Meet the world's fastest gamer who's already got a $1 million contract in Totally Game

James Baldwin is the World's Fastest Gamer, a title he claimed in a tournament last year, and which earned him a $1 million contract with Jenson Button's GT racing team. 

The 23-year-old from Aylesbury doesn't just race virtually though, he's also transferred his skills to real motorsport. 

It's taken him a while to achieve his dream though, having to leave behind karting in 2015 to join an engineering firm. However, he soon discovered the world of esports and decided to test his skills online. James said: "I saw you could race online, I just did it for a bit of fun but my first tournament I won 4000 euros and so decided to leave my engineering firm.

“To throw it all away for a risky thing like esports and racing wasn’t easy, gaming is a weird one - everyone knows how old a racing driver can get to before they have to retire, but no-one knows how long a gamer can go on for. "

The risk however has continued to pay off, as he was eventually invited to compete in last year's World's Fastest Gamer tournament. It was here where his skills in games and on the tarmec would be put to the test and James tells Totally Game about the moment he knew he won.

"“The final race in Las Vegas was the standout moment for me - I started second, overtook the guy in first and pulled a 10 second gap. I’m not going to treat it like a prize, but an opportunity.” 

Make sure to head back to GamesRadar every Wednesday to catch a new episode of Totally Game. 

Ben Tyrer
Contributor

Ben Tyrer is a freelance games journalist with over ten years experience of writing about games. After graduating from Bournemouth University with a degree in multimedia journalism he's worked for Official PlayStation Magazine as a staff writer and games editor, as well as 12DOVE (hey, that's this website!) as a news editor. He's also contributed to Official Xbox Magazine, Edge, PC Gamer, GamesMaster, PC Games N, and more. His game of the year - no matter the year - is Rocket League.