to move on and he left the post of Editor-in-Chief to teach English as a college professor. Although originally intent upon continuing his work at SK Gaming, Malystryx has decided to end his work in eSports and to focus entirely upon his local life. His contributions to SK Gaming are greatly appreciated, as he published 1,013 articles during his stay, just shy of setting the record.
On September 1st, an old face in the eSports coverage arena but new face for SK Gaming stepped in and introduced himself as the new Editor-in-Chief. Duncan "Thorin" Shields, a man who has dominated the SK Gaming news section since his introduction, changed the direction and course of the news section and ensured his vision for the company. Having written approximately 460 articles over the last three months with SK, Thorin has solidified himself as a work horse for SK and sincerely coordinates the staff to bring forth new content on a frequent basis. With his interviews, reviews, commentary and neutrally-based coverage, Thorin has created a strong presence in SK Gaming.
The DotA Squad Bows Out
March 10th marked the end of an era with SK Gaming and represented the serene loss of five comrades. The SK Gaming DotA squad, originally recruited as "Team Team" in 2007, decided to part ways with the organization and sadly, dissolve as a team, altogether. Headed by the ever-popular Jonathan 'Loda' Berg, the team had built its reputation by its stay at SK and was recognized internationally as a tenacious force on the map. Sadly, all replays from their stay at SK are unavailable as Blizzard destroyed most JASS-coded scenarios with their 1.24 patch, which also resulted in IceFrog literally remaking DotA altogether.
Following their departure, the team went their separate ways. Tommy 'toMpa' Andersson discovered World of Warcraft and concentrated his skills upon that realm. Loda had a short tenure with Meet Your Makers , until ESNation went bankrupt and the MYM brand closed all operations. Thankfully, Loda teamed up with former teammate Edvin 'KwoM' Börjesson and several others to become a team that would evolve into the star team of fnatic . While talking with Timothy "merusame" Ellersiek at Dreamhack, Loda hopefully acknowledged that SK.DotA may return one day.
World of Warcraft Grows
On January 29th, SK Gaming went from one World of Warcraft team to three. Returning to the ranks of the organization was Vance 'Serennia' Phuoc, bringing with him Ryan 'Realz' Masterson and David 'Sck' Quick to become SK Gaming USA. Alongside the American team emerged the advent of SK Gaming ASIA, consisting of Hyuk Joon 'Hyoga' Jang, Eun 'Jaywalker' Chan and Kwang Rock 'Kwana' Park. From their origins in SK Gaming, the World of Warcraft teams have undergone some heavy roster changes to their current state at the end of the year. Today, the Asian squad remains entirely intact. The American squad, however, is very different, consisting with players of the likes of Alexander 'Glickz' Hloderwski from fnatic wow and Tim 'Kollektiv' Yen from Evil Geniuses . The European squad, meanwhile, has evolved to fit SK veteran player Valent 'another' Sebastijan, Alexis 'Enigmz' Martin and World of Warcraft 2008 Global Champion Patrick 'Inflame' Costales.
As Loda and friends were bowing out on March 10th, several new faces emerged at the same time. Sponsored by SK Gaming and Sansibar Sylt, a team of three young players emerged, leaving SK with a grand total of four sponsored teams. In August, three additional players consisting of Marvin 'Fraki' Moschner, Philipp 'Moldran' Karbun and Kai 'Noonia' Gade joined their ranks. Although there has been some backlash in the community, the team has exceeded all expectations by performing well at their tournament appearances and proving their worth of the SK tag. Currently, SK Gaming SANSIBAR rests in second place for Group Stage 2 in the EM 4 European Championship Main Round, behind SK Gaming EUROPE.
SK Gaming Gains Predator
Come May 5th of this last year, SK Gaming unveiled its leading partner with full intentions to promote eSports. Acer, one of the oldest and fastest-growing software companies that was founded in 1976, proudly showed support for the organization. Following in the line of the previous AMD and Intel, Acer continues to provide excellent support for SK Gaming's players and has created a bond that has benefited all parties.
QcK+ Limited Edition
A pop-up appeared in early June of this year that contained a blurry blue image of something to be announced. The community was given the opportunity to answer correctly what exactly it may have been. On June 10th, the management of SK Gaming gathered in their office to announce the mystery image as heads of a company. Before unveiling what exactly would change the world, bds discussed the original SteelSeries S&S Steelpad and how it was revolutionary in 2004. Following up on that, TheSlash discussed the SK Gaming edition SteelSeries Siberia Headset full-sized edition and its release in 2007. Finally, Alexander T. "TheSlash" Müller-Rodic unrolled it, (bds hurt his arm so it wouldn't have been practical). The mousepad would make its debut at Dreamhack several days later.
The Counter-Strike Shuffle
Perhaps the most confusing period of time for all of 2009 came with the roster changes to the strong and iconic Counter-Strike team. The long-time veteran of SK Gaming, Kristoffer 'Tentpole' Nordlund, decided to choose to focus on real life instead of Esports and, with mutual consent, retired from SK Gaming and Counter-Strike. On August 12th, Jim 'zneel' Andersson was announced to fill Tentpole's shoes and become the fifth member of the team.
Unfortunately, the team would undergo further roster changes, as the popular Marcus 'zet' Sundström had difficulties with his alarm clock and failed to board his flight to Gamescom. Furthermore, zneel, as talented as he is, did not fit the space needed for the fifth man. Thus, SK Gaming ended its contracts with zet and zneel on September 15th, leaving Jimmy 'allen' Allen, Robert 'RobbaN' Dahlström and Dennis 'walle' Wallenberg with a short team. Thankfully, the situation would improve to conditions better than before, with Johan 'face' Klasson and Frej 'kHRYSTAL' Sjöström ending their contracts with H2k Gaming and establishing a complete team within SK Gaming.
Merely two weeks following the induction of face and kHRYSTAL, the new SK Gaming Counter-Strike squad went to the EM 4 Global Challenge Chengdu. Following a close match against Evil Geniuses and TyLoo , SK Gaming won the tournament with a stunning victory against fnatic .
Thankfully, every party within this dilemma found refuge. zet joined up with a young group of talented Swedes to become Meet Your Makers swe. zneel and former SK legend Abdisamad 'SpawN' Mohamed filled the shoes of the two H2k players who left and coincidentally, fulfilled SK Gaming once again.
An Old Friend Says Goodbye
2009 also marks the end of an era, as well. Joining Schroet Kommando in 2001 with a group of Counter-Strike players known as Geekboys, Andreas 'bds' Thorstensson set out to merge the SK and Geekboys communities together, which initially was dubbed SK.Geekboys. For the eight years he was at SK, he created an immersive community and prompted a level of professionalism within eSports that managing directors of other organizations emulated with bds in mind.
Setting out on December 7th, bds pursued his web developer career with collected.info as his new direction. While managing the company, SK Gaming has won four eSports awards for best coverage as a website and has become very popular, with the #1 eSports ranking engine currently available. Although many fans see bds' departure as a death, he still is a partial owner of SK Gaming and continues to develop the website and community features.
When it was announced that Geekboys would be joining Schroet Kommando, an interested user called TheRage commented, "Wow, something tells me that team has the potential to be the greatest CS team in the world".
He was right.
A Blue Christmas Eve
On December 24th, long-time Warcraft III player for SK Gaming, June 'Lyn' Park, departed from the organization. He initially joined SK Gaming as a member of a team from World Elite , along with Sung Sik 'ReminD' Kim and manager Min-Sik "reis" Ko in 2007. Since his induction into SK Gaming, he has accumulated a tremendous amount of winnings, including a hefty sum of $100,000 from 2008.
After a performance that left Lyn feeling shaky in his final tournament, he decided to move on. With having Lyn retired from SK Gaming, the Warcraft III team rests upon his succeding teammates Hyeong Ju 'Check' Lee and Du Seop 'WhO' Chang.
Conclusion
We certainly hope that you all have enjoyed this article and very eventful year. Many things have happened over the course of twelve months and it goes to show how eSports changes faster than any other field of athletics. With several upcoming eSports releases booked for this year, such as StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty and World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, we guarantee new focuses and aspirations to be fulfilled on our end of the eSports spectrum. However, eSports certainly are not predictable and as such, SK Gaming will go where the world takes it.
We hope you are all enjoying the holidays and we look forward to an eventful 2010 and new decade.
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bds, well, he had to do something, 'cause in the last interviews he looked somewhat without a spark in his eyes..
The departure of zet.. well, c'mon, shit happens sometimes...