Beyond the Game
2008 film by Jos de Putter
Beyond the Game is a 2008 Dutch documentary film about the world of professional video gaming, particularly of the game Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne featuring world champion players Chinese Xiaofeng "Sky" Li, Dutch Manuel "Grubby" Schenkhuizen and Swede Fredrik "MaDFroG" Johansson prominently. It is directed by award-winning Dutch documentary filmmaker Jos de Putter. Filming took place in China, France, The Netherlands, United States and Sweden. Languages spoken in the documentary include Dutch, English, French, Spanish, Swedish, Standard Chinese and Korean.
Beyond the Game is the motto of the World Cyber Games, which is central to the documentary as the main characters compete to defend or regain the event's championship title at the global finals of the 2007 World Cyber Games in Seattle, Washington.
It has premiered at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam in Pathé de Munt, and had the cinema premiere in Pathé Tuschinski, and has now been released in cinemas throughout The Netherlands.
Historical background
In 2002 the videogame Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos is released which sells millions of copies and quickly becomes a leading title in the world of competitive gaming. It was followed in 2003 by an expansion, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne.
A 17-year-old Swede by the name of Fredrik Johansson devotes himself to this new sport and rises to become the runner-up of the 2003 Electronic Sports World Cup and becomes widely regarded as the strongest non-Asian player. He is subsequently invited to become a full-time professional gamer in Seoul, South Korea where competitive gaming is an advanced subculture and many players make a living playing games.
“Beyond the Game” enters the record as 2008 film by Jos de Putter. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Beyond, Game and film can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2338572. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2008, 2007, 2002 and 2003.
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This entry incorporates text from “Beyond the Game” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.