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Transcript
Hey, listeners, Tim Winkler here, your host of The Pair Program. We've got exciting news introducing our latest partner series Beyond the Program. In these special episodes, we're passing the mic to some of our savvy former guests who are returning as guest hosts, get ready for unfiltered conversations, exclusive insights, and unexpected twist as our alumni pair up with their chosen guest. Each guest host is a trailblazing expert in a unique technical field. Think data, product management, and engineering, all with a keen focus on startups and career growth. Look out for these bonus episodes dropping every other week, bridging the gaps between our traditional Pair Program episodes. So buckle up and get ready to venture Beyond the Program. Enjoy.
Jazmin Furtado:Hello everyone, and welcome to Frontiers: Exploring the World of Data. Frontiers dives into how people are using their data science minds to shape organizations and change the landscape outside of big tech. In each episode, we explore the far reaching corners of the world of data. My name is Jazmin, and I'm your host for this series. I myself am passionate about empowering people to make data driven decisions, and I'm always amazed at how others do it every day. Today, we are exploring the glaciers of gaming, how data informs and shapes our modern play. It's a world I've always been curious about, really excited to have our guest here. Our guest here today, Tuck Ngun, Principal Insights Analyst at Riot Games for League of Legends. Before Riot, Tuck held senior data scientist roles at Oracle and Sense360 after getting his doctorate from UCLA in human genetics, so he wasn't always in gaming. But since he's been at Riot for the last, you know, five years or so, it seems that once he's gotten the gaming bug, he hasn't looked back, and so we're gonna dive into all those details of that in this episode. Um, so, so glad to have you here today, Tuck. Really excited for our conversation.
Tuck Ngun:Well, thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited, too.
Jazmin Furtado:So, getting to our icebreaker today. So, the question is, in relation to gaming, if you could be a player in a game, what player would you be and why? So it's just like very vague, so for me, uh, my player, I don't have too much gaming experience, I will have to admit, so, uh, my game that I grew up playing in like middle school and high school was Halo. I love Halo, uh, just not, it was before it got into like the real online playing mode where you play against other players. It was very much just like campaign mode, or just like me and my brother kind of playing the story, and I really enjoyed that. I'd really just, and on easy, I'll have to caveat, it had to be on easy mode as well for me to get the full enjoyment. When it got too hard, I'd get really, uh, Uh, I wouldn't, I'm not that great, so when it got too hard, it wasn't as enjoyable anymore. So I really like playing Master Chief in Halo, so I think I'd probably play that. It just seems like, you know, the player's invincible, I kinda do whatever. Uh, I really love it, the um, the, the sword. It's really cool, cause it like, lights up, it's all glowy, and it's super powerful. And I think What differentiates it from other games is the fact that it's, like, there's a lot of space, uh, like, in the game, and I really, I'm like a Star Trek nerd, I really enjoy space, so I think the setting really kind of drew me in, so I really like that game. So that's who I would play if I was in any game, but Tuck, you have a lot of experience, um, in gaming, so curious what your, what your player would be.
Tuck Ngun:Um, so this, I, I will have to, this is actually one of the, of the questions that you sent over that I looked, looked at. This is one of the hardest ones, because it's like, oh no, I have to pick my favorite. So, so, okay, I'm going to cheat a little bit and actually have two answers to this. So the first one is kind of much more developed, it's um, and it's maybe a little bit of a deeper cut, but it's Ashe from Final Fantasy XII. So she's a, basically she's just an all around badass, right? And so it's much, much more like an aspirational thing for me. You know, you mentioned, uh, the setting of Halo and the setting of Final Fantasy XII is definitely some, a place I would love to be. Um, but Ashe specifically, she's, like I mentioned, she's uh, sort of like a deposed princess. Everyone thinks she's dead. And she's managed to maintain that for years, while organizing an underground rebellion, and basically, you know, overthrowing the evil empire, all of that, without blowing her cover. So, you know, so far, so fine, so standard for Final Fantasy, but I think what really sets her apart from a lot of the other, you know, Uh, protagonist of the series is that she just does it all in stride. She's like, okay, I have to do this thing. I'll just go and do it. She's like very, no nonsense. There's no like agonizing over, am I good enough? Am I, you know, this or that? Or she just does it and it's like really refreshing. So like, I really aspire to like that sort of level of. I guess you could say competence? Confidence? Whichever you choose. Um, and then the second one is much shorter. And I promise this is not like me trying to, I guess, promote the game. Because this is not like our newest character or anything, but Hui from League of Legends, he's a, uh, artist who has like magical powers and he can paint, you know, visions with his, uh, with his magical brush. Anyway, that, that is totally like my vibe and something I would love to be able to do.
Jazmin Furtado:You gave the characters so much justice, and here I am, I'm like, I just like the fact that it's a sword, and you like, went into like, their backstory and their character traits, like, I mean, you obviously, you know, you're in the right place, uh, the fact that there's just so much, I think, like, nuance and so much backstory to these games, uh, that I think the people that are in the world can really appreciate. Would you be able to take us into, you know, how you got into Your current role and I talked about what you know what you're doing at right a little bit more and then yeah, tell us a list of the high level your journey of how you got to there and you know how it's different from what you've done before and kind of what made you stay.
Tuck Ngun:Yeah, yeah, would love to do that. Um, so I guess in terms of what what I do, I'll start with that. Uh, so the scope of my role is. I would say I guess pretty large. So essentially I am able to work across the league game ecosystem. Um, and I'm starting to also push into like other parts of it. Um, as you know, um, you know, we, um, You know, part of the things that Riot is doing is, uh, you know, we have that, we have a TV show, Arcane. Um, and so, you know, we're, in the background, we're always, like, looking into new opportunities and stuff, and I'm very lucky to have had a chance to, you know, work a little bit on those. But my main focus is, is on the game. And, uh, typically, the way it works at, at Riot, or on League anyway, is that analysts will tend to specialize in, like, different domains. So, sometimes it might be gameplay. Or monetization. And I'm fortunate enough, I guess, to be able to essentially, like, pick what I want to, to work on. I mean, it's like a, it's kind of a really, it's a privilege that I, you know, don't take lightly. I get to kind of go after what are sort of the most important questions. And so I've been able to work on things like, oh, you know, um, how do we maintain, how do we grow our player base, uh, for League. How does a player's interaction with the game, with Leap, sort of change over time? Because we're very lucky to have very loyal players. Um, and so, you know, we really want to, and I think part of that loyalty comes from, you know, just how much we really value the player experience and try to optimize for that as much as possible. Um, I've also worked in the monetization space. So, um, I, you know, work on things like, okay, here's some new content, uh, you know, what's the best way to distribute it, that, that sort of, that sort of thing. Um, okay. And then in terms of kind of the background of how I got into this role, um, as, as some of, I guess the listeners might have realized just based on, you know, I guess my slightly psychotic. Description of why I picked those characters. I've just been playing video games my entire life. One of my earliest memories is actually playing Dig Dug with my mom. Um, at our first like home computer. Anyway, so it's always been a You know, always been part of my life, um, but for whatever reason, it wasn't until there, you know, the last five years or so, or five years ago that it kind of occurred to me of like, oh, I could actually have a career, uh, in data in gaming, right? I mean, it seems so obvious in retrospect, but for some reason, it just was one of those things that seemed a little bit impenetrable to me. But I was fortunate enough again to, to, to know someone who was working at Riot at the time. You know, she said, uh, she brought this current role, um, to, to my attention. She was like, I think you'd really like it here. Um, I, I do, I have. And, and so it's, it's just been really a wonderful experience, you know. And I really, actually truly enjoyed playing the game as well. So it's like, you know, kind of win win, uh, in, in that way.
Jazmin Furtado:Yeah, when I think of, you know, data and gaming, it seems like something that, uh, it makes sense, but in terms of actually, like, putting people's faces to, you know, the these roles, it's like, you don't necessarily. It's more of what goes on in the background, right? When you think of games, you think of, like, the players and you think of, you know, they take up, like, the spotlight, but in terms of, like, all the stuff that goes under, uh, goes under the hood to, like, improve that experience. I think a lot of, uh, people don't think of that as, like, oh, there are specific roles that are, you know, people look to fill to help from, like, a data, um, insights, you know, analysis perspective, uh, to, to improve the game. And it's, like, something that's constantly changing. When can you turn? Yeah. Yeah.
Tuck Ngun:No, I was just gonna say it's I think part of it is just how rapidly The industry has matured, right? I mean it used to be I think, you know people would think of gaming as as like Yeah, I guess like maybe my parents generation right the idea that someone could have a career in gaming and that could be something that's They do for for life, right? It was would be kind of ludicrous, right? Um, and so I think because of that, you know, it's just it wasn't something that that was and coming from Malaysia, especially where there really wasn't much of a gaming scene until mobile phones, you know, smartphones really took off. About 10 years ago, right? Again, it was just not maybe part of the, the, the, the atmosphere part of the Zeitgeist yet at the time.
Jazmin Furtado:And you're saying that it's been growing. I mean, you've been there for a few years now. Have you seen, like, you're the team dynamics change in terms of the skills and the people that are like involved on on projects or the types of projects? Like, how have you seen the data analytics kind of focus? change from like a people or like a project perspective since like you've joined?
Tuck Ngun:Yeah, no, there's definitely been, you know, a lot of changes, a lot of development at Riot specifically. Um, but I think, yeah, also as you're alluding to, right, more generally, uh, in games. So I'll just start, I guess, by talking about how, you know, my experience so far. Um, so Riot's grown quite a bit over, over my time here. And along with that growth, you know, in all of our departments, uh, our Insights organization has also grown and Insights is where data analysts at Riot, uh, you know, that sort of are like our home base, if you will, our home department. Um, and so the way it works, uh, here is that each game typically has like a dedicated Insights team. Some analysts and then also some researchers, you know, who, who, who are able to, you know, talk to our players directly. So the exact breakdown kind of depends on the game, uh, depends on the game's needs, that sort of thing. And the size of the team also changes depending again on the game. But generally speaking, we're, it's like five to 15 people per, per game. Um, and then we also have some central resources that, that we can tap into. I think the other thing that, that's changed, uh, over, you know, that I've noticed, And that's changed in my time here is that it's not just the growth in the number of people. I would say it's also the skill sets and the way, you know, in general, we think about data and how to use it. It's definitely kind of gotten more sophisticated over time. So part of this is just people like myself, maybe who have been around for a couple of years. So we've had the time to develop those skills. Um, to, to learn more, um, but I think it's also part of it is we are more conscious about and maybe more knowledgeable about, like, who we want to bring in, right? So, it's like, we're starting to recognize that, okay, yes, data analysts, you know, we're quite, a lot of us are actually quite versatile, but at the same time, you know, um, there's also like a little bit of specialization that can, that can go on. And, you know, if you have a specific need, right, like, If you can get someone who has a lot of experience doing that thing, it's really beneficial. And then if you need them to be more of a generous later, they can kind of learn. The other stuff, get better at it over time. Right. But yeah, having having someone who spikes in particular areas, particularly when you have a need for it. I think that that that awareness has definitely grown a lot.
Jazmin Furtado:Yeah, you're you're saying that there were, you know, there's a lot of different things that you can. Provide insight into, you know, a lot of, uh, ways that you can, like, a lot of, a lot of different data points. I guess you can analyze and there's different areas that you could affect. There's like a business aspect and also like the actual game. I want to I'm actually curious from, like, looking at, you know, improving the gaming experience. Do you have, like, any, like, uh, you know, stories or any sort of, like, projects you've worked on or anything that really stands out to you as, you know, really, you know, The most prominent things that you've enjoyed, um, working on since you've been in like the gaming industry, like certain questions or insights that you're able to derive or certain questions you're trying to get after just curious if anything stands out to you.
Tuck Ngun:Yeah, I, I would say, yes, no. So, so I alluded or I just mentioned earlier that 1 of the. Things I, I've been, I've worked on and it's kind of an ongoing thing. So it's never really done actually is. Kind of understanding. You know how our players evolve as they, you know, continue engaging with our game continue interacting with it It's it's quite I you know, I like i'm gonna sound like a broken record here But like I said, I feel very privileged right that we have such loyal players and it's just really interesting to You know see how again how how they how to It's almost like how the, how the game fits into their lives, like, it changes over time, right, from, and you can kind of imagine this, you know, in, in many scenarios, right, of like, you know, if you get into a new hobby, you know, you, uh, you know, you, you sort of engage with it one way, but then over time, right, it changes. And so, for us, we feel like League, because League has been around for so long, you know, we are able to, like, kind of envision our relationship with the player in that way of, like, this is not just, you know, like, a one time thing, or something that you're just going to engage in, engage with for a few weeks, and then move on to something else, right? Like, we are very much, I guess, focused on the long term, Um, which, I am in very much in favor of, but also because of that, it actually makes a lot of things not as straightforward, you know, and I'll give like maybe a little bit more of a concrete example. So like, um, You know, in addition to, like I said, working on understanding how a player sort of interaction evolves, like one, one, and one other way in which I think this focus on the long term manifest is like how we think about creating cosmetic content for the characters in our game. So basically, one of the things that League is known for is we sell, you know, you can buy skins for the different characters in the game, essentially like alternate versions of them. And, you know, if we were focused on the short term, I think it would be very easy. Actually, that process would be much easier because we could just focus purely on revenue maximization. It would be very easy. It's just like, okay, here's the most popular character. They're getting a skin, you know, every six months, right? Like, and, and, you know, it doesn't matter if we kind of like churn through or burn through like this, the creative space, if you will, for that character, right? Because we're just focused on the short term. We just want to maximize revenue. But because we want to cultivate that long, sort of long lasting relationship, you know, we're trying to think in terms of like years and in some cases decades, that's much harder, but at least in terms of years, right? So we're much more conscious about, okay, we just released a, you know, we just released a new skin, a new piece of content for, for this character. So therefore, you know, let's wait a bit, right? So that we don't burn out our players so that. You know, we don't go, you know, like, just burn through, again, all of the options that, that, that we know of right now, right? To give ourselves time to, you know, develop new things, to really be thoughtful and considerate about how we go about, you know, running the game essentially. So that permeates, like, everything we do. Which, like I said, I'm very much in favor of, but it can make things a little bit complicated.
Jazmin Furtado:Yeah, I, there's so many things you said there in terms of like, you know, you want to, and it's, it's a partnership, you know, you and the, the players. I mean, it, you, you don't want to take their loyalty. You never want to take that for granted. And so you, you're You have to be very thoughtful about the things that you introduce into the game. You can't just like throw a bunch of experiments out there and just expect that your, your customer or your player is just gonna be like, okay, that's fine. Because, you know, you have a brand, you have a story, like, each of those characters, people are very invested in them. And that's really like this. The whole game is centered around these characters. So when you're trying to make these decisions, though, in terms of, like, what to improve, what things to introduce, how do you go about making that decision? Like, what it, when, you know, when, when people, people probably have a lot of ideas about what they want to do to enhance the game, but how do you decide what actually gets put in front of, you know, in front of the players or not?
Tuck Ngun:Oh, that's a very, very interesting question. Um, and, and I think in the context of. Well, any, any creative industry, right? It, uh, like it's, it's kind of interesting to think about, um, as someone who's kind of more on the data side, right, to think about how those two spheres interact, because I think it's really easy to see them as being in conflict with each other, right? Because gaming, for instance, right, is, is definitely a creative industry person foremost, right? Um, like, uh, we, you know, it's all about kind of, I think trying to, Like, everyone in the gaming industry, right, is trying to create something that's new, something that's never been seen before. And, and, and, it's, you know, but, and so the creative side is definitely really important. But, you know, especially when you're talking about, okay, the scale of a game like League of Legends, or like a Fortnite, or, you know, things at that level, right, where you have a global audience, You, you have literally millions of players that, that you're trying to, that you, that you're trying to like serve the creativity. I think that creative drive is an important part of the equation, but I think it can't be the only thing in that equation, right? Similarly, if you just took the data side and you said, okay, we're just going to, you know, we're completely like base all of our decisions off of that. I think that's also a failing, right? And so I think one thing I've seen at Riot, um, and even at the best game companies is that there tends to be a very kind of healthy sort of like back and forth, you know, I, I, the word that comes to mind is tension, but I don't mean that in a bad way, right? I just think there's a healthy dialogue, a healthy conversation between the two sides where, you know, it's, we, we, we try to come together and, and, and, And try not to, I guess, impose our will or act like we're the ultimate source of truth, right? So to go back to the, you know, to give a more concrete example, going back to like, um, that, that whole question about skins of like, okay. Which character should maybe get like a sci fi themed one or a fantasy, more fantasy themed one or more of a realistic, you know, themed sort of alternate version, right? And a lot of those cases, right, we do rely heavily on. You know, our designers are artists to, to, to have that sort of creative vision to say like, okay, I think this is why it works. Right. And then we, uh, on the data side, you know, we try to. Back it up with with with like our, you know, by analyzing player behavior, you know, we also Uh, like I mentioned we have researchers. So so we often also directly just talk to players You know, we do concept testing all of that sort of stuff so that you know We we have a fuller picture if you will behind any decision That we make and again that extends also to a lot of gameplay decisions, right? We A lot of it is driven, I would say, primarily by, by our designers, by our producers, but you know, we, we don't just go like on instinct, right? We try to, I guess, like, sort of balance it as much as possible.
Jazmin Furtado:How do you get, you know, the, how do you get feedback on that? I'm sure it depends on, you know, the project and what you're introducing, but can you give an example of how you know that you've done a good job? Because, you know, to what you're saying before, there's. Maximize revenue and then you could just, you know, in the short term, but when you're thinking about a longterm approach that you said, you know, your, your team's taking and riot takes just generally to, um, this game, it's not always, you know, success is not always just what you see in the short term. And so how do you know that you're on the right track? Like, how do you, like what feedback levers do you leverage in order to know if you, if you're on the right, yeah, if you're on the right track.
Tuck Ngun:Yeah, no, as I sort of alluded to earlier, that is kind of one of the complications, right, of sort of this longer term view, which is, it's, it's, you know, it's a little bit at odds, I think, with kind of how just modern business operates in general, right, where there's more of a, as like focus on the immediate, on the shorter term. And so for us, the way we try to balance it is we, we do have, you know, metrics or we do look at different measures. In the short term, right? To, to, to say like, okay, was this a new, uh, you know, new game play change or this new piece of cosmetic content? Was this a success, you know, in this first, let's say, week, two weeks, first month, right? Kind of that shorter term, just, just so we can get a signal. But then oftentimes, we'll also try to, you know, adopt, like, Go, go. We, we do a lot of like, try, try and get like a longer term view of things of like, okay, six months ago we, we did this. Right? Do we see any like signals, whether it's, uh, in terms of the, the player behavior, right? Which is kind of maybe more, more my domain or when we like in terms of sentiment, right? When we talk directly to players, whether it's in focus groups or surveys, that, that sort of thing. Like do we see. Any evidence that maybe this is, you know, kind of performance as expected, good, bad, that kind of thing. So we're constantly trying to, you know, kind of, again, get a more like balanced view of things, right, a more holistic view. But it can be challenging, because especially with the longer term stuff, you know, this is a, so League is like, is a live game, right? It's a live service game, which means it gets updates every day. Basically every two weeks, at least. And so there's things changing all the time. So if you're like, well, we had this thing six months ago, let's try and see if it has any effect. You know, it does get kind of complicated, but, you know, we try to do our best.
Jazmin Furtado:So usually, you know, your focus area is on player behavior. How do you quantify Player behavior. Is it just like how much time they're spending in the, you know, how much time they're spending playing, how much time they're spending like actively playing? I don't know if that's, you know, a thing, but, um, is it like the, I mean, the number of times that they're changing characters? Like what, how do you quantify behavior?
Tuck Ngun:Yeah, it's well, so we try to, well, as you just, as you just, you know, described, there's a lot of different axes, a lot of different vectors that, that we consider. And, you know, it just, which ones we look at, right, really depends on the question, the use case, the project at hand. We, you know, as a, uh, we, we do have, like, new characters every so often, and so, like, one thing we are interested in is trying to see, like, okay, when we do introduce a new character, right, how do our players, uh, react? You know, are there things that, that, that we can improve? learn from, you know, are we able to like change preferences almost, or are people kind of like they found their favorite and they stick with it forever. And you know, maybe they'll try out this, this, this new, this new character, but you know, eventually they'll, they'll go back right to, to the, to the old favorite. And so, so we, you know, so we, we try to understand things like that, you know, for sure. We look at, as, as you mentioned, like how, how often someone is playing, how many hours. Because that is actually one of the, uh, signals, actually one of the most important signals we think for, was this change a good one or not, right? Um, because the, the, with the obvious idea being, okay, if this wasn't something that our players liked, you know, they would stop engaging with our game as much or, or completely. Um, so, so it is a tricky thing. And then, as I mentioned, you know, a lot of times we are also interested not just in, It's sort of quantifying, per se, but like, uh, kind of understanding, right, their, their, their evolution and kind of how they, they view the game. And that, that is actually a, it's a very challenging area, but it's also really, I think, rewarding because, uh, It just kind of gives you like, you know, we, we, everyone has like assumptions right around like, oh, here's how, um, someone will, will, will think of the game or how this game fits into their lives, you know, if they've been playing for two years or three years or four years. And then, as we kind of dig into it, a lot of the times we find things that challenge those assumptions. And then that feeds back directly into like, okay, where, you know, where do we want to take the game next? What do we think is a good change? You know, what, what, what do we think this is telling us about what our players needs are? Right? And I'd say that's very rewarding because like, ultimately that's what we are here to do, I would say, right? We want to kind of meet those needs as best we can.
Jazmin Furtado:Because I'm, uh, You know, thinking about it from like an analytics point of view, when you're thinking about like the, the, the questions that you're trying to answer, you know, some of these things I could see as like, okay, it's a basic, it's, it's looking at, you know, statistics, looking at, you know, the before and after, do we see like maybe a significantly, you know, a significant change or statistically significant difference between the two. When we think of analytics generally though, it could be, I guess that the term can be very broad. You know, you can leverage, you know, machine learning techniques and to like, if you want to do like sentiment analysis, like, do you, do you kind of. How, like pick from the whole gamut of methodologies when it comes to like answering some of these questions you have about, you know, what, what steps to next take with the game.
Tuck Ngun:Yeah, yeah. We, we do, we try to keep as open to mind as possible. Right. And, and you know, it's, it, it really what the, I guess the sort of the best technique or the best methodology really depends on. The question you're trying to answer and kind of the context around it, right? So, um, to give you like an extreme example, you know, if, if, if there was, uh, like an emergent thing, right. Or where, where we needed to, like, get an answer to, to something really quickly, like within a few days, right. Probably spinning up like a whole ML model from scratch. Not, not the best idea, right. Just because of how much time. You know, that takes right, um, even if that might be sort of the technically the best way to do it. Right? So it's kind of all about balancing like, um, what, what, what the needs are and then sort of having in your back pocket, like, knowledge of like, what, you know, what, what, what are the best techniques? What's the best approach to deploy here? Um, and I think I kind of want to kind of add a little bit of an addendum to that, which is not to say that as an analyst. You know, you have to know every single thing out there, right? Um, but it's more about getting I guess familiarity with at least a wide enough range of different Techniques different methodologies so that when you do get a question, you know when you get a problem to work on You know, you're able to and based on a context you're able to kind of select the best thing Uh, for, for that project. Right? Um, like another example might be if you need the output from, uh, some modeling to be interpretable, right? To be like understandable so that you can take action on it. Uh, again, something that's quite sophisticated, like something like setting up a neural network, right? Might, might be technically the best way to do it. But oftentimes that comes at the expense of that interpretability part, right, of that ability to like kind of take action on what you find or understand why something is happening. And so you might go with actually a simpler model, um, and there's nothing wrong with that because You know, it's all about what is the best thing for for this purpose.
Jazmin Furtado:Yeah, I like that interoperability part because I think when you're dealing with, you know, trying to incorporate or introduce like new things to such like a wide reaching population, you really want to make sure that. You, you know, you take the whole team to make a decision on something, so you wanna make sure you can like, explain it. Well, you can like, you know, justify the, the proposal based off of something that they could understand as well. So I can see that, you know, simpler can be better in a lot of these cases to get your message across and to get buy-in. Uh, and then also to be able to like show over time that it's, you know. It's doing what it's supposed to be doing, or like, you know, it's still you can still apply the same methodology over time, and it's not going to be too broken.
Tuck Ngun:Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Jazmin Furtado:So I wanted to close out this main part by just asking, you know, you've been in this industry for a few years now, as you look kind of towards. The future. Are you seeing, like, from your vantage point, you know, some emerging trends or emerging, like, areas that, you know, are growing, um, when it comes to, like, data and gaming?
Tuck Ngun:Uh, yeah, for, for sure. So I think, you know, so just generally speaking, data is, you know, really, A big part of really important part of the gaming industry, and I think it's just going to grow from here on. And so there's sort of like to serve overlapping trends, but they're still kind of a little bit distinct. Um, so, so the 1st 1 is that, um. The, the main way, actually, or increasingly, uh, common way, uh, that people sort of, like, purchase games now is online, right? So, like, you, I don't know if you're, like, familiar with Steam, uh, Epic Games has their own platform, for instance, right? There was a whole series of court cases about that. Anyway, um, so, so, so, so that's one part of it. And then I think as a result of that, right, uh, and especially as, like, consoles, for instance, have also gained, um, the ability to, you know, connect to the internet. Like, that online, a lot of games that, that in the past might not have had an online component, right, increasingly, um, kind of have it now, right, whether or not it's sort of like part of the core, uh, gameplay. So, like, one good example of this, I would say is, The Dark Souls series, which is, I won't go into what it is, but essentially, the, the core of the game, you know, you could, you could play it, like, completely offline, but there's a comp, uh, sort of an optional online part to it, um, that does enrich the experience. And that, again, that's just becoming more and more common. Uh, among games, right? So, so like, I'm, I'm pretty, you know, I don't work for Bandai Namco, which publishes that, that series, I can't say for sure, but, uh, you know, I'm, I'm pretty sure there's, you know, they're, they're, you know, trying to get as rich of a data set as they can, right? From, from those games, from the, from when players choose to engage with the online portions of those games. Um, so that's trend number one. Um, and then the second one I would say is kind of a more of a focus, more of a move of a lot of publishers towards prioritizing live services games. So that's games like League, uh, Fortnite, uh, Guild Wars 2, where essentially it's supposed to be alive, if you will, right. Have a lot of support, have consistent, frequent updates. Uh, for, for years on end, um, and now that I've had firsthand experience working in that, in this, you know, in that, in that sort of gaming sphere, um, it's, it's actually, it's really tricky, right? It's, uh, God, what's that saying? You know, um, the, the trick is not to get there, it's maintaining it, right? Or it's like, you know, sort of staying at, at, at your position. And I think that's, that's, you know, one of the reasons why data is just becoming so important. Because maintaining sort of, um, you know, if you are success, lucky enough to have like a successful live service game, like kind of maintaining that. Um, it's really difficult, you know, it's, I would say it's practically impossible without kind of good data. Um, and even with good data, like I said, it's, it can be quite challenging, but it's fine.
Jazmin Furtado:So you're seeing yourself, you know, and at least another 5 years, you know, it's been good so far. So there's no reason for you to look elsewhere. It seems like the future is bright.
Tuck Ngun:Um, I think so. I mean, I, yeah, I mean, despite, you know, I guess the, you know, of course, you know, it would be remiss of me not to, um, I guess, acknowledge, right, that the gaming industry has had, um, a whole bunch of layoffs, you know, this year, especially, including Riot, right? I, I think it over, you know, a part of that, I think, is, uh, You know, maybe sort of, like, correcting for, for, like, Covid, right? Um, I, I think it was hard to understand exactly how to respond to, to that boom. Um, uh, uh, so that's part of it. But, but yeah, overall, I do think, um, it is, it is quite, quite a, you know, bright future for the industry. I do think it will, You know, this, I think this is a little bit of a bump, but in a few years time, you know, we'll, we'll be back on track.
Jazmin Furtado:Online gaming is like, you know, just becoming ever so popular and just everyone's becoming more and more, you know, everyone's getting online more. Everyone's like, more, more connected without comes more data than with that because more opportunity. So, um, thanks for thanks for bringing it, giving us some insight into that. Uh, we usually, so we usually end our episodes with this round of fact or fiction, so we're going to like rapid fire through these questions. Um, so I found these about games just in general, and I want, so you're not supposed to know the answer to these, hopefully. Um, alright, so number one. South Korea has the highest penetration of online gaming, with 96. 4 percent of internet users playing games across all devices.
Tuck Ngun:That one, I'm, well, I, I don't know if the number is completely correct, but I would say generally, you know, the sort of the, yes, I would say that's a fact.
Jazmin Furtado:So that is false. So Indonesia has the highest penetration of online gaming with 96. 5 percent of internet users playing games. And then Philippines a second and then Turkey is third and then South Korea wasn't even on like that list.
Tuck Ngun:Oh, interesting. Well, I guess. Yeah. Actually, I think one of the things is, yeah, like you, you, you mentioned earlier, right? Mobile has really changed actually a lot.
Jazmin Furtado:Yeah. Across like, yeah, across all devices. So I was just really, I was like, Oh, that's surprising. I was expecting it to be like Japan or China or something like that. But no, yeah. Second one. Uno is the most popular card game in the world.
Tuck Ngun:I'm going to say false.
Jazmin Furtado:That is correct. That is false. So poker is the most popular card game in the world. Blackjack is close. It's the most popular casino card game in the world. And then, you know, solitaire and rummy are also like very popular. Uno was not on that list, but I think a lot of people think of it as like really popular. But worldwide, it's, you got to go back to the classics. All right. Yeah. Makes sense. Third one. You're, you're one for two. So third one. About 50 percent of video game players in the world are female.
Tuck Ngun:Oh, this is a good one. Um, I think if yes, I would say it, it's probably quite close to that. If you, especially when you consider mobile gaming.
Jazmin Furtado:Yes, that is true. Yeah. And you also consider like puzzle games or like action adventure games, like all that. So I didn't think about it. I was like, Oh, when I think of video games, I think of, you know, the ones that you see that are most popular. You know? Like, Yeah. You know, League of Legends, World of Warcraft, I just think of, like, all those ones and a lot of the players I see on the stage are all, like, men, um, but yeah, so I guess when you look at it from, like, a wide lens, I was surprised about that. All right, so you got two. All right, the fourth one. The longest board game in the world is estimated to take 1, 500 hours to complete.
Tuck Ngun:Oh, jeez, I feel like I should know this one. Um, 1, 500, I'm gonna say How do you even put in 1, 500 hours?
Jazmin Furtado:So this is true. So yeah, so the game is called the campaign for North Africa, which I'd never heard of before, but apparently when they look at like how long it takes to complete the full board game is it's estimated to take 1, 500 hours. So. If you, like, worked on it, basically, like, three hours a month, or three hours, like, twice a month, or something like that, like, it would take, like, 20 years to complete it, basically. Like, it's ridiculous. It's, I don't, I don't know. Whoever has, if anyone has that game, like, I, that's, that's a marathon. Yeah,
Tuck Ngun:I'll have to look it up.
Jazmin Furtado:Okay, the last one. The Jenga Tower, are you, you're familiar with Jenga, correct? Yeah. So the Jenga tower is 18 layers tall. So just like, just normally each layer consists of three blocks. Now the tallest Jenga tower ever built, like in a game was 40 layers tall.
Tuck Ngun:Uh, let me think, is that even,
Jazmin Furtado:I know you got to think, is it possible, right? I'm just
Tuck Ngun:trying to like math it out, right. I've like, there, there are enough, sorry, 18 times three, right. There are just enough pieces that if you did it like one. You know, sort of like one block per layer, you could probably get there. Would it, would you actually be able to do that in reality? Um, seeing, well, I guess if you're really skilled, I'm going to say true, because people can sometimes do really surprising things.
Jazmin Furtado:Yes, that's true. That's correct. It is true. So I think like 40, there was one place I found that was like 44 and some of one place that was like 40. So I'm just going to like, you know, that's, that's really impressive. I don't know how people do that, but yeah, it's like, I guess if it's just like one block, it'd be like 54, you know, 54 layers, but you know, how often, how can you do that? So, yeah, so it's, um, Yeah, so yeah, so we got three out of five. Oh, so that's a great. Yeah, that's a great score. That's a great score. I think that's like, these are all just like, you know, blind stuff. And I just think it's really interesting to learn about some stuff because I'm like, I didn't know this stuff about. Games just generally. So the more, you know,
Tuck Ngun:yeah, I know for sure. I mean, I learned two things today
Jazmin Furtado:and I'm sure everyone listening learned a lot more, including me. So I think as long as it's beneficial on both sides, I'm glad to hear that. Well, it's been a pleasure to chat with you today and even just scratch the surface of data and gaming. I feel like there was just so much more we could have talked about. I'm so much more I was interested in. So I probably will like follow up on. Another like coffee chat just to casually about this. Um, and also I need to be able to visit you sometime at the, at riot, just to check it out.
Tuck Ngun:Yeah. Yeah. No, you're, you're always welcome.
Jazmin Furtado:Yeah. You're like, just, just talking about even that, that one use case, like, you know, but with the skins, it's just, just really highlights all the like intention and work that goes behind just making a seamless and enjoyable user experience. And so for those listening, whenever you pick up a game, just think of all this, all of the, you know, intention that goes behind every part of that game. Um, I really come to appreciate that a lot more, so thanks for taking the time to be with us and just like letting us, you know, peek into that window into your world.
Tuck Ngun:Yeah, no, thank you so much for having me this this was a blast really was
Jazmin Furtado:and today was actually bittersweet. This actually rounds out our frontiers mini series. Um, it's been such a delight to hold host the series on The Pair Program. And it definitely wouldn't have been possible without the support encouragement. Of Tim, Tim Winkler and the Hatch IT team. Thank you for your sponsorship and for allowing for both myself and then all everyone listening to continue exploring new frontiers and to learn from amazing people such as Tuck. And, um, and last, certainly never least to those who have tuned in, whether you're a new traveler with us, you know, on this last episode or more experienced Explorer who's been with us since the beginning, you have my sincerest gratitude. We've, we've never, we're never done exploring just generally. Everyone always has something to learn from others. So I hope you're able to take, you know, your nuggets of knowledge and get, gain new information from this series. I knew it was a value add to your life. And so from one data enthusiast to another, thank you and take care.
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