Getting In the Game at Sundance

The New York State Office for Motion Picture and Television Development threw its annual Sundance Film Festival party up in Deer Valley, Utah, Andrea Chalupa reports from Park City, Utah.

The ski-in and ski-out houses had a chair lift cutting through the groups of mini-mansions. The house where the party is held every year has an indoor basketball court and swimming pool along with a whole host of flat screen TVs lining the walls.

Around 3 a.m., 26-year-old professional gamer turned businessman Jonathan Wendel was leaving with his girlfriend, Chelsea, a professional gamer with the all-woman team, P.M.S. Wendel is the subject of an up and coming documentary about competitive gaming by James Boyd.

Wendel has won more than $500,000 in first-person-shooter competitions around the world, and in 2002 founded his own company, Fatal1ty, which sells gaming hardware, accessories and apparel.

According to an article on Portfolio.com, 140 million Americans play videogames, and sales of hardware, software, and accessories reached $13.5 billion in 2006.

Many, like Wendel, never get sick of playing video games everyday. "Not at all," he said. "I'm competitive by nature. And it's a social activity, I get to play against my friends and there's always new games coming out."

Wendel said his goal this year is to compete in celebrity golf tournaments. He's also currently a global spokesperson for DirecTV and has his own gaming channel program on the network.

_{(Photograph of professional video gamer Jonathan Wendel by Damian Dovarganes/Associated Press)}

Slideshow: At The Top Of Their Game