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Big Games Hunter
Kyle Miller and fellow members of Team 3D at last year's World Cyber Games. Team 3D has won more tournaments than any other U.S. team.
(David Paul Morris - Getty Images)
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"He went up the ramp!" Volcano tells Rambo.
"Where did he go?" Ksharp asks Method.
Bombs are exploding. The AK47s and the Desert Eagle pistols, two of the guns in CS, are firing. Team 3D, at least in this particular round, is losing.
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These days, Team 3D is busy preparing for the World Cyber Games, the Olympics of pro gaming, where 800 gamers from 70 countries will vie for $430,000 in prize money. It will be held in Singapore Nov. 16-20. Team 3D, which is representing the United States, is the defending CS champion, but it's got stiff competition from the Swedish, Danish, German and Brazilian CS teams.
"A lot of people don't really understand how online games work," says Miller, taking a short break from CS. (In this round, Team 3D is pummeling Team TEC.)
"This is what people think: I sit in front of my computer and I'm playing all by myself and oh, yeah, how antisocial is that. A lot of people don't understand that I'm sitting in front my computer with friends from all over the world, and they're sitting down in front of their computers and hundreds of thousands of people are playing at the same time. In the course of my day, I might talk to, like, 300 different people, easily. We play the game. We talk about what movie we saw yesterday. We send each other links on the Internet."
He sits up, stretches, sits back down. He gets in his position: slouching, feet up in the chair, a huge smile on his face.
What are his plans after this? When will he retire? What about life outside of gaming?
"You know, I never thought this would last, this being a job, I mean," Miller says. "Every time I thought it was gonna be over, then I'd be in Paris, playing at some CS competition in the Louvre -- you know, the famous museum -- then we'd get more sponsors, then we'd win more tournaments." He walked around the museum for a bit, he says, though he couldn't really remember the art he saw. But he liked wandering around Paris and seeing the Eiffel Tower.
"I've always played because I have fun, and I'm doing this now because, well, it's a lot of fun. But maybe after this career, I can do something completely different -- something that has nothing to do with computers or gaming. But I don't know what that something is -- not yet," Miller says. "But I understand that for a lot of people, what I do for a living is heaven."
And here comes a new cyber fan, an 18-year-old high school student e-mailing Miller: "When you are walking on a street, is there anybody shouting: 'Look, that's Ksharp?' "
The fan says he lives in the Chinese city of Chengde, and he offers himself as a guide if Miller ever finds himself northeast of Beijing. He writes, "We are friends through 'CS,' aren't we?"
To watch a video of Ksharp, go tohttp:/
