# Dennis Fong

> Dennis "Thresh" Fong turned an early career as the first professional gamer into a long run of companies built around the social and operational problems games left unsolved. After winning John Carmack's Ferrari in the 1997 Red Annihilation Quake tournament, he helped build GX Media and Lithium Technologies, co-founded Xfire, founded Raptr and launched Plays.tv. He now leads GGWP, an AI community-safety platform that moderates text, voice, usernames, reports and player behavior, and is expanding beyond games after a $15 million Series A in 2026.

- **Role:** Co-founder and CEO at GGWP
- **Organizations:** GGWP, GX Media, Gamers.com, FiringSquad, Lithium Technologies, Xfire, Raptr, Plays.tv
- **From:** Hong Kong, China
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** No degree; attended for one semester, University of California, Berkeley
- **Known for:** Recognized by Guinness World Records as the first professional videogamer., Won every tournament he entered over a five-year period, according to Guinness World Records., Won the 1997 Red Annihilation Quake tournament and John Carmack's Ferrari 328 GTS.

## Career timeline

- **1993** — Began playing Doom and soon entered networked competitive gaming under the name Thresh.
- **1995** — Won Microsoft's Judgment Day Doom tournament in Seattle.
- **1996** — Co-founded GX Media with his brother Lyle and became a prominent public face of online competitive gaming.
- **1997** — Won the Red Annihilation Quake tournament and John Carmack's Ferrari 328 GTS; later retired from professional competition to focus on business.
- **1999** — GX Media raised more than $11 million and built the Gamers.com portal alongside FiringSquad.
- **2001** — Gamers.com was acquired by Ziff Davis; the remaining community software operation developed as Lithium Technologies.
- **2003** — Co-founded Xfire, a gaming-focused chat and server discovery service.
- **2006** — Viacom acquired Xfire for $102 million.
- **2007** — Founded Raptr, a social network and software client for gamers.
- **2015** — Launched Plays.tv as a platform for automatically capturing and sharing game highlights.
- **2016** — Became the second inductee into the ESL Esports Hall of Fame.
- **2020** — Co-founded GGWP with George Ng, Kun Gao and Ling Xiao to build AI-assisted community moderation.
- **2022** — GGWP announced a $12 million seed round for its AI moderation platform.
- **2023** — GGWP made its tools available free to game developers serving up to roughly 5,000 monthly active users.
- **2026** — GGWP closed a $15 million Series A and announced expansion into publishing, commerce, advertising and other online communities.

## Achievements

- Recognized by Guinness World Records as the first professional videogamer.
- Won every tournament he entered over a five-year period, according to Guinness World Records.
- Won the 1997 Red Annihilation Quake tournament and John Carmack's Ferrari 328 GTS.
- Second inductee into the ESL Esports Hall of Fame in 2016.
- Popularized the WASD keyboard control layout used widely in PC games.
- Co-founded Xfire, acquired by Viacom for $102 million in 2006.
- Co-founded Lithium Technologies, later acquired by Vista Equity Partners in 2017.
- Co-authored Official Quake II: Strategies & Secrets in 1997.
- Built or co-built gaming platforms used by tens of millions of people, including Xfire, Raptr and Plays.tv.

## Latest updates

- **2026-05** — GGWP announced expansion beyond gaming into publishing, real-money gaming, commerce and advertising after moderating tens of billions of messages across more than 100 games.
- **2026-04** — GGWP closed a $15 million Series A led by Headline Asia, Smilegate and Korea Investment Partners to deepen enterprise infrastructure and Asia-Pacific expansion.
- **2025-12** — GGWP's year-end review reported expanded real-time chat and voice moderation, deeper Unity Vivox support and the launch of GGWP Pulse.
- **2024-11** — Fong appeared on Venture Games to discuss his career and GGWP's use of AI in game moderation.
- **2024-06** — Fong appeared on Secret Stash for a career-spanning conversation with Justin Kan and Archie Stonehill.

## Links

- Website: https://www.ggwp.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dennisfong
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/thresh

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/dennis-fong
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-08-18