When professional StarCraft II player Kim Dong-Hwan applied for a US Visa few years ago, he was easily denied because he was not enrolled in any of the best universities in South Korea. Kim wanted a US visa to be able to go to the North American country and compete professionally in various video game events.

However, after travelling back and forth between the US and South Korea under a visa waiver for three years, the Korean gamer has finally been granted an official visa. Not only that, he is now viewed by the US government as a rightful visa holder and a star athlete.

Online news portal National Public Radio (NPR) reported that Kim, ranked 63rd out of all StarCraft II players worldwide and has a total winning of $95,830, has become the first video gamer to receive a five-year P-1A visa, the kind that is normally granted to foreign baseball and football players. The grant took place after his manager, Andrew Tomlinson, realized how hard it was for his boy to travel with a waiver.

Along with Tomlinson, Twitch and Blizzard Entertainment, the company that made StarCraft II, lobbied for Kim to get his visa. They wrote a recommendation letter to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, emphasizing the huge industry of sport of competitive gaming and Kim's high standing.

Twitch compares Kim's transfer to the US to David Beckham's arrival at Los Angeles Galaxy few years ago and Hyun-Jin Ryu's transfer to the LA Dodgers,

In South Korea, the video game industry is as big as sport wherein games are televised and players are treated as celebrities.

"Gaming is their full-time job, so the inability to go to a tournament, to travel and compete is preventing them from doing their job," says Marcus Graham, a senior manager at the gaming media site Twitch and a competitive gamer for 14 years.

"Visas have single-handedly been one of the biggest killers of players' careers. These problems have been plaguing us even as early as 2002."