James Banks: “I have people come into my Twitch chat and say I never did [certain] things. I have all the proof”

140

In 2025, James Banks is a household name. The British broadcast talent has lent his voice to six unique Majors in various roles and was named talent of the year at the HLTV award show in 2024. However, what some people might not realise is that Banks has been around Counter-Strike since its inception.

Banks has worn many hats in the current Counter-Strike landscape. From playing 1.6 LANs in the UK, to working in press rooms at events and on news websites, to transitioning into broadcast work, starting at EPIC.LAN 12, he’s done it all.

UKCSGO sits down with Banks at the BLAST London to talk about working events in the UK, his lengthy career dating back 22 years, and whether he will ever come back to an EPIC.LAN.

Does working an event in London make it more special?

It is not a Major, obviously. They are the special ones for everyone who follows Counter-Strike, whether you are a player, talent, or a viewer, because of what it means. But because London is home, it adds that extra jazz to it, like it does for mezii, and for me as a talent.

You came up as a UK CS player and even through the press rooms. Does working an event in the UK cause some reflection on your career?

My playing career was through UK LANs in 1.6, and just being in with everyone and being around UK players, watching the scene struggle at the time. It wasn’t the same as Source, not as positive. But we have always had very good press and coverage. If you look at people like Richard Lewis and Thorin when they were journalists, I worked under both of them at one point.

It is a lot of looking back and seeing how far the country has come, but we are still very far behind in comparison to other parts of the world. So it is still not where you would want it to be, considering the supposed money and success this country does have.

From playing 1.6 LANs, to the press rooms, and now voted as the best CS2 talent at the HLTV Awards 2024. Talk to me about that crazy career progression.

To give you the rundown chronologically:

I was a Runescape player, just casually enjoying games with my friends online. I started gaming more because I am diabetic. They would take me out of school when I was younger so I could learn how to manage diabetes. The medicine was not as far advanced as it is now back then. They gave me a few months off from school, so I was just at home trying to manage it and control it. Luckily, my parents got me a computer, and I was just playing a lot of games like Dungeon Siege, if anyone remembers it.

This side of things was just normal playing, but my friends at school played Counter-Strike. We then started playing all together, just five friends playing nonstop on public servers. We entered a local tournament and did okay. After that, I just got a competitive bug.

In the UK, I would say I played at a high level, but nothing notable. I played 1.6 from 2003 to 2007 competitively, when I was taking it seriously. I still went to LANs after that, but just with friends and with mix teams, or a team that needed a sub.

I played Virtual Fighter 5 and got a silver medal at the WCG UK Qualifiers for that.

After that, I was friends with HeatoN and SpawN when I did press work. So my early press work was while I was playing, but I was still young. When I was 14/15, I started working on the SK Gaming website, just updating scores of matches, and that was it. Then I did light news, just reporting on roster moves. Now you look at HLTV or what you guys do, it is full news. But back then, it was just “this player left the roster”, no details or any interviews. Just getting the news out there, and these websites were big back then.

I became friends with HeatoN and SpawN, who were obviously two legends of 1.6. They are both personally close friends of mine now, but they had me on their website when they joined NIP. So we had SK insider and then NIP VIP. These were exclusive perks you got for being a member, paying monthly. This was what esports orgs would do in the early days to make extra money.

I was handling news updates for these websites, and finally got into writing feature articles. CARMAC, who now works very high up in ESL, worked at SK. He was my first boss at SK Gaming and wrote the journalist rules.

From the NIP days, I kept in contact with HeatoN and SpawN, and when they went to ZOWIE to make their first mouse, they brought me on because I knew about the game and the community. So they got me a job in 2009 with ZOWIE as a marketing assistant while I was still studying. During this time, I was still helping out on sites. But you have to remember, back then, there was no money; it was just pure passion. On the odd occasion, you would get a sponsored headset or a mousepad, maybe new clothing from teams.

In ZOWIE times, they asked me to help them with some extra marketing when the BenQ monitors came out. Now they are the same company, but back then they were separate and just had a partnership. All of the old SK and NIP players got involved with BenQ through ZOWIE. They then approached me, saying, “We want to send you to every event you choose. We will pay all the expenses. You will still be our marketing assistant, but you will run a website.”

We call the website UpCloseGamers, which is still up on my YouTube channel to this day. I was filming behind the players because it was not big arenas like it is today. You can just stand behind the players and watch the games. I would do interviews in no way like I would today. I would hide behind the camera and ask the question in full frame, focusing on the players. Some got loads of views, and some got crazy views back then because it was old school content. All of this is still visible today.

Then CS:GO came out, and it was terrible. I still wanted to play 1.6. But I had to go get a job because esports wasn’t paying much money. I left ZOWIE after a year of this project and got a normal job in marketing and sales. But I did everything marketing that I learnt from ZOWIE.

What that meant is when offers came to me in esports, the salaries would be so much lower than what I could get from a normal 9-5 job in London. So what I did was the hard work and bare minimum hours at these jobs. Doing these jobs, with real-world salaries, and then working in esports in the evening.

I first commentated with Pansy in 2012, and also did a lot of solo commentating. I hate casting, by the way, it is not for me. I can do co-streaming, but I can’t commentate.

Back then, I was travelling the world and living the dream, travelling to the likes of Korea and living with a StarCraft 2 team. I was getting to go to all these big events, but I wanted to do it full-time. The thing is, I needed money as I don’t come from a wealthy family that supports me. I got through all these different roles and said to myself, “If I work and spend all my spare time doing what I love, it will eventually work out.”

I did every job that came my way, online commentary, doing interviews at the first Gfinity, and doing B Stream commentating on a no-name tournament. If you look at the history of it all, some of these events were even covered on Liquipedia. I was doing everything.

I went to my first EPIC.LAN to commentate with this guy called Kyanite. We took our own equipment, our own mics, my PCs, and that was how we commentated back then. No producers or observers, just us. We got down in the trenches and covered it all.

Luckily, using my work ethic, I got put into different roles. Eventually, desk host, then more interviewer and now stage host. I just had this goal that I would not stop.

This is one thing that might make people think this is an inspiring story. My circumstances can be very different to other people. I have a very low bar. I didn’t study or go to university, I am not book smart. My fallback was just working a normal, terrible 9-5 job that paid okay money. People who went to uni will most likely be able to earn way more money and will have a better progression elsewhere, but chasing the dream might not make sense for them.

Chasing the dream for me made perfect sense. I have been around the block and done it all, I have made enemies, I have made friends, and come full circle with it all. I am now I am in a very good place, and very lucky to have been full-time since 2016, which was the year my son was born.

I moved to Berlin to work for a betting company called Unicorn, which turned out to have horrible people behind it. They sent me to loads of events and moved me to Germany. Ended up being a bad company in the end, but it gave me a full-time job in esports for a year and a half. A good thing, they let me go off and do events when ESL of Gfinity hired me.

Once I left them, I had no savings but more regular talent work coming in, and I could live quite comfortably, cheaply. I was fine with moving to a bad place and living in a not-so-nice area to make sure I could grind it up and save money wherever possible. When the career went, more events came in, and the rest is history.

You were saying you have been to so many UK events, do you have any favourite memories?

My saddest moment was when iSeries removed 1.6 and went to Source. That was terrible.

The last team to win had some friends of mine. We then all signed up to go together to the next one, and then, all of a sudden, they moved to Source. For business, it made sense, but for a struggling 1.6 community in the UK, it sucked.

I remember doing the first ESWC done by the SGL, which was amazing. Back then, you had 4Kings, Dignitas, my team, Redefined and lots of really cool teams. Even a full Scottish team.

Going to iSeries and winning a silver medal in a fighting game, nothing like CS, but still really cool. I got smashed in the finals, but second was acceptable. He absolutely smashed me 5-0, and you could really tell the skill gap.

I put all the time I was putting into 1.6, and just moved it to Virtual Fighter, on my own schedule. I could go to school and then practice in my free time.

Qualifying for X League TV, which was a TV channel for esports. The issue is, the channel closed down before we could go there, so I never actually got to go on the TV side.

I worked with CGS, if you remember that horrible thing. I worked with Stockholm Magnetic, HeatoN’s team. I never went to America, but worked online as a writer. I got pictures from the first combine with HeatoN, and it is funny because I have people tweet me or come into my Twitch chat and say I never did these things. I have all the pictures and all the proof. These photos can shut them up.

Finally, will we ever see James Banks back at an EPIC.LAN?

[Laughs] Tell Jon [Winkle] to invite me again. He doesn’t need to pay me much; I will be happy to do it on a whim for him. If I can make it work, let’s do it.

I meant more playing.

Oh playing? I will have to get an old school bunch together. I joked with SpawN at the HLTV Awards that we should get a 30+ group and bring that to an EPIC.LAN. Let me try and pull together SpawN, HeatoN, Potti, me and another over 30 and swing by an EPIC.LAN one time.

I would love to do it, it would be so much fun.