Johnathan Wendel

Johnathan Wendel (born 1981 in Independence, Missouri), better known by the pseudonym Fatal1ty, is a professional electronic sports player who has won over US$1,000,000 in cash and prizes from professional competitions, mainly in the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL). In addition to receiving numerous product endorsements, he has been featured in mainstream newsprint publications, including Time, The New York Times, Forbes, and the BBC World Service. He has also been featured on 60 Minutes. He is known as being one of the first professional gamers with a serious work ethic, and says he practices at least eight hours each day.

Wendel has been a successful competitor in several first-person shooter games. He debuted as a professional gamer in October 1999 by placing 3rd in the Quake III Arena tournament at the CPL's FRAG 3 event. Although he has played with top Counter-Strike and Call of Duty teams, most of his successes have been with one-versus-one deathmatch games including Quake III Arena, Unreal Tournament 2003, and Painkiller.

Wendel started a business selling his "FATpad" brand of gaming mouse mats. He later expanded this into other gaming equipment through a business partnerships with ABIT, Zalman and Creative Labs to create motherboards, coolers and sound cards bearing his moniker.

Notable accomplishments

All winnings listed are in USD.

Aliens versus Predator 2

* 1st CPL World Championship ($40,000, Ford Focus)

Doom 3

* 1st QuakeCon 2004 ($30,000)

Painkiller

* 2nd CPL Summer Championships 2004 ($5,750)
* 4th CPL Turkey March 26, 2005 ($5,000)
* 6th CPL Spain May 1, 2005 ($2,500)
* 2nd CPL Brazil May 28, 2005 ($10,000)
* 2nd CPL Sweden June 18, 2005 ($10,000)
* 1st CPL Summer Championships 2005 ($15,000)
* 2nd CPL UK September 04, 2005 ($10,000)
* 1st CPL Singapore October 16, 2005 ($15,000)
* 2nd CPL Italy October 22, 2005 ($10,000)
* 5th CPL Chile October 30, 2005 ($3,500)
* 1st CPL NYC World Tour Finals 2005 ($150,000)

Quake III Arena

* 3rd Frag 3 1999
* 1st XSR Invitational 2000
* 1st RazerCPL Tournament April, 2000 ($40,000)
* 1st BattleTop Universal Challenge July 22, 2000 ($15,000)
* 1st World Cyber Games Challenge October, 2000 ($25,000)
* 1st CPL Australia ($10,000)
* 3rd CPL Holland
* 2nd QuakeCon 2001 ($70,000)
* 2nd CPL Brazil

Quake IV

* 4th WSVG Kentucky June 18, 2006
* 4th WSVG Intel Summer Challenge July 9, 2006 ($6,500)
* 9–12th QuakeCon August 05, 2006

External links

* Fatal1ty's official website
* Interview with TomsHardware.com
* Interview with the BBC
* Interview with 60 Minutes
* Interview with Spike TV