At GAM, we close every meeting the same way. Our players do it right before they walk on stage. Everyone in, hands up:
Who are we? GAM!
What time is it? GAM TIME!
1, 2, 3, GAM!
A few days ago, Riot named GAM a VCT Pacific partner team, the only one representing Vietnam. If you follow VALORANT, you're probably asking the first question yourself. Fair. Let me answer all three.
First, the eight seats
For 2027, the VCT Pacific partner teams went from twelve down to eight. Some great teams aren't in it anymore. They built VCT Pacific, and their fans made it loud. They have our respect.
This wasn't an easy call for Jake Sin, Riot's Head of VALORANT Esports for APAC and VCT Pacific, or for his team. Calls like that never are. But I understand it. A league grows by reaching the places where the fans already are.
On YAP2ASIA this week, Jake explained why one of those places is Vietnam. Vietnam has been underserved for a long time: no partner team, hardly any tier one players. The fans showed up anyway:
- 3rd biggest language watching VCT Pacific: Vietnamese, after Japanese and Korean.
- About 2,000 seats a day, sold out, when the VCT Pacific Finals came to Ho Chi Minh City in May.
- 0 Vietnamese teams playing.
Our fans screamed for teams that weren't theirs. A lot of you know that feeling. Your country didn't have a team up there either.
Who are we?
GAM has been competing since 2014. In League of Legends we've won 11 Vietnam league titles, and SEA Games gold for Vietnam at home in 2022. At Worlds 2022 in Madison Square Garden, we beat TOP Esports in one of the biggest upsets in Worlds history.
That's what we've won. Who we are is how we play.
Vietnamese esports is known for being aggressive, creative and a lot of fun to watch. GAM fights, win or lose. That's how we became everyone's second-favourite team. Not because we asked. Because of how we showed up.
And who we are is the GAMFAM: fans who turn every match into a party, in Vietnam and all over the world.
How I found it
GAM isn't one person's story. But mine shows why this movement matters, so here's the short version.
I was born in San Diego. In the U.S., I was seen as Vietnamese. In Vietnam, I'm seen as American. I never fully belonged to either.
I spent fifteen years in nightlife, from club promoter to Hennessy brand ambassador in Hollywood. It taught me how to read the energy in a room and lift it. In 2014 I moved to Vietnam on a one-way ticket and co-founded Skylight, a rooftop beach club in Nha Trang.
As chairman of Visit Nha Trang, the city's destination marketing organization, I helped the city's rival hotels and venues sell Nha Trang together, because our real competition was every other beach city in the world. We didn't have a name for it then. Looking back, it was Rise As One.
Then the pandemic shut it all down. Locked down, I saw what gaming does. A kid at a PC cafe in Vietnam could queue up with a stranger in the U.S. No shared language. No shared time zone. Same team, calling the same plays, chasing the same win.
Nobody in that lobby cares where you're from. You earn respect by how you play. I'd spent my life not fully belonging anywhere.
In a game, everyone belongs.
In April 2021, my brother Dru, Randy and I took over GAM.
The year we almost lost it
In 2025, everything went wrong. We moved the whole team abroad to play in the LCP. We missed the homecoming final in Da Nang. We missed Worlds. I'll be honest: I thought about walking away from esports altogether.
Then Riot released Sacrifice, the Worlds 2025 anthem. There was Levi, our captain, next to Faker and Caps. There was #GAMTIME, in front of the whole world.
It hit me. GAM was never defined by one win or one loss. It had become a movement, bigger than me and bigger than any one team. That's what finally showed me what GAM really is.
So we doubled down. We expanded into new games. We became an Esports World Cup Club Partner, the only one from Vietnam. And now VCT Pacific, the icing on the cake.
That's who we are: a team, a fanbase and a country that refuses to stay on the outside.
What time is it?
GAM TIME is the moment you show up, ready to compete and represent. Right now, it means earning this seat.
Yes, we're new to VALORANT. We know. We were new to the world stage once too.
Jake said Riot picked us for a passionate fanbase, a fandom bigger than any one game, and the mark we made in League of Legends. Here's how we live up to that.
- Bring the GAM style to VALORANT. Aggressive, creative, entertaining. That's Vietnamese esports, and it's what we're building around. Right now we're searching for our head coach, our IGL and our full roster, and we're working around the clock to get it right.
- Serve the fans who waited. Jake said Vietnamese fans deserve a team that can "hyperserve" them. We'll bring them together online and offline, in Vietnam and beyond.
- Grow Vietnamese talent. A real path for Vietnamese players to reach the top of VALORANT, from home.
- Take VALORANT beyond the game. VALORANT is esports at its most premium. I saw it at Champions in Shanghai, and in the collaborations that celebrated it, from Balenciaga to Pop Mart. In May, we were part of VALORANT Sound with VNG at the VCT Pacific Finals in Ho Chi Minh City. We want to go bigger: events where esports, gaming, music, fashion and lifestyle meet.
1, 2, 3, GAM!
The last line of the chant is the whole point. Everyone, together, at once.
Jake said it best on YAP2ASIA:
"A movement rather than just an esports team."
Movements don't belong to one person or one team. Nobody builds this industry alone. In Nha Trang, the competition was never the venue next door. In esports, it's never the team across the stage. It's everything else fighting for a kid's attention.
It starts with Vietnam. The dream is a generation across Southeast Asia that grows up knowing it belongs on the world stage.
So here's my ask.
First, thank you. To everyone who has ever cheered for GAM, in any game, from anywhere: we don't get here without you.
Next, follow GAM VALORANT on X (@GAMValorant) and Instagram (@gamesports.valorant). The roster news lands there first.
Then watch VCT Pacific when the 2027 season kicks off in January. All of it. And watch us earn our spot.
I'm not asking you to drop your team. Keep cheering for Paper Rex, T1 or Gen.G. In League of Legends, we earned our place as everyone's second favorite team. In VALORANT, we start from zero. If we earn it again, make us your second favorite.
And next time you see us walk on stage, you know the words.
Who are we? GAM!
What time is it? GAM TIME!
1, 2, 3, GAM!
Rise As One. 🇻🇳🖤💛
P.S. Vietnamese fans, I wrote about what this seat means for you here.
