Cyber Athlete 'Fatal1ty'

Steve Kroft On The Rise Of Professional Video Game Players

(CBS) 
It has become a huge subculture, comprised mostly of young men that spend more money on video games than they do on music or going to the movies.

It's a community of interest big enough to attract prize money, advertising revenue - and merchandising deals from companies peddling computers, video games, and soft drinks. All are desperate to sell gamers something - if they ever get up from their video games. And no one is better positioned to make a killing than Johnathan Wendel.

He has just launched his own brand of Fatal1ty products, including mouse pads, keyboards, and headsets, built specifically for video gaming – all done with the help of his marketing guru, Mark Walden.

Walden says Wendel is going to make millions of dollars.

"For the new millennium comes a new sportsman, the e-sportsman. So, he is the first cyber athlete, so to speak," says Walden. "You know, you look back 50 years from now and there had to be someone at the turn of the century that played baseball. There had to be a Babe Ruth and a Ty Cobb. There has to be a Johnathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel."

Walden thinks Wendel will be viewed as the Babe Ruth of the 21st century. "I think Johnathan will go down as the guy who, basically, brought gaming, as a sport, mainstream," he says.

Amidst all this hype, agents and promoters are already scouting the next generation of stars. No fledgling sport is complete without a prodigy, and in professional video gaming, that mantle has fallen to eight-year-old Victor De Leon III, a.k.a "Lil Poison."

Kroft played a round with "Lil Poison." How did he rate as an opponent?

"Bad," De Leon says.

"How bad?" Kroft asks.

"Super bad."

"Lil Poison" is still too young to have a paper route, yet he has already won $2,000 playing in tournaments against adults, and he has signed an exclusive deal with Sundance DiGiovanni and Mike Sepso, who run Major League Gaming, which organizes tournaments and helps clients land endorsement deals.

But De Leon is young. "What is he going to endorse?" Kroft asks. "Happy Meals?"

"You know, there are crazier endorsers out there," DiGiovanni says. "You know, he represents something which a lot of people right now are trying to figure out how to grab hold of."

Last November in New York, Fatal1ty was trying to grab hold of another world championship, in a fifth game, "Painkiller." But this time, he entered the finals as the underdog against his chief nemesis and reigning champion in the game, a 20-year-old Dutchman known as "Vo0."

It was the culmination of a ten-city, $1 million world tour organized by the Cyberathlete Professional League. After falling behind early in the tournament, Fatal1ty mounted a valiant comeback.

With his back against the wall, he came up clutch. And all of that experience paid off.

The first prize was $150,000, the biggest check of Wendel's career, and a sum that should go a long way towards finally impressing his mother.

"You know what? I’m pretty sure they’re impressed. But you know, the day I drive up in a Ferrari in front of the house, that’s going to be the day that I’m going to say, 'I did it,'" says Wendel.

Will it be a case of "I told you so?"

"Yeah," he says. "That's the day. That'll be a nice day."