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Craig “Onscreen” Shannon is a retired professional esports player and one of the most well-known Valorant content creators on Twitch.
Onscreen stated his esports journey with Counter-Strike 1.5 and later shifted to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, where he played professionally until 2017. Recently he did watch parts of the Valorant Conquerors Championship, winning which Indian team Global Esports qualified for the Valorant Champions Tour Asia Pacific Last Chance Qualifier.
In a conversation with Sportskeeda’s Suryadeepto Sengupta, Craig “Onscreen” Shannon opened up about his journey, his experience with VCC, and the future.
The following is an excerpt of the conversation.
SS: Craig, I don’t think many of your fans know about your origin story and how you got started with esports and content creation. So can you tell us a bit about your early days and your early esports career?
Onscreen: I've been playing competitively since CS 1.5. I started playing professionally in CS 1.6 with the UK esports org 4Kings. Unfortunately, the org shut down during the early days of CS:GO which is when I started taking streaming seriously. Myself and the team used to live in a gaming house of which some of the team I still live with even today.
SS: When did you decide to concentrate on live streaming and content creation? What were some of the hurdles you faced in the early days? You currently have almost 900k followers over on Twitch. Was this level of success something you expected early on?
Onscreen: I decided to go full-time streaming once I hit 1000 subscribers on Twitch, that was 7 years ago now! Back then it was a lot harder as there were no gifted subs or Twitch prime. I never expected anything really, streaming was and still is a hobby for me. Doing it as a career is just a massive bonus. I gained 300K followers during my CSGO streaming days and rocketed to around 900K during the VALORANT drops hype, I was the 4th biggest streamer on the whole of Twitch at the time.
SS: What was the deciding factor for you to choose Valorant as your primary game for content creation on Twitch?
Onscreen: I've always primarily streamed what I enjoyed, which is not necessarily what is popular at the time. Coming from a CS background both myself and my viewers were very interested in VALORANT as CS has not had any competitors since its release. Because of this I've been involved with VALORANT since the very start as Project A. I had no idea if VALORANT was going to be popular or not, all I cared about was that I found it awesome to play!
SS: How do you feel Valorant sets itself apart from Counter-Strike, in a competitive aspect? What are your thoughts on the current competitive scene of both CS:GO and Valorant?
Onscreen: The meta is constantly changing in VALORANT which keeps the game new and exciting for both players and viewers. With the addition of abilities, it gives Riot way more things to play with. With CS:GO there is not much you can change to the game without completely changing things... and with Valve's past experience it's probably best they don't. I don't believe VALORANT will kill CS: GO, more that they will just live side by side similar to LoL and Dota, etc.
SS: You recently did a couple of watch parties of Valorant Conquerors Championship, the South Asian league that gave the teams an opportunity to make their way to VCT APAC LCQ. What is your thought on the South Asian, or more specifically Indian esports scene? According to you, where do the South Asian teams Stand in comparison to NA and EU teams?
Onscreen: The VCC was amazing to watch and both myself and my viewers enjoyed the games throughout. It's always hard to say which regions are better than others until we see them play at an international LAN. I will say however that aim wise I would put some of the players up there at the top. Strategically though I'm not sure if some of the plays I saw would work against a top NA/EU team but I would love to be proven wrong!
SS: Global Esports defeated Velocity Gaming in the best of 5 finales of VCC and made their way to VCT APAC LCQ. How do you expect the team to perform against other teams from Japan, Korea, South East Asia, and China? Do you think Global Esports has what it takes to make all way to Valorant Champions 2021?
Onscreen: If they put the effort in, they definitely have the raw talent to do it. After watching the VCC I am now a GE fan and will be rooting for them regardless! I would love to see GE compete against the best of the best at the Champions and show the world what India can do.
SS: What are your thoughts on the quality of competition that the players were able to showcase during the VCC tournament?
Onscreen: I believe some players really have what it takes to play at the top internationally and I'm really looking forward to seeing what GE can do at the LCQ. The BO5 final was one of the best I've ever seen and my only disappointment is I didn't know about the Indian VALORANT scene sooner.
SS: What are your top 5 takeaways from the VCC best of 5 grand finals between Velocity Gaming and Global Esports? Who, according to you, was the key player in the best of 5 grand finales?
Onscreen: 1) The 9 - 3 curse is very real.
2) I will never be as good as SkRossi.
3) Brimstone can still be viable.
4) Indian VALORANT is just getting started.
5) There are a lot of Indian VALORANT fans on Twitch!
In terms of a key player, it was definitely the SkRossi show, without him GE would not have won for sure.
SS: Who is your favorite Valorant agent and why?
Onscreen: Reyna, the more I don't have to rely on my useless teammates in ranked the better.
SS: What are your thoughts on the latest Fracture map coming to Valorant? How do you think the unconventional layout will affect competitive matches?
Onscreen: Once I got my head around the spawns I enjoyed the new map, the map looks big but it's really not. The spike sites are pretty small compared to other maps. There are lots of ways to retake the sites which should encourage teams to attempt a retake instead of saving in unfavorable situations. This is better for the game in my opinion both as a viewer and a player, everyone loves to see a clutch.
SS: Do you think in the coming years Valorant’s player base will expand, or will it reduce to a much lower but stable number?
Onscreen: I believe the player base will keep growing. With the number of updates Riot keeps making to the game, it keeps current players interested while bringing in new players all the time. Most people I know that don't really enjoy VALORANT right now are the people who do not enjoy solo/duo queue, which Riot is working on addressing also.
SS: What’s in the future for Onscreen? What can fans expect from the channel in the coming months?
Onscreen: I am one of the few streamers with permission to do watch parties for the upcoming Masters LAN in Berlin. So, lots of watch parties coming for sure, I'll be having some guests join me for some of the games, this includes rite2ace from velocity.
