There is a sort of undeniable gravity about the chair. It was there when we met first met Matthew Fink in person, just as it's there when we talk to him about his time in Korea, his life as a gamer, and his year travelling the world, from tournament to tournament. In the same way as it draws attention in person, so too does it draw the line of any narrative; politically incorrect and all as it may be, there's no escaping the reality of it.

This profile has been through more iterations than we could reasonably detail here. We've tried approach after approach to try to get to the heart of what it is to be Matthew "LookNoHands" Fink, who he is as a person, and what competitive gaming has come to mean to him. With all that in mind, it's still hard for us to appreciate how much more pronounced that sense of gravity must be for him.

When we first talked to Matt, there was an unexpected focus on the centrality of the correct hardware to the experience, and, as much as it might seem as though some of the details are extraneous, once we gained some insight into the way the man plays we began to appreciate the extent to which his hardware makes a difference.

It comes up early in our conversations, when we spoke with Matt about the appreciation of gaming that’s seen him fly around the earth and where it began. The first question we asked was so direct as to be tactless, but it seemed more honest to just wear our collective heart on our sleeve; we asked the question he’s been asked a thousand times, "How do you play Starcraft?"

With the news emerging that Matt is to be at the EG Lair, training with the North American progaming team, this is a question he’s going to hear time and again in the coming weeks. From the 17th to the 27th of July, he’ll be living in the same house as players like Greg “Idra” Fields and Chris “HuK” Loranger, and we’ll see just how much he can learn from his time in such a competitive environment.

The truth is that PC gaming, as a whole, has a sort of wholesome tradition of attention to hardware beyond the norm. The Starcraft community is one in which questions of the claw vs the palm grip can incite near religious fervor, with each pitching its perennial proponents against the other's staunch supporters. We are, in short, a community obsessed, to one degree or another, with hardware.

Consider then, the case for Matthew Fink, whose Razer Mamba Elite has been chosen not because it supports the agility and fingertip precision of the vaunted claw-grip, nor the ergonomic comfort of the palm grip. Rather, this is hardware chosen by a man whose input mechanism all comes down to one point, whose acquaintance with his hardware is more intimate than those using either of the methods with which we might be more familiar. In his own words,

"Although all of my equipment is unmodified, I am, in fact, much more sensitive to some of the small things such as the shape of the mouse, the texture of the mouse surface and the spacing of the keys [...] When I type I hit the keys with the bottoms of my arms."

As he says it, we find ourselves assailed by a flashback to last year's Dreamhack Winter, at which we first met Matt. He was, at the time, rattling through a game of Starcraft 2, just part of what would become an afternoon of 3v3s, with constant communication, the usual back-and-forth scramble of blame and praise that accompanies the format. His arms were pressed down on both mouse and keyboard, his shoulders rolled forward to better place the ends of his arms his equipment.

He mentions, almost as a second thought in the wide-ranging conversation on hardware, that he's more sensitive than most to shape and texture, we are reminded that, when he says he uses the 'bottom of his arms,' he’s describing the skin-covered bones of his arms, though it seems in poor taste to comment. It is with that in mind that the extent of that intimacy of interface hits home; considering that fact lends the idea of his using the wrong hardware a sense that seems nails-against-chalkboard visceral.


Fink's non-standard hardware issues have their roots in a rare condition that resulted in his being born without a spleen. Absent a prominent part of his immune system, he was left susceptible to a raft of different illnesses. At eighteen months, he contracted pneumococcal sepsis. As part of the resulting treatment, he would have all four of his limbs amputated.

Matt has spent the last twenty years living with abbreviated limbs, acclimatising himself to the activities he'd come to love. He describes a youth spent with the SNES with an attention to detail that gives us a sense of his genuine warmth for gaming, even in those formative years. He describes himself as having, "pretty much played my N64 into the ground."

In our conversations about forays into gaming in those early years, questions about the hardware are already prominent. He first describes his difficulty typing, but then explains that he had some difficulty with games that required him to use shoulder buttons, which seems self-explanatory, all things considered.

Like so many Starcraft 2 fans, Matt traces his initial interest back to the the RTS that kicked it all off, Brood War. Before that, he tells us that he had already been investing his time into some serious Mechwarrior 4 play, but the first mention of Brood War triggers a gush of memories all its own,

"I remember taking off down the neighbourhood in my chair to go to a friend's house to play it on LAN [...] I was always the worst one at it, but when I finally became cognisant of the Brood War proscene I started watching a lot of games."

Without anyone specifying it at any point, it feels as though our conversations, spread out over the weeks leading up to the announcement, cluster around the physicality of the experience. Nobody steers the conversations, but they are interspersed with questions of interaction. It's not just that he's had difficulty playing the games he's come to love over the long history he describes, but that he's had difficulty with the controllers that act as interface. It's not just that he played a lot of Brood War in his youth, but that he chooses to describe himself as, "taking off down the neighbourhood in my chair."

Despite the depth of those early engagements with Brood War, there were some barriers to his playing at the levels of competition he’s come to enjoy in SC2. In spite of those obstacles, it’s clear from the way Matt describes his enjoyment of the professional Brood War scene that he had high hopes for the sequel long before it's release, though the truth is that he could have had no inkling just how far afield SC2 might take him.

Just how far he's been willing to let his interest in the game take him is worth discussing. As noted above, Matt managed to be in Sweden for Dreamhack Winter, before finding himself in Korea, staying with some of the best players on earth. When we ask to what extent his disability has affected his day to day routine as he travels the world, Matt is forthright. The life he describes is one that is, perhaps to a greater extent than might be expected, independent, and it's hard not to get the impression that there's a sense of pride in that.

Matt attributes the level of independence he has achieved to his parents, who espoused the virtues of perseverance, as well as teaching him to value his own independence from a young age, "They encouraged me to do as much as I could on my own when I was younger."

“They tried to get me to do things in ways that, at the time, seemed more difficult but as I grew up I realized I was going to have to learn them,” he says, looking back on the early years of his disability. He started out using a small spoon affixed to a cuff around the end of his arm, and says that his parents would encourage him to use normal silverware. Though he found it difficult at first, he would, in time, concede that it was something he needed to learn. “Had I just listened in the first place I could have saved myself a lot of trouble,” he says.

Having had to persevere through the acquisition of skills the rest of us might take for granted, Matt acknowledges that his condition comes with many difficulties, but he’s also direct in outlining for us his belief in an overall purpose for his life that includes his disability.

“Truly, I feel that these challenges have been presented to me for a reason. I really think that when bad things happen to us, we have two choices. We can either let those things harden our hearts and make us more cynical, less trusting people or we can learn from the difficulties that we are faced with and use them to make ourselves better, more loving, and more empathetic.”

If Matt were a run-of-the-mill motivational speaker or Youtube life coach, it would be all too easy to dismiss a statement like the above. The truth is that the power of positive thinking is a concept more often referenced in the kinds of self help books that attempt to ascribe the means by which to live a stress free life. By contrast, there is a sense of against-all-odds honesty to the frankness with which Matt responds to everything we can ask, whether we’re questioning his decisions or interrogating, in some detail, the means by which he interacts with the world around him. This is, perhaps, the first glimpse we've had of what motivates Matt.

Questions of motivation are key once we get into the meat of Matt's travels; no matter where he goes or what he does, his hardware problems will cause him more significant frustration on a daily basis than many of us will ever experience. As independent as he is, his productivity is mediated, to a greater degree than the vast majority of us, by his hardware. It’s in the light of those facts that Matt’s attitude really shines. Every day, he accepts the manifold physical challenges he faces and draws strength from, in his own words,

“My family, my friends, my faith [...] My faith gives me perspective and allows me to do my best. Instead of getting angry when bad things happen, it helps me to accept and deal with my circumstances and always learn from my experiences.”

Matt is quick to describe the means by which his faith has been key to his understanding and coping with the internalised aspects of his condition, the frustrations and the disappointments, focussing instead on the potential benefits of any scenario. It’s that elucidation of what matters to him that helps to better understand the dedication and sense of resolve that Matt seems to have. It is that same strength of character that we see in what would be some of the last descriptions he gave us of his hardware.

"I can plug and unplug all of my own equipment meaning that I can set myself up to practice. I even drive on my own with the help of some electronics and some hand controls. I am also very mobile outside of my chair although as I have gotten older, I spend a bit less time that way."

We've already talked about the gravity of the chair, its ability to draw focus, but somehow the absence of the chair attracts the same sort of attention; the observation that, as he's aged, he's spent 'a bit less time that way,' manages to pique interest, somehow tinged by just the vaguest sense of sadness, though it's more a projection than anything that's communicated through the text at all. It feels all too natural to read that statement as just another way in which, whether we like it or not, there's a sense there of growing more in touch with the hardware over time, but the truth is that it's just evidence of the extent to which it's possible to project an expected image onto people with a disability.

As we said above, this profile has been through a number of iterations, a few treading-on-eggshells efforts not to offend and a few too many revisions that steered clear of the question of hardware. When we talked to Matt about a draft that hewed a little closer to the bone, he explained that, "I'm probably the least PC person about my own disability." It's reassuring for those afraid of wounding pride, and goes some way to ameliorating any sense of discomfort around asking more direct questions about the hardware he uses to get around day-to-day.

During our conversation, he elaborates on the variety of hardware he uses to help him get around in a manner almost identical to the way he describes the hardware that facilitates his playing games; he describes a number of different chairs, the four-wheel drive iBOT, which can balance on two wheels to bring him up to eye level and walk up stairs, the break-apart travel chair, still powered, but which can be deconstructed for easy travel. The whole conversation seems to have come full circle, but we’re talking about the variations in different chairs, rather than the importance of texture on a mouse.

The last year has seen Matt, extensive collection of hardware and all, travel around the globe, turning up at some of the focal points for competitive Starcraft 2, whether they be tournaments or teamhouses. The next stage of his trip will see him staying with Team Evil Geniuses in their team house in Arizona, an environment whose Korean mirror he’s already had a chance to examine over the course of the last few months. It seems there's some irresistible appeal for him not just in the idea of competitive gaming, but in the practicality of it.

"I always sort of dreamed of being involved in competitive gaming, and SC2 was the kick in the pants, I guess. I think that the young age of the industry has created a really unique opportunity for people to get involved and make a name for themselves."

The timing of Starcraft 2’s release was perfect. Matt had just graduated from Carleton College with a BA in International Relations. Encouraged by Geoff “Incontrol” Robinson of Team EG, Matt applied for the Watson Fellowship, a fund that offers college graduates of unusual promise one year of “independent, purposeful exploration and travel.”

That the fellowship encourages people to do their travelling outside their comfort zones put Matt in an interesting position with regard to his long-standing dream of being involved in esports. The objective of the fellowship is stated as, “to enhance their capacity for resourcefulness, imagination, openness, and leadership and to foster their humane and effective participation in the world community." One of the four major post-baccalaureate fellowships, the Watson Fellowship sits alongside such prestigious awards as the Fulbright Scholarship, and the Rhodes Scholarship.

Matt was awarded the Watson Fellowship as a graduating senior, and it was there that his esports adventure began. In 2011, chair in tow, Matt set off across Europe and Asia to play Starcraft 2. For the duration of one of our earliest interview sessions, he spoke to us from the team house of Incredible Miracle, the professional Starcraft 2 team based in Seoul. Matt used his time at the team house to watch some of the best players in the world play, seeing what he could learn from the way they practised.

Matt tells us that he enjoyed his time in Korea, but, while he would have liked to stay a while longer, his funding ran out and he found himself forced to return to the United States. The Watson Fellowship did not cover expenses for his Personal Care Attendant (PCA), and despite a community fundraiser, Matt could not raise the required funds. A PCA is a vital part of Matt’s gaming setup. While he’s proud of the level of independence he’s managed to achieve, the truth is that all the hardware in the world is no replacement for having another human being you can rely on when things get tough.

From responding to emails to setting things up for him, his PCA helps create an environment that Matt can work in. Over the course of our chat sessions, we spoke to more than one of his PCAs. They were always friendly, polite, and, as we found out, authorised to speak on his behalf when he wasn’t around. In a very practical sense, they are extensions of Matthew. As much as we’ve focussed on Matt’s level of integration with his hardware, the truth is that a mouse, can’t help him plan an event or book plane tickets. Nor can an elegant keyboard share the disappointment of falling short of a collective goal.

“I’m bummed out,” Matt tells us, laconic where he’s otherwise chatty, as we speak to him the evening after the fundraiser. While many generous fans and well-wishers had come forward to donate more than $3000, the amount collected fell far short of the required $15,000.

“Though I really wanted to do this, I know there’s a reason I’m going back to the US now,” he says, launching into a list of things he can focus on when he gets home. From putting more time into developing his team, TiltGaming, to documenting his journey as a disabled gamer, training with the EG guys and travelling to North American tournaments, he is full of plans and ideas, and all this just hours after finding out that he would no longer be able to chase a dream that he had set his heart on.

“I've come to realize that although my time in Korea and Europe was a wonderful experience that was important in shaping my perspective on E-sports, I have something really special going on here and a huge opportunity to make a positive difference in the E-sports community."

Matt believes that esports provides one of the most level playing fields for the disabled. “I think that once you get to a certain level of play, it’s no longer about how fast your hands work, but how fast your mind processes things and makes decisions.” That statement seems to his close to the root of his interest in Starcraft; it provides what he calls a ‘unique opportunity’ for players with disabilities to compete with any other player, regardless of the mechanical difficulties.

When we asked if he could elaborate on that, Matt went into some detail on what he called the Esports and Disability Manifesto. Here he outlined the fact that, while people with disabilities are often encouraged to compete, the truth of that competition is that it takes place between people with disabilities. By contrast, he feels that esports offer scenarios in which he feels as though he's at no disadvantage. The dream, he says, is that there will come a time when people with disabilities compete on even footing with able-bodied players in what he calls, "a shining example of what can be accomplished when people are willing to look past another person's physical appearance and see their potential and valuable perspective."

The truth is that, to paraphrase Matt's own description, people see his disability first, and his personality second. This he ascribes to his "obvious physical disability," but he notes that it has the effect of forming a barrier between him and anyone he meets. As we said at the beginning of this post, there is a certain sense of gravity about the chair that's hard to overcome. There was a moment when Matt gaves us some insight into what Starcraft has come to mean to him, in his description of why he came to found his team, Tilt Gaming:

"When I join a game of Starcraft the person on the other end doesn't see a disability or a wheelchair, they see someone who loves the game as much as they do and a fellow competitor who is also struggling to improve [...] because of this, as a person with a disability, I've never encountered another community like this one. It has provided me the opportunity to connect with others in a way no other community could."

For the moment, he recognises that his disability has put him in a unique position, and he makes it clear this journey across the world has been more one of self-discovery than anything else.

“Although I think I was (and still am) laying the groundwork for an effort to try and bring the Starcraft and disabled gaming communities closer together, I was really just asking people who thought that the idea of my adventure was cool to donate a little bit if they felt so inclined. The kind words and encouragement of the community are what inspired me to undertake my adventure in the first place and so when I needed help, they were naturally, the ones I turned to first. My journey's purpose just happened to be unique.

Though Matt’s focus at the moment revolves around progaming, his long term plans broader. He tells us he wants to attend graduate school for a Masters in Public Health. “I'll probably end up either at the University of Minnesota or George Washington University in Washington D.C,” he says, adding that further education is a prerequisite for the field he wants to get into. “I hope to eventually be involved in the making of health policy either in the United States or abroad so that means I'll probably either be working for the government or a non-profit or NGO.” As always, Matt is ambitious. “Eventually, I'm also thinking about practicing as a physician so I'll probably be looking at medical schools after that – but who knows where I'll be in two years,” he says.

For now, though, Fink is all about the game. He knows there's still plenty of room in esports for him to make a name for himself. As he moves into the EG house for ten days, the community will be watching, and Matt will be making the most of the experience. Like many of us, he is a progaming hopeful, and the opportunity to play with one of North America’s best teams is no doubt a dream come true.

If nothing else, we can rest assured that, as he has in so many other situations, Matt will make maximum use of this opportunity. Indeed, his disability, if anything, has taught him one thing; he needs to give everything a go. From Seoul to Arizona, that’s what he has been doing, and will continue to do.

Regardless of the amount of interest it draws, the difficulties involved in getting there, or the way the game is played, at the end of the day, Matt sits in his chair, and his opponent sits in theirs, and that's all there is to it. It's not what the chair brings to the game that matters, it's the person in it, and in that respect, it seems as though all the questions of hardware are all but irrelevant, even if we mean "hardware" in a sense more fundamental than we might otherwise consider it.

We are, after all, a community obsessed, to one degree or another, with hardware. For all of us, there are times when it's easy not to see past the hardware, but in the end, whether it’s life or Starcraft, it’s all about heart, and Matt has plenty of that.

---