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Kim "Violet" Dong Hwan will be able to live and work as a professional StarCraft 2 player in the United States, report the Daily Dot. In 2013, Violet has been struggling with visa issued, making him forfeit several important WCS matches.

When WCS America initially started, Violet was considered among the favorites to take the tournament home. The Korean Zerg had many high finishes to his account, including gold medals from IEM Sao Paulo and MLG Spring Arena 2, second places at NASL 4 and IPL 5 and top fours at IEM Cologne and HSC IV.

It would so happen that visa issues would twice be the reason for Violet to abandon Blizzard's league and the hefty prize pools that went with it. As he was unable to fly to the offline portion of the tournament, in May, Violet forfeited WCS America Season 1 and in August he did the same with WCS America Season 2. 

According to Violet's manager Andrew Tomlinson, the pursuit for America visa has been a "do or die" for Violet as it would determine whether he'd continue his progaming career or join the military. He also says that their struggles with the US embassy came dangerously close to a fallout when in November Violet and Tomlinson were warned that if the former tried to entire the country without the proper documents again, he'd be put on the no-fly list and barred from the country forever.

Daily Dot's article further states that Violet and his management reached out to eSports-connected parties to aid them in getting Violet an official recognition. Jacqueline Geller from Blizzard is said to have "pushed the issue withing the company" while COO Paul Sams "wrote a support letter and worked extensively with CSA to provide a realistic forecast of StarCraft's next five years as an eSport". Other who helped include NASL CEO Russel Pfister, Twitch.tv senior manager of partnerships Marcus "djWHEAT" Graham, Machinima head of eSports Ryan "Fwiz" Wyatt and Axiom eSports founder Genna "Intricacy" Bain. 

The application process for Violet came to an end on December 9th when the Korean finally got his visa approved. The StarCraft progamer will be able to live, compete and earn a salary in the US for the next five years with a P-1A visa - the same way that League of Legends professionals do it - and is officially the first StarCraft 2 player to be recognized as a professional athlete.

Source: The Daily Dot