Taking the Next Step – an Interview with David Kim about the gaming industry and getting a job in it. By SoCoandCoke
I have had the pleasure of talking with David, one of the balance team leaders at Relic, for a few months now and used his insight and expertise to assist with some of the things that we are doing with DoWPro. Recently, David and I have been discussing what it takes to break into the industry which is full of some of the best and brightest computer minds out there. Gaming may seem like a recreation to most people, but make no mistake; it is a billion dollar world-wide business. In turn, finding a job can be difficult at the entry-level position.
At the request of people who are active in the DoW community, I asked David for an interview. This interview is for those people who are interested in breaking in to the gaming industry by using their knowledge and skills developed either as a gamer, a modder, or education as a backdrop for entrance into one of the most elite and prized professions out there: video game development. David was kind enough to grant me this interview and I feel that it can provide you with some first-hand knowledge from one of the up and coming gaming geniuses in the industry today.
1. I’d first like to gather some basic information about you. Please state your name, where you grew up, and where you are now.
My name is Tae Yeon (David) Kim. I was born in Seoul, Korea and lived there most of my life. After graduating high school, I moved to Canada to study computer science at Trinity Western University, and lived here ever since. I’ve finished getting my computer science degree recently, and have been working at Relic Entertainment since a bit over a year ago.
2. Great, lets start at the beginning of your journey so to speak. What was the first video game you played, how old were you and please recall the experience for us.
The very first video game I’ve ever played was the Dragon Ball Z RPG game on the Famicom. This game included an interesting system of using cards to move around, as well as to fight battles. Different cards were used to determine how much a player can move per turn, as well as the different attacks a player can use during combat. This game was just a typical story based RPG game that doesn’t require fast hand eye coordination by the players. I was mainly only a fan of RPG games, and never even thought I would be interested in fast paced, real time games.
3. What was the first RTS that you played? Recall that experience and how was the RTS gaming experience different for you than for other games?
The very first RTS game I’ve played was the first Command and Conquer. Although I’ve played the single player all the way through and played some multiplayer games vs. my friends over modem, I did not really get into this genre. I can’t really say I got into RTS games at this point, but it was interesting to try out this genre for the first time.
4. Yeah, I think we all played C&C back in the day. My first was Dune II, which was very similar to C&C. Anyhow, which game did you start off with playing competitively?
Starcraft was the game that I started playing competitively. What first drew me to competitive gaming the first professional Starcraft tournament that I watched on TV. This tournament was on channel “Tooniverse”, a cartoon/anime channel. I was fascinated by this, and I wanted to some day compete in the most competitive tournaments.
From this point on, I started playing only 1on1 games vs. the best Starcraft players I could find on battle.net. On Battle.net, there was a popular channel called Namomo that top Korean players used to play vs. better opponents because the game’s ladder system was unplayable due to cheats. I remember playing vs. people in that channel for weeks, and I literally lost every single game I’ve played. Interestingly enough, I did not feel frustrated with the losses, but instead I wanted to play more and more games to be able to learn what I had never experienced before. During this time, I was playing at least 15+ hours per day, and was only concentrating on improving my skills.
After a few months, I started winning most of my games, and started realizing that this channel didn’t really have much to offer. Therefore, I was looking for more opportunities to practice vs. better players and was lucky to join a Korean guild called AOS. This guild had a few professional gamers that I could practice with, and the most successful player to come out of this guild was Kingdom, one of the most well known Protoss players of all time.
I wanted to compete in tournaments as my guild members did, but didn’t really get the opportunity to do so, because I was living in Canada at this time. However, I did participate in tournaments in Canada, and some of the most memorable tournaments include my defeat vs. Smuft in the Vancouver WCG finals and my 3-0 win vs. Henry Ho in the Mimos Starcraft Tournament. Smuft was one of the most famous Canadian Protoss players, and Henry Ho was a Chinese player that scored 4th place in the world wide finals of KBK.
Thinking back, it was the drive to get better and to beat opponents that I could never imagine of beating before that helped me improve in my competitive gaming skills in this game. I would say that it was more the competition that got me into RTS gaming and not RTS games itself.
5. Wow, so you really put your heart and soul into it for a while. I would have been discouraged after taking so many initial losses or found easier competition. Seems like you accrued a lot of knowledge from that experience. So, which RTS game did you have the most success with?
Although Starcraft was my first experience with competitive gaming, I had more successes with Warcraft 3 as a professional gamer. Ever since the game came out, I had practiced and struggled to be good, and this game offered an incredible ladder system that allowed me to practice vs. top players. In addition, I joined the most famous Korean guild on the USWest server called West, and I was lucky in that one of my friends living in Vancouver was also a top player at the game. We practiced together on a daily basis at the PC room that he owned, and managed to be a top player on the server.
Using this experience, I’ve traveled to Korea multiple times during summer vacation to compete in preliminaries of professional tournaments. I had some success in a couple preliminaries. The first was the Yeca Station National tournament. This tournament included 32 offline preliminaries held in 32 different locations all over Korea. The winners of each tournament participated in the national final. There were a few professional players in the preliminary rounds, and I was lucky to manage 1st place to move onto the national finals. I tried my best in the final rounds, and managed to score 4th place. The year after, I managed 10th place in the online preliminaries of WCG Korea, and made it up to the quarter finals of the WCG Korea finals.
Because I was living in Canada studying for my computer science degree, I did not have the opportunity to compete in professional matches as frequently as I wanted. However, my professional gaming experiences were definitely a plus, and beating famous players in face to face tournaments was a very enjoyable and satisfying experience for me.
6. So, the time devoted to Starcraft developed your expertise with games in general, and paved the way for your success with other games. How much time a day, in general then, do you have to dedicate to playing a given game to be successful at the competitive/professional level?
This really depends on the game and the competition. For example, in order to compete at the professional level in Starcraft, one must basically spend every single hour of every single day. The competition is just that fierce, and even the best professional players barely have any time to do anything else besides focusing their full efforts on Starcraft alone.
On the other hand, Warcraft 3 did not require this much effort, and I managed to compete at the professional level by only playing a few hours per day. There are a few different reasons for this but one of the major reasons include Warcraft 3 is an easier game to master, and most of the top RTS players compete in Starcraft at the moment.
7. That doesn’t seem so bad I suppose, but I guess WC3 was much easier given your experience with StarCraft. From your point of view, what is the life of a professional gamer like? How demanding is it?
Because I was mostly a part time professional gamer, I can’t understand this with 100% accuracy, but I do understand the harsh realities a professional gamer faces. A professional gamer basically practices playing his or her game all day everyday aiming to score well in important tournaments. This is not as fun and easy as it sounds, because every loss hurts very badly, and it is mostly the very top, famous players that can get anything out of gaming as a profession.
It is true that there are players such as Boxer that every RTS gamer knows, but it is also true that the not so famous professional gamers make close to nothing and have trouble continuing their careers as professional gamers. However, what draws gamers to professional gaming is the satisfaction of beating other top players, more than to make a living out of it. I hope one day, professional gaming will be as huge as popular sports so that more gamers will have chances to compete in professional gaming matches.
8. It sounds like the balanced approach of dedicating some time to gaming and the other time to obtaining your degree helped in rounding out your development. Would you say that it is important to take a balanced approach to gaming? Or, if you have the talent to succeed at the top level, should you “go for it” so to speak?
I guess that would be different for every gamer. In the end, every gamer has to decide if the time spent playing games will be worth it. The reason why I split my time and didn’t concentrate on just gaming alone was that I wanted to plan for the future, in case gaming didn’t work out for me. However, it’s also true that players that spend all their efforts on gaming will typically have better results. So depending on what a person wants with his life, the answer to this question will be different, and this personal answer is a very important one for any competitive gamer.
9. So on some level, your talent and expertise dictates the amount of time you must devote to practice. Do you feel that it is simply easier for some gamers such as yourself as opposed to others?
Of course. Some gamers have trouble staying on task and practicing game after game, whereas others have no problems. Personally though, I don’t really have trouble practicing for important matches, and try to get help from others to practice. However, I must also admit that if I had to practice 15+ hours a day for years, it will definitely not be easy. I’m just glad that I don’t have to make this commitment, and am also glad to be developing games.
10. What defines a truly great RTS gamer and how did you live up to that definition?
The main and only thing living up to a great RTS gamer is results, and results alone. No matter how much a person practices, or even beats professional gamers online, it’s the results such as ladder rankings results or tournament results that define a great RTS gamer. If there is nothing to show as a gamer, then it’s difficult to get the recognition as a great RTS gamer.
I do have some ladder and tournament results, but I wouldn’t consider myself as one of the truly great RTS gamers. The reason is that I don’t feel I gave it my very best to compete, mostly because I had other plans for my life, and just didn’t have the time to dedicate myself fully to professional gaming. However, for the effort I put in, I’m personally very satisfied with my results.
11. Right, well I think you took more of a balance approach to gaming which has helped you attain the success you have had today. To be a rising start in the industry like yourself, it seems you have to have that balanced approach. In terms of professional gaming, however, given that results are what matter, what are the “tools” that a gamer must possess to enjoy the level of success that you and other were able to achieve? By that I mean, what are the extraordinary talents that differentiate one player from the next?
The most important trait of a competitive gamer is to understand games well. By this I don’t necessarily mean the gamer must be a creative gamer that consistently develops new, working strategies, but someone that can understand why a certain strategy works, and what must be done to get the most out of it or even to counter it. I believe this is the true talent of a professional gamer, and this talent is definitely a plus when it comes to game balance or game development.
I say this because a game developer must know why elements in games or strategies that come out of these elements make the game enjoyable. In addition, a game balancer must know how to take strategies apart, and understand them fully in order to make correct decisions on different balance issues. I believe a competitive gamer that understands not only his own strategies, but other people’s ideas and strategies as well will make great developers.
12. How did you use your fame, expertise and talents to obtain a job in the gaming industry? What helped you the most and differentiated you from the thousands of others that were vying for the same type of position you were able to first obtain in the industry?
I didn’t really try to use my competitive gaming experiences to get into the gaming industry, and did not even know this sort of experience helps in game development. However, in one of the tournaments I won, the previous Balance Manager and now the Associate Producer of COH online, Samson Mow, offered me the position. I was just finishing up school, and thought it would be a fun experience so I started working in the gaming industry.
I guess what really differentiated myself from other applicants was what I had to offer in terms of competitive gaming. It is true that in order to get into game design, most people have to start from the very bottom as QA testers, but I believe I was lucky in that due to my greater understanding of games compared to an average gamer, I was able to start from game balancing instead. In other words, I would definitely argue being extremely good at games has its huge pluses when it comes to finding a job in the industry.
13. How did your success at the competitive level make you well suited for the gaming industry? Was it gaming that helped you the most, your education, or was the whole package necessary to find success?
Competitive gaming definitely helped me out in my understanding of game development. However, what I did have the most trouble with is the fact that when I was just a gamer, I was only really playing to win, and didn’t worry about balance issues, or design issues. I did not care that certain units were never used, or if a unit or strategy was too powerful and always tried to find ways around the strategies I had trouble fighting against.
Working in the game industry, I am learning the skills needed to develop games, as opposed to mastering how to play them. I realized how fascinating it is to be able to control the games to play out in different ways, as well as fix problems with the games. I really love being able to experience this other aspect of gaming, and am trying my best to improve myself.
Gaming is basically the only main thing that helped me get my current job. I believe there is really no real degree that prepares someone to get into game balancing or game design. At the same time, I do believe practicing to think and write critically by studying in university definitely helps. The obvious reason is that if someone has a great idea, if he is unable to fully portray this idea to other people, it could potentially never be implemented.
14. Again, it sounds like your innate ability walk the fine line of developing your talents in school while dedicating sufficient time to game-playing allowed you to enjoy success in life you enjoy today as one of the most sought after people in the gaming industry, is that a fair statement?
To be honest, it’s very difficult for me to argue that the path that I have chosen has given me the most optimal results. However, considering what I have now, I definitely do not regret spending so much time on gaming, as well as going to school to obtain my degree. In other words, I’m very satisfied with where I’m at right now, and although things could have turned out better if I had done some things differently, I don’t bother worrying about it.
15. What are the key elements or traits one must possess to be a multi-game balance designer/leader?
The biggest element must be the ability to pick out the real problems from various issues that always come up on a daily basis. In order to do this, the one in charge of balance should definitely understand the flow of every match-up at the top level of play, even if he or she is unable to perform at that level. I believe that out of all issues provided by both the community and even the game developers are never always valid, and a balance designer should be able to analyze every issue critically, and make decisions according to his or her unbiased opinions.
16. Ok, now lets move on to a discussion about actual game-crafting and your interpretation thereof. What is your theory on balancing; what do you hope for, generally speaking? Is it balance in every racial match-up and on every map? Or, do you just strive for generally balance so that the best player will win the majority of the games in the long run?
My personal theory of balancing would include fixing only the major problems with the game as directly as possible, and let the gamers figure out their own answers to minor problems. I’m not saying this is what happens in the game industry, but this is just my personal opinion on balance, and this is the way it would be if I ever have full control over balance. Personally, I have no idea why many problems are not dealt with directly.
I know that it is difficult for most game developers to resist the temptation to change too much to make the game better, and I struggle with this myself as well. However, the fact of the matter is, from a gamer’s point of view, no one wants to play a game that is drastically changed after every new patch. I say this because as a gamer, this is what I felt. Before a game is released, I have no problems with extremely drastic changes that go in, but patches and even expansions to games should only fix problems, not possibly introduce new ones by changing the fundamental mechanics of the game.
For balancing, it is impossible to balance every match-up on single every map. However, I do believe every racial match-up should be balanced on the most reasonable map first. For example, because 1on1 games in Starcraft is mostly played on Lost Temple, it makes the most sense that every match-up is balance on that map first. After this, it is the maps that should be balanced accordingly. The perfect example I could think of for this is that in Starcraft, Zerg can’t compete in island maps. Therefore, all competitive tournaments don’t have any fully island maps. It’s true that having as much variety in maps as possible is fun, but not if it’s at the cost of good balance.
I don’t think the question should be best players winning majority of games, but this should be the conclusion of good balance. The main goal should be game balance at a certain skill level. Players with equal skill should have equal opportunities to win, no matter what match-up they’re playing.
17. Is balance what defines a truly defines a truly great RTS game, or is it something else in your opinion? What are the key components of a great RTS game in your opinion?
In my opinion the most important factor in defining a truly great RTS is popularity among gamers. In other words, it’s not how much profit a game made, or how great the game critiques praise a game, but only the popularity from gamers. Gamers only continue playing games that are true great year after year, and this should be the main determining factor in defining a great RTS game. Certain games make huge profits because of different reasons such as company names, popular themes, and so on, but if most gamers only play the game for a few months, I wouldn’t say it’s a truly great RTS game no matter how much money the company made.
18. In what way, do you think competitive RTS gaming could be made more accessible? What could gaming companies do to make it more accessible?
I guess the answer to this is simple. Game developers must create games that are fun and have a lot of depth in game play so that more and more gamers play the game. In addition, the game must be easy to understand and fun to watch for the spectators. Without a huge audience, competitive gaming is not possible. In other words, great replayability is the key, and the game must be fun to play and watch for a long period of time.
19. You have heard of the DoWPro Mod for DoW, a game you were one of the developers for. For many of the great computer games out there, gamers will spend time and money modding those games because they enjoy it. How can people who mod use those experiences to obtain employment in the gaming industry?
I know the DoWPro mod, because it’s the biggest Mod for DoW. I’m fascinated by the idea that gamers are willing to spend so much of their time and effort helping to develop a greater reputation for their favorite games. I respect everyone that spends so much effort to improve games, including professional players that contribute to making games more popular, and modding teams that keep the popularity of the game up even when the actual games start dying out.
Because modding teams use the same tools that are used by game developers to create different games. I believe it is a huge plus to know the design tools before getting into game design. In addition, the great dedication proven by creating such mods, and supporting them extensively must also be a huge factor in obtaining jobs in the gaming industry.
I personally don’t know anyone that got into game design with only this experience alone, but if this experience is back up by other things, such as work experience in the industry, or extraordinary gaming experience, one will have a huge success in getting into game design. Because nothing “official” is really set up academically to prepare people for game design, actual hands on experience such as modding the game is more beneficial than trying to take some game design courses that aren’t even really recognized.
20. What are some other ways of obtaining a job in the gaming industry? What do gaming companies need to see before they will hire a given person? What is your recommendation to someone reading this who wants to get in on game development?
When it comes to trying to start in the industry from anything other than game balancing positions, I wouldn’t be the best person to ask. However, from what I’ve seen, if one is trying to get into programming, he must have the degree and/or programming experience background in order to start for the first time. For art or animation, developing a portfolio to prove one’s artistic talents is necessary. For game design, game designing schools aren’t very highly thought of, and it would most likely be better to have the work experience in the industry, than trying to find good game design schools.
If there is someone like me, that is good at games and have the tournament/ladder experiences to show for it, I would very strongly recommend taking the same route that I did with starting with game balance. The reason is simple, what would you prefer doing? Going through every single unit/map/mission in the game over and over to find bugs or playing the games normally at the competitive level and discuss issues that come to solve them?
21. What is your long term goal in the gaming industry?
My biggest goal in the gaming industry is to help make an RTS game that will take over the Starcraft professional gaming scene in Korea. I guess this doesn’t necessarily have to be my long term goal, but this is what I want most from the game industry. The reason is that I’m extremely excited about what’s going on with competitive gaming in Korea, and never want to see it die out. Korea is the leader when it comes to competitive gaming, and I must see it grow, not disappear.
Although Starcraft is still huge in Korea, there is no guarantee that it’ll always be as big as it is now, and if no suitable game is released, the whole professional gamine scene could potentially disappear. This is the last thing I want to see happen, and if given the chance, I will do my best to create games that have the potential to take over this professional gaming scene before it dies out.
Thanks for the interview David, I'm sure this will be valuable for those people who want to turn their passion for gaming into something they can make a living from. Cheers, and I'll will talk to you later.
personally this is of dire importance to me because im currently in college now as a CS major hoping to graduate working for a game company as a designer/balance tester.
im just curios if they would know any of the people i could possibly contact to get known in the business? Currently my only extensively known languages are C# and possibly C++, but java and html are in the works.
basically what im asking is who can i talk to to apply for such a position?
By SoCoandCoke
I have had the pleasure of talking with David, one of the balance team leaders at Relic, for a few months now and used his insight and expertise to assist with some of the things that we are doing with DoWPro. Recently, David and I have been discussing what it takes to break into the industry which is full of some of the best and brightest computer minds out there. Gaming may seem like a recreation to most people, but make no mistake; it is a billion dollar world-wide business. In turn, finding a job can be difficult at the entry-level position.
At the request of people who are active in the DoW community, I asked David for an interview. This interview is for those people who are interested in breaking in to the gaming industry by using their knowledge and skills developed either as a gamer, a modder, or education as a backdrop for entrance into one of the most elite and prized professions out there: video game development. David was kind enough to grant me this interview and I feel that it can provide you with some first-hand knowledge from one of the up and coming gaming geniuses in the industry today.
1. I’d first like to gather some basic information about you. Please state your name, where you grew up, and where you are now.
My name is Tae Yeon (David) Kim. I was born in Seoul, Korea and lived there most of my life. After graduating high school, I moved to Canada to study computer science at Trinity Western University, and lived here ever since. I’ve finished getting my computer science degree recently, and have been working at Relic Entertainment since a bit over a year ago.
2. Great, lets start at the beginning of your journey so to speak. What was the first video game you played, how old were you and please recall the experience for us.
The very first video game I’ve ever played was the Dragon Ball Z RPG game on the Famicom. This game included an interesting system of using cards to move around, as well as to fight battles. Different cards were used to determine how much a player can move per turn, as well as the different attacks a player can use during combat. This game was just a typical story based RPG game that doesn’t require fast hand eye coordination by the players. I was mainly only a fan of RPG games, and never even thought I would be interested in fast paced, real time games.
3. What was the first RTS that you played? Recall that experience and how was the RTS gaming experience different for you than for other games?
The very first RTS game I’ve played was the first Command and Conquer. Although I’ve played the single player all the way through and played some multiplayer games vs. my friends over modem, I did not really get into this genre. I can’t really say I got into RTS games at this point, but it was interesting to try out this genre for the first time.
4. Yeah, I think we all played C&C back in the day. My first was Dune II, which was very similar to C&C. Anyhow, which game did you start off with playing competitively?
Starcraft was the game that I started playing competitively. What first drew me to competitive gaming the first professional Starcraft tournament that I watched on TV. This tournament was on channel “Tooniverse”, a cartoon/anime channel. I was fascinated by this, and I wanted to some day compete in the most competitive tournaments.
From this point on, I started playing only 1on1 games vs. the best Starcraft players I could find on battle.net. On Battle.net, there was a popular channel called Namomo that top Korean players used to play vs. better opponents because the game’s ladder system was unplayable due to cheats. I remember playing vs. people in that channel for weeks, and I literally lost every single game I’ve played. Interestingly enough, I did not feel frustrated with the losses, but instead I wanted to play more and more games to be able to learn what I had never experienced before. During this time, I was playing at least 15+ hours per day, and was only concentrating on improving my skills.
After a few months, I started winning most of my games, and started realizing that this channel didn’t really have much to offer. Therefore, I was looking for more opportunities to practice vs. better players and was lucky to join a Korean guild called AOS. This guild had a few professional gamers that I could practice with, and the most successful player to come out of this guild was Kingdom, one of the most well known Protoss players of all time.
I wanted to compete in tournaments as my guild members did, but didn’t really get the opportunity to do so, because I was living in Canada at this time. However, I did participate in tournaments in Canada, and some of the most memorable tournaments include my defeat vs. Smuft in the Vancouver WCG finals and my 3-0 win vs. Henry Ho in the Mimos Starcraft Tournament. Smuft was one of the most famous Canadian Protoss players, and Henry Ho was a Chinese player that scored 4th place in the world wide finals of KBK.
Thinking back, it was the drive to get better and to beat opponents that I could never imagine of beating before that helped me improve in my competitive gaming skills in this game. I would say that it was more the competition that got me into RTS gaming and not RTS games itself.
5. Wow, so you really put your heart and soul into it for a while. I would have been discouraged after taking so many initial losses or found easier competition. Seems like you accrued a lot of knowledge from that experience. So, which RTS game did you have the most success with?
Although Starcraft was my first experience with competitive gaming, I had more successes with Warcraft 3 as a professional gamer. Ever since the game came out, I had practiced and struggled to be good, and this game offered an incredible ladder system that allowed me to practice vs. top players. In addition, I joined the most famous Korean guild on the USWest server called West, and I was lucky in that one of my friends living in Vancouver was also a top player at the game. We practiced together on a daily basis at the PC room that he owned, and managed to be a top player on the server.
Using this experience, I’ve traveled to Korea multiple times during summer vacation to compete in preliminaries of professional tournaments. I had some success in a couple preliminaries. The first was the Yeca Station National tournament. This tournament included 32 offline preliminaries held in 32 different locations all over Korea. The winners of each tournament participated in the national final. There were a few professional players in the preliminary rounds, and I was lucky to manage 1st place to move onto the national finals. I tried my best in the final rounds, and managed to score 4th place. The year after, I managed 10th place in the online preliminaries of WCG Korea, and made it up to the quarter finals of the WCG Korea finals.
Because I was living in Canada studying for my computer science degree, I did not have the opportunity to compete in professional matches as frequently as I wanted. However, my professional gaming experiences were definitely a plus, and beating famous players in face to face tournaments was a very enjoyable and satisfying experience for me.
6. So, the time devoted to Starcraft developed your expertise with games in general, and paved the way for your success with other games. How much time a day, in general then, do you have to dedicate to playing a given game to be successful at the competitive/professional level?
This really depends on the game and the competition. For example, in order to compete at the professional level in Starcraft, one must basically spend every single hour of every single day. The competition is just that fierce, and even the best professional players barely have any time to do anything else besides focusing their full efforts on Starcraft alone.
On the other hand, Warcraft 3 did not require this much effort, and I managed to compete at the professional level by only playing a few hours per day. There are a few different reasons for this but one of the major reasons include Warcraft 3 is an easier game to master, and most of the top RTS players compete in Starcraft at the moment.
7. That doesn’t seem so bad I suppose, but I guess WC3 was much easier given your experience with StarCraft. From your point of view, what is the life of a professional gamer like? How demanding is it?
Because I was mostly a part time professional gamer, I can’t understand this with 100% accuracy, but I do understand the harsh realities a professional gamer faces. A professional gamer basically practices playing his or her game all day everyday aiming to score well in important tournaments. This is not as fun and easy as it sounds, because every loss hurts very badly, and it is mostly the very top, famous players that can get anything out of gaming as a profession.
It is true that there are players such as Boxer that every RTS gamer knows, but it is also true that the not so famous professional gamers make close to nothing and have trouble continuing their careers as professional gamers. However, what draws gamers to professional gaming is the satisfaction of beating other top players, more than to make a living out of it. I hope one day, professional gaming will be as huge as popular sports so that more gamers will have chances to compete in professional gaming matches.
8. It sounds like the balanced approach of dedicating some time to gaming and the other time to obtaining your degree helped in rounding out your development. Would you say that it is important to take a balanced approach to gaming? Or, if you have the talent to succeed at the top level, should you “go for it” so to speak?
I guess that would be different for every gamer. In the end, every gamer has to decide if the time spent playing games will be worth it. The reason why I split my time and didn’t concentrate on just gaming alone was that I wanted to plan for the future, in case gaming didn’t work out for me. However, it’s also true that players that spend all their efforts on gaming will typically have better results. So depending on what a person wants with his life, the answer to this question will be different, and this personal answer is a very important one for any competitive gamer.
9. So on some level, your talent and expertise dictates the amount of time you must devote to practice. Do you feel that it is simply easier for some gamers such as yourself as opposed to others?
Of course. Some gamers have trouble staying on task and practicing game after game, whereas others have no problems. Personally though, I don’t really have trouble practicing for important matches, and try to get help from others to practice. However, I must also admit that if I had to practice 15+ hours a day for years, it will definitely not be easy. I’m just glad that I don’t have to make this commitment, and am also glad to be developing games.
10. What defines a truly great RTS gamer and how did you live up to that definition?
The main and only thing living up to a great RTS gamer is results, and results alone. No matter how much a person practices, or even beats professional gamers online, it’s the results such as ladder rankings results or tournament results that define a great RTS gamer. If there is nothing to show as a gamer, then it’s difficult to get the recognition as a great RTS gamer.
I do have some ladder and tournament results, but I wouldn’t consider myself as one of the truly great RTS gamers. The reason is that I don’t feel I gave it my very best to compete, mostly because I had other plans for my life, and just didn’t have the time to dedicate myself fully to professional gaming. However, for the effort I put in, I’m personally very satisfied with my results.
11. Right, well I think you took more of a balance approach to gaming which has helped you attain the success you have had today. To be a rising start in the industry like yourself, it seems you have to have that balanced approach. In terms of professional gaming, however, given that results are what matter, what are the “tools” that a gamer must possess to enjoy the level of success that you and other were able to achieve? By that I mean, what are the extraordinary talents that differentiate one player from the next?
The most important trait of a competitive gamer is to understand games well. By this I don’t necessarily mean the gamer must be a creative gamer that consistently develops new, working strategies, but someone that can understand why a certain strategy works, and what must be done to get the most out of it or even to counter it. I believe this is the true talent of a professional gamer, and this talent is definitely a plus when it comes to game balance or game development.
I say this because a game developer must know why elements in games or strategies that come out of these elements make the game enjoyable. In addition, a game balancer must know how to take strategies apart, and understand them fully in order to make correct decisions on different balance issues. I believe a competitive gamer that understands not only his own strategies, but other people’s ideas and strategies as well will make great developers.
12. How did you use your fame, expertise and talents to obtain a job in the gaming industry? What helped you the most and differentiated you from the thousands of others that were vying for the same type of position you were able to first obtain in the industry?
I didn’t really try to use my competitive gaming experiences to get into the gaming industry, and did not even know this sort of experience helps in game development. However, in one of the tournaments I won, the previous Balance Manager and now the Associate Producer of COH online, Samson Mow, offered me the position. I was just finishing up school, and thought it would be a fun experience so I started working in the gaming industry.
I guess what really differentiated myself from other applicants was what I had to offer in terms of competitive gaming. It is true that in order to get into game design, most people have to start from the very bottom as QA testers, but I believe I was lucky in that due to my greater understanding of games compared to an average gamer, I was able to start from game balancing instead. In other words, I would definitely argue being extremely good at games has its huge pluses when it comes to finding a job in the industry.
13. How did your success at the competitive level make you well suited for the gaming industry? Was it gaming that helped you the most, your education, or was the whole package necessary to find success?
Competitive gaming definitely helped me out in my understanding of game development. However, what I did have the most trouble with is the fact that when I was just a gamer, I was only really playing to win, and didn’t worry about balance issues, or design issues. I did not care that certain units were never used, or if a unit or strategy was too powerful and always tried to find ways around the strategies I had trouble fighting against.
Working in the game industry, I am learning the skills needed to develop games, as opposed to mastering how to play them. I realized how fascinating it is to be able to control the games to play out in different ways, as well as fix problems with the games. I really love being able to experience this other aspect of gaming, and am trying my best to improve myself.
Gaming is basically the only main thing that helped me get my current job. I believe there is really no real degree that prepares someone to get into game balancing or game design. At the same time, I do believe practicing to think and write critically by studying in university definitely helps. The obvious reason is that if someone has a great idea, if he is unable to fully portray this idea to other people, it could potentially never be implemented.
14. Again, it sounds like your innate ability walk the fine line of developing your talents in school while dedicating sufficient time to game-playing allowed you to enjoy success in life you enjoy today as one of the most sought after people in the gaming industry, is that a fair statement?
To be honest, it’s very difficult for me to argue that the path that I have chosen has given me the most optimal results. However, considering what I have now, I definitely do not regret spending so much time on gaming, as well as going to school to obtain my degree. In other words, I’m very satisfied with where I’m at right now, and although things could have turned out better if I had done some things differently, I don’t bother worrying about it.
15. What are the key elements or traits one must possess to be a multi-game balance designer/leader?
The biggest element must be the ability to pick out the real problems from various issues that always come up on a daily basis. In order to do this, the one in charge of balance should definitely understand the flow of every match-up at the top level of play, even if he or she is unable to perform at that level. I believe that out of all issues provided by both the community and even the game developers are never always valid, and a balance designer should be able to analyze every issue critically, and make decisions according to his or her unbiased opinions.
16. Ok, now lets move on to a discussion about actual game-crafting and your interpretation thereof. What is your theory on balancing; what do you hope for, generally speaking? Is it balance in every racial match-up and on every map? Or, do you just strive for generally balance so that the best player will win the majority of the games in the long run?
My personal theory of balancing would include fixing only the major problems with the game as directly as possible, and let the gamers figure out their own answers to minor problems. I’m not saying this is what happens in the game industry, but this is just my personal opinion on balance, and this is the way it would be if I ever have full control over balance. Personally, I have no idea why many problems are not dealt with directly.
I know that it is difficult for most game developers to resist the temptation to change too much to make the game better, and I struggle with this myself as well. However, the fact of the matter is, from a gamer’s point of view, no one wants to play a game that is drastically changed after every new patch. I say this because as a gamer, this is what I felt. Before a game is released, I have no problems with extremely drastic changes that go in, but patches and even expansions to games should only fix problems, not possibly introduce new ones by changing the fundamental mechanics of the game.
For balancing, it is impossible to balance every match-up on single every map. However, I do believe every racial match-up should be balanced on the most reasonable map first. For example, because 1on1 games in Starcraft is mostly played on Lost Temple, it makes the most sense that every match-up is balance on that map first. After this, it is the maps that should be balanced accordingly. The perfect example I could think of for this is that in Starcraft, Zerg can’t compete in island maps. Therefore, all competitive tournaments don’t have any fully island maps. It’s true that having as much variety in maps as possible is fun, but not if it’s at the cost of good balance.
I don’t think the question should be best players winning majority of games, but this should be the conclusion of good balance. The main goal should be game balance at a certain skill level. Players with equal skill should have equal opportunities to win, no matter what match-up they’re playing.
17. Is balance what defines a truly defines a truly great RTS game, or is it something else in your opinion? What are the key components of a great RTS game in your opinion?
In my opinion the most important factor in defining a truly great RTS is popularity among gamers. In other words, it’s not how much profit a game made, or how great the game critiques praise a game, but only the popularity from gamers. Gamers only continue playing games that are true great year after year, and this should be the main determining factor in defining a great RTS game. Certain games make huge profits because of different reasons such as company names, popular themes, and so on, but if most gamers only play the game for a few months, I wouldn’t say it’s a truly great RTS game no matter how much money the company made.
18. In what way, do you think competitive RTS gaming could be made more accessible? What could gaming companies do to make it more accessible?
I guess the answer to this is simple. Game developers must create games that are fun and have a lot of depth in game play so that more and more gamers play the game. In addition, the game must be easy to understand and fun to watch for the spectators. Without a huge audience, competitive gaming is not possible. In other words, great replayability is the key, and the game must be fun to play and watch for a long period of time.
19. You have heard of the DoWPro Mod for DoW, a game you were one of the developers for. For many of the great computer games out there, gamers will spend time and money modding those games because they enjoy it. How can people who mod use those experiences to obtain employment in the gaming industry?
I know the DoWPro mod, because it’s the biggest Mod for DoW. I’m fascinated by the idea that gamers are willing to spend so much of their time and effort helping to develop a greater reputation for their favorite games. I respect everyone that spends so much effort to improve games, including professional players that contribute to making games more popular, and modding teams that keep the popularity of the game up even when the actual games start dying out.
Because modding teams use the same tools that are used by game developers to create different games. I believe it is a huge plus to know the design tools before getting into game design. In addition, the great dedication proven by creating such mods, and supporting them extensively must also be a huge factor in obtaining jobs in the gaming industry.
I personally don’t know anyone that got into game design with only this experience alone, but if this experience is back up by other things, such as work experience in the industry, or extraordinary gaming experience, one will have a huge success in getting into game design. Because nothing “official” is really set up academically to prepare people for game design, actual hands on experience such as modding the game is more beneficial than trying to take some game design courses that aren’t even really recognized.
20. What are some other ways of obtaining a job in the gaming industry? What do gaming companies need to see before they will hire a given person? What is your recommendation to someone reading this who wants to get in on game development?
When it comes to trying to start in the industry from anything other than game balancing positions, I wouldn’t be the best person to ask. However, from what I’ve seen, if one is trying to get into programming, he must have the degree and/or programming experience background in order to start for the first time. For art or animation, developing a portfolio to prove one’s artistic talents is necessary. For game design, game designing schools aren’t very highly thought of, and it would most likely be better to have the work experience in the industry, than trying to find good game design schools.
If there is someone like me, that is good at games and have the tournament/ladder experiences to show for it, I would very strongly recommend taking the same route that I did with starting with game balance. The reason is simple, what would you prefer doing? Going through every single unit/map/mission in the game over and over to find bugs or playing the games normally at the competitive level and discuss issues that come to solve them?
21. What is your long term goal in the gaming industry?
My biggest goal in the gaming industry is to help make an RTS game that will take over the Starcraft professional gaming scene in Korea. I guess this doesn’t necessarily have to be my long term goal, but this is what I want most from the game industry. The reason is that I’m extremely excited about what’s going on with competitive gaming in Korea, and never want to see it die out. Korea is the leader when it comes to competitive gaming, and I must see it grow, not disappear.
Although Starcraft is still huge in Korea, there is no guarantee that it’ll always be as big as it is now, and if no suitable game is released, the whole professional gamine scene could potentially disappear. This is the last thing I want to see happen, and if given the chance, I will do my best to create games that have the potential to take over this professional gaming scene before it dies out.
Thanks for the interview David, I'm sure this will be valuable for those people who want to turn their passion for gaming into something they can make a living from. Cheers, and I'll will talk to you later.
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