Drekken
Smash Cadet
I am up late tonight, having consumed a AMP energy drink and I had to get something off my chest to the community.
I read something in my travels not to long ago and its been nipping at me
"Pownz is a business that just cares about money they don't do it for the games" (I am paraphrasing it for simplicity sakes)
So as I look onto that it makes wonder where could I have gone wrong that someone would make that assumption. I can tell you... never really told anyone what we are doing or why.
So That's what I am here to do. I am not writing this for any marketing ploy... or really for anyone in particular but I thought it would be nice to just tell people my story whether they read it or not is up to the people. I believe in honesty and integrity are the most important value a human being can earn so I practice both of those everyday.
So I start of with myself:
Who am I?
Christopher Connell, a 24 year old gamer born in Toronto and Raised in Brampton Ontario. I am also the Chief Executive Officer of Pownz.
My competitive streak started with Smash 64, and then moved up to melee where I started hosting casuals in my basement. We would skip classes from HeartLake secondary all for the sake of Smash. My rival Jason or Magnius later the 'black link" was far superior to me i melee in everyway. I played day and night and hosted many casuals but just didn't get good enough to beat him and when I did I could tell he was Sandbagging.
So I made up my mind I would travel outside my area to the surrounding cities to fight other people and learn from then and then return to Brampton and surpass him. Didn't end up happening, at the time I trolled on the smashboards but didn't have any means of getting where the tournaments were happening. (only tricked my dad once to drive me Mississauga to attend a tournament). My parents were heavily against competitive gaming "Focus on school, get a job in Computers... thats where the money is at, give up on gaming".
I refused though... gaming is what I loved and competition was something I loved even more. But when it came time for college I ended up following my Dad's advice and focusing on Computers and went for Computer Engineering at Mohawk College in Hamilton. I moved out at the age of 18, my parents got me a crappy little honda civic to drive to school... but unknown to them I was hoping to use it to drive to smash tournaments and Wc3 tournaments. unfortunately... moving to a new city I didn't know where I could compete!
There wasn't a single place for me to go and play smash constantly with people for me to get better. It was in my search I discovered about the WCG of Canada (world cyber games of canada) and I said to myself "is this real? Olympics of gaming???" so I dug deeper and saw some of the Korean players who played starcraft and noticed that their scene was different than what I was used to... they had Entourages! and were like movie stars... everyone wanted to be them. WCG at the time wasn't hosting smash but it was hosting Wc3. I decided I wouldn't get trapped doing computers... I would train to be a professional gamer!
So I dropped smashed and focused on Warcraft 3 full time. I started to climb the ranks in Battle net and then I felt I could do some good to be apart of Team Canada and kick USA and Korea's ***. (I was shooting high) "Why should we settle for being 4th? Canada is the best country to live in so I should my part by representing.".They were sports stars over there and we were looked at as wasting our time. I looked up the qualifiers and the only place hosting it was Head2Head in London Ontario.
BRUTAL
SO far....... But I did it I crashed at a buddies house that met online over Battle.net that I never met in person until that day (wouldn't do that again) but it was all for the dream of going Pro. Qualifiers came...... I played hard but in the end I fell short coming 1 spot short of qualifying, It was a different environment playing tournament that had alot on the line vs our mini tourneys and crew battles from back home, there was alot of pressure and I just didn't play my best. I was disappointed, but as I read further I discovered more to it than that... EVEN if I had won I would have to pay my own way to the Grand tournament over in Asia. I was a poor college student in the summer (already spent all my OSAP), it just wasn't happening.
So I sat and I reflected.... "If there was a place where I could play constantly, and participate in tournaments in a regular basis it of prepared me for this and I would be constantly upping my game!"
So I came to the conclusion... that I would build a place where gamers could find other gamers and play against each other to get better. But how? I had accumulated over 20k of OSAP debt just by changing and failing courses so much... and I was on academic probation. Didn't seem feasible. But I was determined to see this place built. So I canceled my 2nd last semester in my Computer Networking Technician course and switched to business. My parents lost it. They refused to support the idea and told me that this endeavor would leave me on my own and retracted their promise to help me pay off my OSAP debt.
So there I was.... up to my eyeballs in debt, a crazy idea, no support. But filled with passion and armed with my love for gaming.
after completing business course with honours (the only time I ever got honours in my life @.@ ) I was ready to take a stab at it. I was going to change competitive gaming even if it bankrupted me.. atleast I wouldn't be trapped in a cubicle for the rest of my life in a job that I hated with my very core.
I couldn't do it alone, I soon met a plucky young man named Ryan Paglia who I shared my idea and vision with over coffee. He loved it, and together we would assemble a team.
I gathered a team of rag tag gamers (Zozo would eventually join this team later) and we set out to change the competitive scene. By this point my days of PC gaming was over with my funds unable to keep up with the rapid changing PC game specs I switched back to my first love of consoles.
We called the team Pownz ... it came from pwn , we added the o and z to make it unique to us and made it easier for people to pronounce and spell.
Our first job was to get people know us (we had no funds to do this with) so we pooled our resources and rented out the Ramada Hotel and hosted our first Melee tournaments. That was my taste of being a T.O. I remember everything possible went wrong T.T TVs, didn't work, characters were not unlocked and some TVs didn't have Video. It was a disaster but we pulled it off.
It wasn't till our second tournament at QQs Bubble tea did Lorenzo (Razing_zozo) a man I had met at Ryan's Keg party join the scene. It wasn't long before Razing_zozo became a key part in making things move forward, background knowledge and his ability to make things more efficient made our tournaments come a long way from what they were.
During all this I was trying to figure out how on earth would we open a store without any money. I went to every bank in Hamilton, asking for someone to invest, wasn't going to happen... No one wanted to loan money to a fresh out of college student with no net-worth on an idea that really hasn't been tested or has not visible market share. I was disheartened So I kept on trying. eventually hit a break... after pitch to the Canadian Youth Foundation... they took pity on me OR really liked the way I talk ( i like to believe it was the latter
) and decided to invest.
With that we built it...
So now you ask: "Thats all fine and dandy Drekk you got lucky and built a company to make money what does that I have to do with me/smash/community"
I am glad you asked, When it came to Pownz I knew what I wanted it to do ... I wanted it to change gaming
I wanted it to be the vehicle that we the community use to take out the American/Asia/European gamers.
I wanted it also be the way gamer meet each other and build those bonds that last a lifetime.
Pownz's goal is to change what people think about video games and video gamers, whether it be for sport or leisure.
Our mission is to be the number 1 E-Sports venue in Canada and do that we need to spread our values
Competition - Because its for the love of it why we exist
Gamemanship - Its important to respect you fellow player , win or loose
Skill - the need or drive to always want to improve or do better
Community - Without community(this is you), with out that sense of belonging, without that sense of being part of something bigger .. all efforts are wasted.
so if you have read all of this you might be saying to yourself "What does this prove? You wrote a huge post about your boring life rofl kekeke wtfbbq"
I say: Nothing, It really proves nothing, I merely wanted people to know about what transpired when I decided to make Pownz or why I decided to make it. Everyone is entitled to their opinions and thoughts so I thought I would share this story.
Also I needed sometime for the AMP to wear off XD
I read something in my travels not to long ago and its been nipping at me
"Pownz is a business that just cares about money they don't do it for the games" (I am paraphrasing it for simplicity sakes)
So as I look onto that it makes wonder where could I have gone wrong that someone would make that assumption. I can tell you... never really told anyone what we are doing or why.
So That's what I am here to do. I am not writing this for any marketing ploy... or really for anyone in particular but I thought it would be nice to just tell people my story whether they read it or not is up to the people. I believe in honesty and integrity are the most important value a human being can earn so I practice both of those everyday.
So I start of with myself:
Who am I?
Christopher Connell, a 24 year old gamer born in Toronto and Raised in Brampton Ontario. I am also the Chief Executive Officer of Pownz.
My competitive streak started with Smash 64, and then moved up to melee where I started hosting casuals in my basement. We would skip classes from HeartLake secondary all for the sake of Smash. My rival Jason or Magnius later the 'black link" was far superior to me i melee in everyway. I played day and night and hosted many casuals but just didn't get good enough to beat him and when I did I could tell he was Sandbagging.
So I made up my mind I would travel outside my area to the surrounding cities to fight other people and learn from then and then return to Brampton and surpass him. Didn't end up happening, at the time I trolled on the smashboards but didn't have any means of getting where the tournaments were happening. (only tricked my dad once to drive me Mississauga to attend a tournament). My parents were heavily against competitive gaming "Focus on school, get a job in Computers... thats where the money is at, give up on gaming".
I refused though... gaming is what I loved and competition was something I loved even more. But when it came time for college I ended up following my Dad's advice and focusing on Computers and went for Computer Engineering at Mohawk College in Hamilton. I moved out at the age of 18, my parents got me a crappy little honda civic to drive to school... but unknown to them I was hoping to use it to drive to smash tournaments and Wc3 tournaments. unfortunately... moving to a new city I didn't know where I could compete!
There wasn't a single place for me to go and play smash constantly with people for me to get better. It was in my search I discovered about the WCG of Canada (world cyber games of canada) and I said to myself "is this real? Olympics of gaming???" so I dug deeper and saw some of the Korean players who played starcraft and noticed that their scene was different than what I was used to... they had Entourages! and were like movie stars... everyone wanted to be them. WCG at the time wasn't hosting smash but it was hosting Wc3. I decided I wouldn't get trapped doing computers... I would train to be a professional gamer!
So I dropped smashed and focused on Warcraft 3 full time. I started to climb the ranks in Battle net and then I felt I could do some good to be apart of Team Canada and kick USA and Korea's ***. (I was shooting high) "Why should we settle for being 4th? Canada is the best country to live in so I should my part by representing.".They were sports stars over there and we were looked at as wasting our time. I looked up the qualifiers and the only place hosting it was Head2Head in London Ontario.
BRUTAL
SO far....... But I did it I crashed at a buddies house that met online over Battle.net that I never met in person until that day (wouldn't do that again) but it was all for the dream of going Pro. Qualifiers came...... I played hard but in the end I fell short coming 1 spot short of qualifying, It was a different environment playing tournament that had alot on the line vs our mini tourneys and crew battles from back home, there was alot of pressure and I just didn't play my best. I was disappointed, but as I read further I discovered more to it than that... EVEN if I had won I would have to pay my own way to the Grand tournament over in Asia. I was a poor college student in the summer (already spent all my OSAP), it just wasn't happening.
So I sat and I reflected.... "If there was a place where I could play constantly, and participate in tournaments in a regular basis it of prepared me for this and I would be constantly upping my game!"
So I came to the conclusion... that I would build a place where gamers could find other gamers and play against each other to get better. But how? I had accumulated over 20k of OSAP debt just by changing and failing courses so much... and I was on academic probation. Didn't seem feasible. But I was determined to see this place built. So I canceled my 2nd last semester in my Computer Networking Technician course and switched to business. My parents lost it. They refused to support the idea and told me that this endeavor would leave me on my own and retracted their promise to help me pay off my OSAP debt.
So there I was.... up to my eyeballs in debt, a crazy idea, no support. But filled with passion and armed with my love for gaming.
after completing business course with honours (the only time I ever got honours in my life @.@ ) I was ready to take a stab at it. I was going to change competitive gaming even if it bankrupted me.. atleast I wouldn't be trapped in a cubicle for the rest of my life in a job that I hated with my very core.
I couldn't do it alone, I soon met a plucky young man named Ryan Paglia who I shared my idea and vision with over coffee. He loved it, and together we would assemble a team.
I gathered a team of rag tag gamers (Zozo would eventually join this team later) and we set out to change the competitive scene. By this point my days of PC gaming was over with my funds unable to keep up with the rapid changing PC game specs I switched back to my first love of consoles.
We called the team Pownz ... it came from pwn , we added the o and z to make it unique to us and made it easier for people to pronounce and spell.
Our first job was to get people know us (we had no funds to do this with) so we pooled our resources and rented out the Ramada Hotel and hosted our first Melee tournaments. That was my taste of being a T.O. I remember everything possible went wrong T.T TVs, didn't work, characters were not unlocked and some TVs didn't have Video. It was a disaster but we pulled it off.
It wasn't till our second tournament at QQs Bubble tea did Lorenzo (Razing_zozo) a man I had met at Ryan's Keg party join the scene. It wasn't long before Razing_zozo became a key part in making things move forward, background knowledge and his ability to make things more efficient made our tournaments come a long way from what they were.
During all this I was trying to figure out how on earth would we open a store without any money. I went to every bank in Hamilton, asking for someone to invest, wasn't going to happen... No one wanted to loan money to a fresh out of college student with no net-worth on an idea that really hasn't been tested or has not visible market share. I was disheartened So I kept on trying. eventually hit a break... after pitch to the Canadian Youth Foundation... they took pity on me OR really liked the way I talk ( i like to believe it was the latter
) and decided to invest. With that we built it...
So now you ask: "Thats all fine and dandy Drekk you got lucky and built a company to make money what does that I have to do with me/smash/community"
I am glad you asked, When it came to Pownz I knew what I wanted it to do ... I wanted it to change gaming
I wanted it to be the vehicle that we the community use to take out the American/Asia/European gamers.
I wanted it also be the way gamer meet each other and build those bonds that last a lifetime.
Pownz's goal is to change what people think about video games and video gamers, whether it be for sport or leisure.
Our mission is to be the number 1 E-Sports venue in Canada and do that we need to spread our values
Competition - Because its for the love of it why we exist
Gamemanship - Its important to respect you fellow player , win or loose
Skill - the need or drive to always want to improve or do better
Community - Without community(this is you
), with out that sense of belonging, without that sense of being part of something bigger .. all efforts are wasted. so if you have read all of this you might be saying to yourself "What does this prove? You wrote a huge post about your boring life rofl kekeke wtfbbq"
I say: Nothing, It really proves nothing, I merely wanted people to know about what transpired when I decided to make Pownz or why I decided to make it. Everyone is entitled to their opinions and thoughts so I thought I would share this story.
Also I needed sometime for the AMP to wear off XD
