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Guillaume Patry est le fils de Claire Guay et Réjean Patry. Il est le petit-fils d'Yvette Nadeau et d'Antoine Guay.
Le texte suivant est la reproduction d'un article sur la saga de Guillaume Patry.
Living the Dream: Life as a Professional Gamer
Geartest.com Staff
Updated October 17, 2004.
Professional gamer Guillaume "Grrrr_ca" Patry was ranked as the top StarCraft player in the world for two years in a row. He aims to recapture that title at the World Cyber Games being held in San Francisco this week.
"Dad, I need your credit card."
Those were the words that launched Guillaume "Grrrr_ca" Patry's career as a professional gamer, according to his father, Rejean.
Guillaume Patry, a Canadian from Beauport, Quebec, started out like many other professional game players do: playing a game at home for hours at a time. In Guillaume's case the game was the real-time strategy simulation (RTSS) WarCraft, which he says he became a fan of while waiting for the science fiction-themed RTSS StarCraft to be released.
Guillaume said that when he was 17 he would finish classes by noon and rush home to play WarCraft. He "became the best" in his town and started competing in tournaments online. His skill earned him an invitation to the Electronic Sports World Cup, an international tournament with $100,000 in prize money at stake. But he would have to pay his own way, which was when he asked his father for help.
The elder Patry balked when his son asked for his credit card, explaining that he needed $4,000 to go to South Korea to play in a computer game tournament. "This is a big risk," he told his son.
Guillaume replied, "Don't worry, I'll win."
At a tournament in New York, Rejean found strangers approaching him to reassure him that his son would win. He did, earning $10,000, in prize money. Guillaume went on to the South Korean tournament and came in second place, winning $18,000. "I felt like I was living a dream," he said.
Three months later the teenager had a manager, and was training and playing as part of a professional team.
Pro Gamer Training & Korean Gaming Culture Guillaume explains that the career of a professional gamer is "very short" and you won't find professionals younger than 17 or older than 23. The reason? According to Guillaume, most people younger than 17 don't have the ability to think strategically on the level required for a professional career. After age 23, the reflexes and reaction times become too slow to respond to a fast-paced, developing game with the required speed.
"The game [StarCraft] is played instinctively at the highest level [of competition]", Guillaume said. "People get better," Guillaume said, describing how the level of competition has improved at the national qualifying tournaments as the popularity of professional gaming grows.Asked how he prepares for a tournament or match, Guillaume smiles and says, "There's no preparation. You just walk up and do it."
Guillaume started out practicing "at least six hours per day" but admits with a grin that he "only" plays three hours daily now -- something he advises aspiring professional gamers to consider."You have to have natural skill. Lots of people practice a lot but don't get any better."
There are other factors as well, including the choice of game that hopeful gamers choose to specialize in. Guillaume says that at the moment there are only two games to consider for a professional gaming career: StarCraft and Counter-Strike. "Professional opportunities are not there for other games."
A professional player must go through a long qualification process to earn a ranking. The biggest commitment is that pro gamers must also be willing to move to South Korea where the best players in the world congregate, and where gaming is a spectator sport and mainstream phenomenon.
"Everybody in [South] Korea plays games," said Patry, who speaks fluent Korean in addition to his native French and English. When he moved to South Korea five years ago, "FPS [first-person shooter] games were illegal at the time. That is one reason why StarCraft became so popular. Blizzard [StarCraft's publisher] gets more than half of its StarCraft sales from [South] Korea.
Guillaume says that another major factor in the popularity of professional and online gaming in South Korea is the high penetration of high-speed Internet access and a technologically oriented mentality within society.
"There are 25,000 PC game rooms ["bangs"] in South Korea. It started out with pool, then karaoke and five years ago, game rooms," Guillaume said as he explained South Korean gaming culture. "In high schools, everyone knows who's best in math and StarCraft." The rankings for StarCraft are posted right next to the academic results in South Korean schools, he said.
Guillaume's eyes light up when he describes the difference between the popular acceptance of gaming in South Korea compared to the rest of the world. Outside of South Korea, gaming as a profession is largely unknown, and gaming is often viewed as something for socially maladjusted teenage boys, he says. In South Korea it's a different story.
"I've seen the hottest girls, I've seen the most famous actresses, I've seen the No. 1 actor -- and they play StarCraft. At celebrity tournaments I'd say about 60%-70% are new faces," he says, an indication of its growing popularity.
"Supermodels play StarCraft. My girlfriend is a supermodel and she and her friends all play games."
Guillaume talks about one instance where he met the top movie star in South Korea through some mutual friends, who instantly recognized Patry due to his fame as a celebrity StarCraft player. "He said he'd like to play StarCraft with me, and we did. Not competitively, but socially, like playing cards or seeing a movie. It's normal there."
"I've been to an exhibition VIP game at the Marriott Seoul [hotel]," he says, an event that drew the upper echelons of South Korea's society and top celebrities, as well as "huge" audiences.
Celebrity Gamers: Fame, Fortune & Glory Computer gaming is such a part of mainstream South Korean culture that there are two television channels dedicated to broadcasting StarCraft games 24 hours a day, and a third that broadcasts Lineage, a medieval fantasy-themed massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG), Guillaume says.
Because of his status and skill as a professional gamer, Guillaume has a level of fame and celebrity within South Korean society that took some getting used to."It was really strange. In Canada or the USA I can be anonymous, but there [South Korea] I get recognized all the time.
"The first time -- I had never been on TV at that point -- there were over 1,000 people who recognized me that were screaming and cheering and clapping for me."Patricia Chung of Samsung -- the World Cyber Games primary sponsor -- says, "He is a huge star, as big or bigger than the most famous Hollywood movie stars. Guillaume is swarmed by fans when he goes out to restaurants and competes at tournaments."
"It's like a chain reaction," Guillaume says. "Thirty people might recognize me instantly if I'm in a big room with a thousand people, and then the word spreads, 'Guillaume's here!' Everyone else hears and they all want an autograph or photo."China is even worse," he says as he recalls one harrowing incident. "I had never been on TV in China. A few Chinese and Korean top gamers and I went there for an exhibition tournament."
After addressing the audience of several hundred reporters and media professionals at a press conference, "About 400 people rushed the stage, looking for autographs! There were eight huge bodyguards who could barely hold the crowd back," he says, pantomiming the actions of the bodyguards to illustrate the moment. "That was scary." But he doesn't have to live life in a protective bubble all the time, he says.
"I get recognized when I go to places like universities, tournaments, clubs, and movies. When I'm in the supermarket, I rarely get recognized and can usually be anonymous. Sometimes when people do recognize me there, they just say, 'Hi, Guillaume!' They aren't necessarily looking for autographs."
Looking ahead to his immediate future, and the World Cyber Games championship he says, "I'd like to win one more time and retire as a three-time champion. I still have a couple of years left in me.
"I was world champion at the wrong time," he says with a wry smile. "Today, you can make over $200,000 a year. The top four players can make more than $500,000 US per year. I hardly made $100,000 at first. It's like all of those professional hockey players and baseball players from 30 years ago -- the salaries and sponsorships are much bigger now."
Even though he hasn't made as much money as today's top-ranked players do, Guillaume isn't dwelling on the past.
In September, Guillaume and a partner launched an import/export business focused on supplying products by companies like Razer and EverGlide to the lucrative South Korean computer games market. The company was acquired by Razer -- which specializes in computer peripherals for gamers -- and is now Razer Korea.
"We won't even have offices for another three months!" he says, laughing. "Even though I never went to [business] school ... I know everyone I need to in [South] Korea to make it a success," he said confidently.
"He has always had such strong self-confidence, even when he was a competitive skiier," said Guillaume's father Rejean.
The Future of Professional Gaming
When Guillaume looks to the future of gaming, he sees a bright future."Professional gaming will be a reality," he declares unequivocally. "If consoles get better controls then I don't see any reason why it can't be as successful as on the PC. Console controls are not accurate enough," he said, referring to gaming consoles like the PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube.
But he says that there must be some changes in order for the industry to grow."Professional management was lacking a lot," he said, referring to the pro gaming career and team managers. Even though "it is a lot better now" there is still room to improve. A major problem is the lack of corporate sponsors and sponsorships for professional gaming relative to its counterparts in the professional sports world.
"Companies like Logitech don't sponsor gamers," he says of the world's largest supplier of computer peripherals like computer mice and game controllers. "Maybe it's because they had a bad experience with the first guy [that the company may have sponsored] but it doesn't make sense. Gamers are the people who buy their products."
Guillaume says he hopes that companies like Logitech, which directly benefit from the computer games industry, decide to sponsor more professional gamers and local tournaments to help grow awareness of gaming as a professional career choice.
Would he consider switching events, and competing in another game, like Counter-Strike, to extend his career? "I like playing first-person shooters, and it would be easier for me to play them. StarCraft is so fast and I already have a good career. After I retire from StarCraft it might be time to move on to other things."
When he isn't focused on winning tournaments, Guillaume turns his attentions to his fledgling company, works out at the gym, watches movies, reads -- and plays computer games. "I don't go out and party as much as I used to. I don't drink as much either. If you have a hangover you can't focus enough when you are playing in a tournament, and I have lost a few times because of that. "
What games does he play on his personal time? Warcraft 3 and Total Annihilation. "They are older games but I love them."Guillaume also expressed a fondness for reading. "I love business books and fantasy books," he says.
"Right now I'm reading Bringing Down the House [The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions]," a non-fiction book about a group of MIT students who learned how to beat the system and won millions of dollars while playing blackjack in Las Vegas casinos.
"I also like reading books by R.A Salvatore like the Hunter's Blades from the Drizzt Ranger series. I just ordered a few from Amazon.com, which is where I get all of my books because of the limited English-language selection in [South] Korea. Maybe I should tell Amazon and they can sponsor me!" he laughs.
"The great thing about Guillaume -- besides his skill as a player -- is that he's the same person he was when I first met him five years ago," says Samsung's Patricia Chung. "He's just as down-to-earth as he was back then. He's a normal 22 year-old."
EDITORS NOTE: Guillaume Patry was eliminated from competition during the qualifying rounds at the 2004 World Cyber Games.