In 1997, Sean Plott exemplified the perfect image of a well mannered, studious, middle-class teenager from Leawood, Kansas. Like all teenagers, Sean had a fascination with video games. He (along with his brother) purchased, played and discarded many games from all different genre representations . From shooters, to adventure games, to strategy games, he explored and mastered the newest, most current and popular games on the market.
His enchantment with video games eventually led him to the purchase of a new video game that he'd heard a lot about.
A game that had an almost religious fan base in Korea; a game that monumental tournaments were laboriously fought over.
It's professional play had attracted corporate sponsors and world-class players alike. A game called Starcraft.
So while walking away from the video game store in the Leawood shopping mall, game in hand, he had no inkling as to the role that Starcraft would play in his life.

    As he played more and more of this game, he slowly came to the realization that it was more than just a piece of entertainment, to be absorbed and discarded in favor of a newer and more flashy game. He felt a deep personal connection to it, because as he is quoted in saying: "I am of the opinion that Starcraft needs to be put into a museum! It should be part of the Smithsonian and shown to the world as an achievement of the human race! As an incredible feat of what can occur when human beings work together. It's this pervasive, continuing narrative in this immersive, live-or die-battlefield! It doesn't flaunt skill acquired by repetition and drummed into your muscles to be remembered as a sequence. It relies on your mental cunning and your ability to adapt, react, overcome, and achieve!"

   With this in mind, he proceeded to become more heavily invested and focused on this game (which by now was considered to be old and outdated by his few American friends who played computer games) and devoted more time and energy to self-improvement and competition. He practiced day in and day out in hopes of improving his play in some way. He tried playing with his socks on and off, with his keyboard flat or lying at an angle, with his chair higher and lower, wearing a hat and a plethora of various other things, all in hopes of being good enough to compete in a national tournament, and compete he did.

   In 2001, he flew to Los Angeles to participate in the World Cyber Games qualifying tournament.
His journey to qualification and advancement in the matches was very arduous, and he competed with dozens of globally recognized professional Starcraft players. After 9 hours of complete concentration, he defeated 7 out of the 10 players in his bracket and advanced to the finals, where he lost to the top-tier Korean player, Rehkium.

  Even though he'd been eliminated, he'd acquired enough notoriety to join various professional Starcraft clans, where he practiced for more tournaments. He eventually went on to win a series of national Major League Gaming tournaments and actually become the national champion of 2006. After he won his championship, he still played, but not as competitively and instead took contracts to be an official commentator for professional tournaments, and still to this day hosts a 1 hour live show every night where he gives insight and commentary on professional games. He commentates the Korean championships in Seoul, and travels all around the world to different tournaments. In the pursuit of his Starcraft career, he became very wealthy and actually retired comfortably with money he'd earned as a salaried employee for the North American Star League, Major league Gaming and Gom.tv. All of these achievements, all of these feats of his brilliant strategic mind were the result of a life of Starcraft.