Guinness recognizes Kat ‘Mystik’ Gunn as highest earning female gamer

Guinness World Records has slowly begun to mark esports milestones, and will recognize a trailblazing player for her career achievements in its new edition.

Katherine “Mystik” Gunn will be honored in the latest edition of the Guinness World Records book—the Gamer’s edition—as the highest earning female video gamer of all time with more than $122,000 in winnings to her name.

The bulk of that came from her victory in the second season of the WCG Ultimate Gamer reality show broadcast on SyFy in 2010. Gunn took the $100,000 top prize by beating Counter-Strike pro Yaz “ClowN” Ammari in a final episode showdown culminating in a one-on-one Halo: Reach battle.

Guinness hails Gunn for her Halo achievements, going so far as featuring her in a professional photo shoot wearing a costume of Master Chief, the game’s iconic lead character. Halo may be the first game she played, and the final game of her Ultimate Gamer run (which included over a dozen titles from various video game genres), but it wasn’t the one that put her on the pro gaming map. She earned her first big prize money with Dead or Alive 4, where she quickly established herself as a top female competitor. In 2007, Carolina Core drafted her in the third round of the Championship Gaming Series draft as their female Dead or Alive player. She helped Core to a second place finish that year, earning her $15,000.

Now primarily a streamer under Team Dignitas, Gunn told Guinness she was pleased to be recognized for achievements in pro gaming.

The big book of records recently took an interest in gaming and professional gaming in particular, focusing on the highest earning teams and individuals. That’s a list now inevitably driven by The International, the annual Dota 2 championship which hosted an $18 million event this year. The International 4 winners Newbee, who Guinness honored in July of last year, were usurped by The International 5 winners Evil Geniuses as the largest team prize money winners in a single event last month.

The record keeper also now lists March 15, 2014 as the day that Twitch achieved its highest peak concurrent viewership of 826,778 as fans tuned in to watch events like ESL Katowice.