SC2SEA.com - Starcraft 2 SEA eSports Community Site

**nirvAnA** · Sat, 18th-Feb-2012, 5:01 PM # 1

Benji

Drunk Benji!

Real Name: Ben de Ridder
Akas: Benji
Occupation: GIS Technician for Sensis. I Work on creating a raster product for Whereis.com.au and maps.google.com, with the look and feel of the UBD street directory, which is owned by Yellow Pages, another part of Sensis. Sounds complicated, but I basically mesh together several different parts of the company as far as digital mapping goes and create a product that makes around $1,000,000 a year for the company.
Date Of Birth: 24/1/1987
City/Country: Sydney, Australia
Hobbies: Besides SC2, I am a Warhammer 40k player, have Ork, Crimson Fists, Chaos Marines and Ravenwing armies, although I haven't played it in the last 6 months due to SC2 taking up a lot of my time.
SC2 Goals: I don't really have goals, I guess just making everything I do bigger and better. If I had goals, it means I'll eventually get to a point where I am satisfied, I don't work like that.
Clan/Team: Xeria Gaming (My mindset is that a person should not have both a clan and a team, just represent one)
Life and Career Goals: I work simply to put a roof over my head and don't really have any thoughts of getting a family or even a gf. It's just how I am, I'm sure it will change over time.

Notable SC2/Gaming Achievements: None, I am quite hard on myself and nothing I have done as really been an achievement, more a stepping stone to greater things.
Featured Online Vods: www.youtube.com/benjisc2
I don't think I have any VODs of myself playing (done by someone else).

Favourite Strategy: 10 Pool. Provided it doesn't straight up win, it forces placers to do some very interesting early game decision making.
Favourite Babe: Don't really have a favorite
Favourite Food: Pasta
Favourite Drink: V Energy Drink (:P)
Favourite Movie: Star Wars Episode 4
Favourite Song: Muse - Plug in Baby although Muse have a lot of great songs, so it is hard to pick just one.

Players Respected: All of xG (Obviously :P), SQL, Rossi, tgun, Glade, Enderr and a ton more. Simply too hard to list them all, basically anyone who is good at the game and isn't a dickhead about it :P
Arch-Nemesis: tgun, I'm currently down $10 and a cheesebuger from this guy :P
Best Starcraft 2 player in SEA?: Glade is obviously the best, however I think Mafia works the hardest out of everyone.
Best Starcraft 2 player in the world of all time?: Mvp

Random last words: Keep watching my stream and giving feedback (but in a nice way :P)

Bonus Question 1: What are your plans for xGking in the year 2012? Any big live international events the team plans to attend?

Yes, there are plans already in the works and whilst I cannot announce the upcoming events, lets just say there is a pretty big international event being announced in the next 3-4 weeks

Unfortunately I have to wait for the organizers to announce the event before I can talk about it :P

I've also been working hard over the last week, talking to sponsors and such, and there will also be a slightly smaller event being run fairly soon as well (I say smaller, but its still going to be quite large, we're talking Asia sized), this one is being run by myself and some other wonderful people, and I'll announce it as soon as I can (Probably 1-2 months away tho).

Sorry for being vague, I promise to announce them as soon as I can.

Bonus Question 2:Name your top 3 SEA casters besides yourself and who you think has potential!

1st - Unstable
Guy is a boss, worked his way through SEA and now manages FXO, he's is a good caster and has some very good business sense. He's the most successful SEA caster, fullstop.

2nd - Kelly
I don't have much love for the girl, but she was very good at getting viewers and was very aggressive when it came to getting events. She has her haters, but in the end it comes down to viewer count and events, she had both. I think shes working for own3d atm, kind of shows that she was doing something right at least.

3rd - Cheekyduck
Gets viewers and is entertaining, the 2 things you need to be a successful caster. Hasn't really become as popular as Kelly was, but shes a newer SEA caster and she seems keen on doing more events.

Who has potential? Its a hard question because alot of casters think that putting up a few overlays and doing events makes you a good caster, when its actually viewers and hits that makes you good. Casters need to get out of the mindset of 'Hey this is a cool overlay, look at this production' and put more time into advertising your stream and getting viewers. You also need to be on OTHER websites plugging your stream, getting on TL, twitter etc and getting views. Adding overlays and production keeps people interested and watching, but you need people clicking on your stream in the first place, and thats far more important.

When I see a large event (either name or moneywise) and see 50 concurrent viewers, my instant thought is 'What a waste'. To grow events its through Sponsors, sponsors want viewers and hits, and more viewers and hits lead to bigger sponsor contributions and bigger events. I'll be pushing this during the year with my own events and events I am associated with, and its a mindset all the new casters need to have if you're not only going to be successful, but if we're going to grow SEA you need to be in this mindset.

A little offtopic, but its something that I feel very strongly about.