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| Divisions | Quake WarCraft III: The Frozen Throne Counter-Strike 1.6 Painkiller Call of Duty 2 Defense of the Ancients |
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| Founded | 2004 |
| Location | Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| Manager | Sebastiaan Peeperkorn |
| Partners | Razer USA |
| Website | www |
Serious Gaming is a professional gaming team based inAmsterdam,Netherlands. It was founded in 2004 by entrepreneur Bas Peeperkorn.[1] Serious Gaming is known for their achievements infirst-person shooterDeathmatch tournaments, most notably those byQuake series playersMaciej "av3k" Krzykowski andCypher.
Serious Gaming was founded in 2004 by Bas Peeperkorn, the team's first signing wasPainkiller player Niels van Tilborg.Painkiller was the game used for the US$1,000,0002005 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 theWorld eSport Games in Seoul, Korea, being represented at the second edition of the event by aCounter-Strike division consisting of Finnish players.[3] This division would disband shortly after their stay in Seoul.
Following the 2005 World Tour the main focus of the first-person shooter Deatmatch scene switched fromPainkiller to the newly releasedQuake 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 andMaciej 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 atESWC 2007 without losing a map, becoming the youngest Quake and ESWC world champion in history.[4]
2006 was also the year Serious Gaming established aWarcraft 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 championCall of Duty 2 teams, the first of which disbanded several months after joining and the second of which disbanded after unsuccessfully trying to transition toCall of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.[7]
Following the collapse of theWorld Series of Video Games the focus of the Deathmatch scene switched back toQuake III in 2008. Serious Gaming signedAlexey Yanushevsky[8] in July 2008. Yanushevsky would win the2008 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 atQuakeCon 2008 which was the first timeQuakeLive 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 inaugural QuakeLive ranking (February 2010) Yanushevsky was ranked the world's number one QuakeLive player with Kryzkowski taking a third place.[10] Also signed 1 November 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 aStarCraft II squad competing in the newly releasedStarCraft II beta while both still filling a role in the WarCraft III division. This year van der Kooi would leave Serious Gaming to lead aHeroes of Newerth division for professional gaming teamfnatic.[13] Added in 2010 would be Lennart Roest in order to ensure the team's viability in team competitions.[14] On 21 May 2010, van der Kooi re-joined the real-time strategy roster as part of theStarCraft II squad.[15] He would be joined by Dlovan van den Bosch on 14 June 2010[16] and Alexander Hein on 11 August 2010.[17]
Serious Gaming also signed a FrenchDefense of the Ancients division in 2008.[18] Several months after announcing the team theElectronic Sports World Cup announced the inclusion ofDefense of the Ancients at their main event.[19] Serious GamingDefense 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 itsDefense of the Ancients division parted amicably.
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