UK gamer desperate to travel to US and meet member of gaming team face to face after deaths of two of their teammates

A gamer from the UK who made a close group of friends playing video games over the past decade before two of them died is now on a mission to get to the US to meet the most distant member as he fears “anything could happen”.

Mark James, 30, from Southampton, has only one more member of his online “best friend” group to meet in person, Dalton Ward, 25, who lives in Texas more than 5,000 miles away.

Mark met six members of the group around 10 years ago while playing Grand Theft Auto, including Mike, Korey, Kieran, Ash, Luke and Dexter, all of whom were “scattered” across the UK.

Then a few years later, in 2015, he was introduced to Dalton during an online “gaming session” with his younger brother and they soon became thick as thieves, playing for hours every day.

But tragedy struck when two of the group’s members, Luke and Mike, suddenly died.

This is when Mark, who was devastated by the news, decided that he needed to meet its most distant member face to face in case something happened.

But the gamer, an account manager for Aviva insurance company, cannot afford the airfare to the US and so has set up a GoFundMe page to help cover the cost of his trip.

“I’ve got to meet Dalton,” Mark, who lives with his brother Kieran, told PA Real Life.

“It’s something I want to do in life before anything happens.

“After what happened to Mike, it went from ‘We’ll meet one day’ to ‘No, I really want to meet you as soon as possible’ for the simple reason that something could happen tomorrow.”

Mark originally met Mike, Korey, Kieran, Ash, Luke and Dexter through playing Grand Theft Auto V and soon the group, who went by the name of “Glokt”, became his closest friends.

“We all met through gaming,” he said.

“We all live in the UK but the closest person to me would be Kieran who’s an hour-and-a-half away from me.

“Everybody is just scattered around so we can’t just meet up.”

Over the years however, Mark, who used to travel up and down the country for work, found ways to meet each and every one of them, except Dalton.

He remembers meeting Mike for the first time at a video game event in 2013.

“The first time I met Mike was actually at the GTA V pre-launch,” he said.

“I was there drinking with everyone else and I remember seeing Mike just standing there with his brother looking bored.

“I just remember turning around and giving Mike a beer and being like ‘Hey, how are (you) going?’

“Literally, from that moment we just became best friends.”

Then a few years later, Mark was playing Ark: Survival Evolved, an action-adventure survival game with his younger brother, when he met Dalton for the first time.

They began gaming together, completing missions, building bases and breeding dinosaurs.

“We were playing every night, maybe six days a week, for probably five or six hours,” he said.

A few weeks later, Mark added Dalton on Facebook and Snapchat and the pair started speaking on a daily basis.

They have remained close friends ever since, even after finding partners and not gaming as much.

“We had spoken about meeting up at the time, but Dalton was working for the military and could not get the time off and I did not have the funds,” said Mark.

“We were kind of in a stalemate position, where we would talk every day and hopefully one day meet, but neither of us could do anything.”

In 2018, Mark and the others received some terrible news about their friend Luke.

“Luke hadn’t responded to any of my messages which was unlike him, because like with Mike and Dalton, we spoke every day,” he said.

“I hadn’t heard anything from him in a few days which seemed odd and then one day, his mum rang me – no idea how she got my number – and said ‘Have you heard about Luke?'”

After Luke’s death, it took a while for Mark and the others to start playing games together again.

“We all came together and got closer and everybody just made sure everybody was alright,” he said.

“We didn’t really want to game – we didn’t really know what to do.

“But we had to move on and not drag ourselves down because that’s what he would have wanted.”

Just five years later, Mark found himself once again being told that one of his best friends had died.

“So five years later it’s a repeat with Mike,” he said.

“We don’t really know what happened to him.

“Literally the night before we were having a laugh playing Formula 1.

“The only thing he said was ‘I’ve got a bit of a headache’ and that he was feeling a bit unwell.

“We had been gaming for a couple of hours, so we just said ‘OK, catch you in a bit’ and he said that he was going to bed and left.”

The next day, Mark returned home from work and logged on to the instant messaging platform Discord.

“I messaged Mike, no reply, which was a bit weird, and within three hours his partner rings me to tell me that he was gone.”

The cause of death has yet to be determined and an inquest is due to take place in December this year.

Mark has decided that in light of Mike’s death he needs to go and visit his friend Dalton as soon as possible.

“Two months ago when Mike died, it really hit home,” he said.

“I had met the six other guys and everybody is close.

“It just hit me, that I had met everybody, but I hadn’t met Dalton, I should really go and see him because you just don’t know what’s around the corner.”

Unfortunately he does not have the savings to pay for his transatlantic trip and following Dalton’s advice, has set up a GoFundMe to raise £600 which has already received £300 in donations.

To find out more about his fundraiser, visit: www.gofundme.com/f/8rzfp-once-in-a-life-time-trip.