Eyes peeled in front of his computer, junior Ryan Nguyen waits for the slightest movement on his screen. Suddenly, from the top corner of his minimap, he detects enemy units charging towards his base. Nguyen’s left hand sweeps deftly across the keyboard as his right hand clicks furiously to thwart the attack.
A few short but intense minutes later, Nguyen, palms moist with sweat, emerges victorious from the pivotal battle.
“Another win,” he thinks to himself, proud of his performance.
Nguyen plays Starcraft II, a competitive real-time strategy (RTS) game in which players build up a large army through the management of individual units, an in-game economy and technological structures. He is currently ranked within the top 200 on the North American ladders, an impressive feat for the young gamer, considering Starcraft has millions of loyal followers around the world.
Most players who achieve this level of merit have over 10 years of experience playing Starcraft, but Nguyen is relatively new to RTS games; his RTS experience started just under a year ago with Starcraft II.
Through hundreds of games and hundreds of hours played, Nguyen was able to turn his gaming hobby that started in first grade with the child-friendly Putt Putt golf simulation game to a more serious activity that he now engages in against other competitors.
Although Nguyen is exceptionally good at Starcraft, especially for being so young, he is not interested in pursuing competitive gaming. The stellar student, who boasts a healthy 4.3 grade point average despite his love for gaming, believes that competitive gaming is too risky to bank on for the future.
“Maybe if my grades totally tank I’ll look into it,” Nguyen said. “School is always first on my priority list, [I just play] Starcraft a bit over the weekends.”
Nonetheless, the reason Nguyen is able to practice for so many hours each week is because he has a deep love for the game.
“I follow Starcraft over other games because, first of all, the community is constantly growing, so it’s nice to be involved in this trend,” Nguyen said. “Second of all, there are so many strategies in Starcraft that a player can look to; it is just so stimulating.”
Nguyen attributes his skills in Starcraft to his analytical abilities. Because he is able to analyze different situations very quickly, he can make thoughtful decisions on the fly.
“You have to play a game with an adaptive mindset,” Nguyen said. “You can’t just join a game and have a strategy in mind. If you can learn to adapt, you can learn to win.”
And win he does. But Nguyen is not alone on his quest to the top. He is a part of an elite gaming team, called sPs, that consists of naturally talented players, like Nguyen. They hold online matches against each other to improve their gameplay skills. sPs was recently sponsored by a gaming equipment company to send players to Starcraft tournaments in the near future.
“I probably won’t go to the tournaments even though I’m one of the best on the team,” Nguyen said. “School is too time-consuming for Starcraft events. Maybe during the summer, I’ll go to one just for fun.”
sPs recruited Nguyen after he dominated one of the group’s members in an online match. He was asked to join the team because of his superior skills, and he agreed. Ever since, practicing and playing with the group has helped him achieve immense success.
Nguyen originally wanted to reach the top 200 in the North American servers, a goal he achieved just recently in March.
“My goal was always to get into the top 200, or Grandmaster League. So now that I’m in, I’ll have to think of a new one,” Nguyen said.
