Cody Conrod is a 21-year-old professional player of Fortnite, a popular online video game. Known online as Clix, he wants to help others enter the expensive world of competitive gaming. Through a new company he started on October 1, 2026, he has created the Dr3amin Access Fund, a program that gives young players the equipment they need to compete.

Getting started is not cheap, and it is becoming harder. The rapid growth of data centers has pushed up the prices of computers, graphics processors, and memory chips. According to Joost van Dreunen, a games industry researcher at New York University, beginners who are building their first computer now find it increasingly difficult to get the hardware they need.

Conrod understands the struggle well. His family could not afford a powerful computer when he started playing video games at age five, so he made do with a weak machine. After months of begging, his father wrote a contract: he had to repay about $1,600 within three months by working at the family’s company. Conrod paid it back with just two weeks of gaming earnings.

By 14, he had earned nearly $200,000 and left school to focus fully on gaming, though he still urges young players who are in school to keep their grades up. Now he hopes that removing the cost of a computer will encourage more parents to let their children try. In an earlier event, one gamer won a free PC from Conrod and has since turned professional. “Those stories fire me up,” Conrod said.