Meet the Face of Fatshark

One week ago we announced the winner of the Face of Fatshark contest. To win the competition you had to stream Warhammer: Vermintide 2 at least once during October and send us the stream. Anyone was allowed to enter for a chance to become the Face of Fatshark for a week, win an all-inclusive trip to Sweden, an Intel® Core™ i7 Processor and some cool Fatshark merchandise.

The winner of Face of Fatshark is ChrisAkira!

ChrisAkira will be joining us in the fish tank between December 10 - 13 and will stream daily from our streaming room. We are thrilled about Chris joining us at the office for a week, and in preparation for his visit, we asked him a couple of questions.

1. The most basic of questions: can you tell us a little about yourself?

On the wide world of the internet I go by ChrisAkira, but by day I’m just Chris. I'm 31 and live in the United Kingdom, I’ve been married for ten years and have two awesome kids. Besides being a dad I work a full-time retail job, as well as juggling everything else life throws my way, but I try to enjoy life as much as possible. I've been gaming for as long as I can remember, and have no intention of stopping anytime soon, especially if I can get my kids into it as well.

2. How did you find out about the Face of Fatshark contest?

I've been following the Fatshark and Vermintide social media for a while, and one day I saw the post pop up on my Twitter feed. I figured that even a small streamer like myself had a shot, the post wasn't looking for the best streamer or the most hardcore streamer, the post just listed it would be judges choice so I thought I’d throw my VOD out and see what happened.

3. When did you start streaming?

My very first stream was 8th of May 2012, back on an outdated (even at the time) PC and one 19 inch monitor. If I remember it correctly, I played Trackmania or Terraria. It was a nightmare trying to organise the screen to fit the game, chat, x-split and everything else. Thankfully since then I’ve upgraded quite a bit (with some community help) and have a slightly more comfortable set up now, although there’s definitely still room to improve.

4. How long have you played Vermintide?

I got into Vermintide not long after the 1st game released. A few friends of mine that I met at a small bi-annual LAN event called LlamaLAN gave me a heads up on the game, we all grabbed it that weekend, and it was pretty much all we played. Since then I’ve returned to it regularly, and when the 2nd game launched (again at the same LAN event), we grabbed it and stormed through the campaign. Sadly I haven’t been able to put as much time into the 2nd game as I’d have liked, mostly due to a lack of time and family goes first, but whenever I’ve had the opportunity, I jump back to it and try to make some progress.

5. Are you excited about coming to Sweden?

Definitely, I've never been before, in fact, I’ve only been overseas a handful of times. It’ll be a great adventure, albeit a bit intimidating, exploring a brand new place on my own. The addition of coming over to hang out with the Fatshark team is extra awesome. I have been warned about the cold though, and I’m hoping I can find some warm enough socks before my trip.

6. Anything special you wish to do while in Stockholm?

When I told my wife I’d won, and after the initial 'not-quite-believing-it' passed, we both started googling things for me to do while I’m there. We looked at the museums and the general “It’s not the UK, look how awesome it is” side of things. I heard that there’ll probably be Christmas Markets up that close to Christmas, so I’ll definitely be checking those out. Other than that I’ll just be hoping not to get too lost while exploring Stockholm.

7. Back to gaming questions. Exactly how many games do you own?

So thanks to the joys of humble bundles, 1-day sales and all the other fun things you can get on the internets gaming section, my Steam library is at 1067. I also have several different consoles, so I’d guess that across all platforms I’m probably around the 1200 mark. That being said, my played games is probably closer to around 500 or 600, and my completed games are more than likely around the 200-300 mark. I’m sure I’ll get round to the rest someday... maybe.

 8. Which game got you hooked on gaming?

If I had to pick one game that turned me into a committed lifelong gamer, it’s probably Deus Ex. I still go back to that game every 18 months or so for another playthrough and every time I find something new, which is impressive for a game that’s nearly 20 years old.

9. Any favourite gaming memory?

Hmm, that’s a tough one. I’m not sure I’d call it a “favourite”, but one of my more recent gaming memories (that I wish I could forget) is playing through I Wanna Be The Guy in one sitting. I was running a 24-hour charity fundraiser for SpecialEffect a few years ago, and my community requested I play it. I’d never played it before, and I decided if I was going to do it then I was going to make the most of it. So, I put a donation tracker on and for every £15 donated I’d play another hour until I either dropped or completed the game. Twenty-one hours later, I became The Guy, and we’d raised around £500 for charity. These days I still can’t see a red apple without panicking

10. The final question: How does it feel to be the Face of Fatshark?

It feels awesome. After the initial 24 hours or so it settled in, and I realised what a fantastic opportunity I’ve been given. I’m super hyped to come and hang out with the devs in a city I’ve never seen. I’m also thankful for the chance to get my name out into the community a bit, but I’m hoping to use my time as the Face of Fatshark to bring some of the burning questions from the Vermintide community to Fatshark's desk and see if I can do my part to give something to the community.

Whatever happens, I’m grateful to have been picked as the Face of Fatshark, and I’m super excited to be heading out in a few weeks to hang out with Fatshark and slay some Skaven and Chaos hordes.

You can watch Chris stream live from the Fatshark office in Stockholm between December 10 - 13 on Twitch.