Episode #7: Supporting Emerging Talent in Game Design with Value Leo
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Value Leo, co-founder of LIONDRAGON Studio tells the story of her journey in the gaming industry, from her start in engineering and programming to managing her own teams. She provides unique insight into the world of game design, discussing her expertise in Asian-themed games, her passion for building a strong work culture, and supporting young talent
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Dyani: Hello, I am Dyani Marvel, Vice President of Marketing Strategy and Operations at Wondr Nation. Welcome to another episode of Level Up with Wondr. This episode is being recorded in the month of May, which is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. In observation, we are highlighting and speaking to Asian leaders and innovators in gaming and tech. Today, we're joined by Value Leo. Value is the co founder of LionDragon Studio, which is a B2B gaming design company and an innovator in gaming content and digital platforms for social, mobile, and online games and apps. She is also a board member and advisor to a number of startups. Value has experience in the international gaming and technology industries where she builds and manages multicultural teams and designs games for entertainment and education. Value also has a passion for and expertise in Asian themed games.
Value, thank you so much for being here today, we are so very happy to have you. So let's start with your background. Tell us about your background. How did you get started in the gaming industry? Why did you decide to pursue a career in gaming?
Value: The reason I started in gaming was purely an accident. I graduated from University of Nevada, Reno with electrical engineering degree and was just chilling during the summer. Someone from IGT who works in IGT was saying, oh, we are hiring. So, there I am and apply, and I was hired within 2 weeks.
Dyani: And what was your first role there, at IGT?
Value: My first role was a software engineer making poker games.
IGT is a company that really feel like a family. The culture was very encouraging for young people. You can try, you know, your ideas and then you, you just get supported.
Dyani: And what was your path from that point? How did you get from a software engineer making poker games to a co-founder of your own gaming studio?
Value: As a software engineer I was tasked to make a Deuces Wild game. Naturally, I always do more than what I was asked. I decided to build a library.
I started building a library and then I decided it should be data driven. Then after building the poker library, I was like, well, I think I should make it workable for slot too. So, we're trying to make the library generic so we can handle slots and keno and other games. The structure, you know, was very object oriented. Allow us to, you know, build poker games and adding like multi game very quickly later on.
After I finished the poker game and library I was discovered as somebody who's very good at solving problems. All the problems find me. I go on a long stream of solving one problem after another and being promoted to handle engineering for lottery. Then after that I decided to go back to technical stuff, just because I want to learn new technology.
There again, I was back to a management role, because, you know, the, the natural tendency to try to organize things and, help others.
Dyani: Excellent. Now, when you worked in IGT you mentioned when we spoke prior that you founded the gaming technology group, and that's the group that created the game development kit or the GDK ,so can you ,just kind of share with us that experience and and what and what that entailed?
Value: That is a group that's very close to my heart. I founded several group and there was also a stepper group prior to that. And also, you know, Nexus Studio, which is also very close to my heart.
With the gaming technology group, it was a big undertaking. It started with game components when IGT originally have engineering departments, art department, game design departments, and to adapt to the market to be able to quickly deliver products, make game content, we set up game studios.
My role during that transition period is to create a some sort of a infrastructure that support all the game studios. It started with a component team creating modularized game features for different studio to use and from there, you know, identify a lot of repeatable pattern between different game studios that they all need to have some sort of template and structure so they can build games faster.
And that's the game development kit. It's basically we call it GDK. It's basically, you know a set of routines that game studios can customize for various features. And then there are also reference games for new engineers to start with when they want to build something new.
Dyani: Awesome. So clearly that is a great advancement for any type of game developers. Did the moment seem significant at the time when you were working on that project?
Value: Oh, it was very significant. Because, you know a lot of studio, especially new studios really counting on that to get started. For example our UK studio was moving onto the new platform and don't have any experience in the games yet. We were able to leverage from the GDK and also our professional service support to get them up and running, make their 1st game in just matter of a couple of months.
Dyani: Well, it sounds like it was extremely useful for those teams to work with a tool like that, or, you know, to have that resource. So let's talk also about music because music and games is definitely something that's important. And what has been your experience there, especially with IGT as you've been working on all of these new innovations.
Value: Music, it's, it's very important. Some of the successful games, people can recognize them from far away and especially Wheel of Fortune. You know, I was fortunate to be involved with Wheel of Fortune development to o. Some of the, you know, like special sound, like coin dropping to the tray sound was actually created by our engineer rather than like composer initially.
Um, Surprisingly, there are a lot of musicians in engineering including, you know, like, pianist, guitar player and all sort of musicians, so they created the simulation of the, like the coin hitting tray sound.
Going on today, you know, many companies have, like, dedicated sound departments and all that, music is really a very crucial part of the player experience journey. And music is very culture specific, and also each region within the culture could also have its own special taste.
So, just because, you know, if you're Asian doesn't mean that you, you, will be able to make like great Asian music that appease everyone.
Dyani: So, you know, you're currently co founder and you work at LionDragon studio. So, for those who don't know, tell them what is LionDragon Studio? What do you do? And, you know, let's just start there.
Value: LionDragon Studio is a B2B game design Studio, as you mentioned we create gaming contents and digital platforms for social, mobile, online and apps.
Dyani: What inspired you to start your own gaming studio?
Value: The ability to create and maintain your own culture. When gaming has a lot of mergers, there are a lot of turnovers that cause, people to be unsatisfied with the job that they once loved.
To be able to help some of the people to, work in an environment that they can do their best and feel like they are working in a family, where they are not being judged and they can be creative.
Dyani: Well, you guys have grown into a great organization. And as you think about your career path and you've had so many innovative projects and initiatives you've worked on, you started your own organization. What are some of your proudest moments when you think about your career?
Value: My proudest moment is really creating the next generation of leaders and experts in their field. Not everybody want to be a leader, but, you know, they can be a technical leader. The people I have the opportunity to work with, they all have grown with me over the years and I really appreciate all the support and all the girls that really inspire me too.
Dyani: Oh, that's, that's amazing. And we just talk about leadership for a second. So, you know, you talked about how important it is to be a leader to young people, and I know you've served as a leader within your organizations, whether it's IGT, as you grew and advanced, or your own company with LionDragon Studio.
What do you think is important to have as a leader, particularly in game design and development?
Value: The important thing is you have to truly believe and care about the people you work with. You really need to see them not just from your own shoes, from also from their shoes, you know, really talk to the people and find out what, you know, they are passionate about, what they want to grow into and what's their skill sets.
So when I see games that they are passionate about, could be a character they love or, you know, it's a technology they really want to learn, I can pair people up. Like somebody who's really good at something and somebody who wants to learn something, they can be a team. You kind of train the trainer and they become a leader and help more people become a leader or do what they love to do.
Very big on autonomy, you know, be able to work autonomously. I remember initially when I was a leader, I was very, very strict because I used to be a professionist. I was, you know, being a little bit too strict and my right hand was telling me that you need to let people fail. And that was really the moment. It's like, yeah, you know, we need to do our best, but we also have to, you know, allow people to fail. That's how they can try and take risk.
Dyani: Absolutely. I mean, you know, when I hear you talk, you have so much passion for feeding into people and to developing talent and really with this focus on young people. So why is it so important for you to support young talent and to help those junior employees get their start?
Value: I was once, you know, one of the young people who started my career and it's really important for any industry, any team, any company to have a pipeline of, young talents that love what they do and have an opportunity to get started on something they love but may not have the experience for yet.
Even before that, before they become ready for a job, you know, they also need to learn and acquire knowledge to get to, like, become that staff. So it's a whole long journey down to, like, even when you're 3 year old and your experience with a teacher who's supportive or you're stubborn enough to just go your way will affect, you know, the rest of your life and how you deal with people and deal with problems.
Dyani: Absolutely. So with that in mind, what advice do you have for young people that are interested in getting into game design?
Value: With game design in particular, you really need to have the exposure, you know, play video games, look at elements of, games and try to just be a player yourself. See what works for you and what works before for other players. You can read like blog and other things and you can try to figure out why , some game mechanics work and some don't.
And don't be afraid to ask questions and seek advice from others. Game design learners love to help others, so just reach out. You don't have to know everything and if you have, you know, opportunity to innovate even if it's risky, give it a try, you know, you could fail and you could also be a big hit and be a trend, you know.
Also explore like facets of different game designs and it doesn't have to be like the genre that you're working on. Other gaming elements, such as like video games, PC games.
If you are like a technology type and you want to make games try to learn, you know, programming language become really good at one.
A lot of games made by gaming industry can be like C sharp, some of the games like on the web can be like HTML5, and it may use game engines like Unity, Cocos. So, you know, pick something that speaks to you and try to make something simple and that you like.
Dyani: Well, that's some amazing advice. So for any of our listeners out there who are familiar with all those languages, not myself, then some young people, you know, I think that gives them some great advice on how to get started and where they can learn different skills to be a game designer.
So I want to go back and talk a little bit more about LionDragon Studio. So I want to know, what do you think makes LionDragon unique from other gaming studios?
Value: First of all is we have great people and there's no internal drama, everybody work well with each other, we are family. For the people who's been there for the longest time, we have very little turnover.
When we have a problem to solve, everybody will work extremely hard and really try to help. And when we are seek out by like startup community to help, we always try our best, you know, even means that we may have to adjust our working hours to accommodate so we can make sure the system is up and running in off hours. Or we try to bring the cloud computing servers up during the off hours so it doesn't affect, you know, customers during the normal hours.
Dyani: It sounds like that's a wonderful culture and everyone is very generous with their time and very dedicated to the quality of work that you guys put out so that is awesome.
Let's talk about the type of content your game studio produces. So what are the different categories of content that you produce in LionDragon Studio?
Value: We have a very diverse team of gaming and non gaming people. We definitely have a very strong gaming background, but while we were helping local community, we venture into, some of the fields that we did not initially plan such as like medical, like telehealth and medication, you know, and also education to help some of the camps and stuff.
Dyani: So that's a nice bit of diversity and versatility it sounds like that your team produces in addition to your core gaming content. And I want to talk a little bit about your education piece, because that's really interesting to me. Like, how did you guys get into education and venture into that? And what does that look like at LionDragon?
Value: I'm a lifelong learner. It's always very important to make sure the young generations be able to learn in their way that could be more fun rather than you know, schools and books. And that's the gamification part of it. I am very fascinated with language and I took like linguistics in college and there are a lot of different languages going extinct and I think it would be good to be able to create a language learning app with the latest technology, like analytics and artificial intelligence and all that to be able to help young people to learn their way whether it's the super popular world language like English or Chinese or, a language that, will become extinct.
I think if we can make education more fun and up to date, it will help, you know, again, it's the pipeline and help people to grow up and go to college, you know, and graduate and become a game designer, app designer.
Dyani: Well, that's amazing. I love every bit of that. And especially when you're talking about the linguistics and the language and the preservation of language. Wondr Nation being a tribally owned organization we understand how important it is to preserve languages, so that is definitely something that is exciting to us.
So I want to talk a little bit more about Asian games. I know you have an expertise and a passion for Asian themed games. So when did this start and how is it manifested in your current business?
Value: So it started when I was working in the corporate world. Being an engineer who's making games, the non Asian games, but you know, have an Asian face of Asian descent. I usually get consulted for, you know, like, Hey, what do you think this one look, you know? And then later on, I was the first game studio director of Asian descent in a company.
So I was involved in my roadmap planning strategies and all that around, you know, Asian games development and also when the other part of the company like, from Australia and elsewhere that they want to make Asian games I, I get consulted too.
Dyani: And when you think about LionDragon, where does that Asian game development live in that organization?
Value: So while LionDragon was really trying to use the latest technology, you know, that's when, when we started, we want to do like AIs and VRs, you know, not particularly like gaming games, that's just our background.
In the middle of that, you know, we, we got pinged by uh, Neten, which is one of the top online gaming company, on, you know, helping them with a Asian theme library, they heard my name somewhere and then I was reached out.
So from there we hire Asian artists and producers and game designer from my previous job, you know, they, they left the company and they venture into like different non gaming work too.
Dyani: That's awesome. When you think about the development of these Asian themed games, what are some best practices that you guys do? Or you would suggest any other game developer?
Value: So it's very important to understand that Asian themed games are not just for like general Asian population. Asian games are very popular around the world. So it is a unique, you know, social group that enjoys Asian themed games, whether they are Asians or not. We need to be, like, sensitive about the culture so we don't, you know, develop any offensive content, but we should also make it entertaining for, you know, Asian or non Asian alike.
Dyani: Absolutely. And how do you collaborate with the artists to make sure that the game is authentic?
Value: As we develop Asian themes, we typically always have the team of Asian descent to develop the games from game design to art. It's also important to have a producer of Asian descent. So when they review the whole game, you know, together, they can spot Whether it, it will work for the Asian players, Asian team players, or not, Asian players.
Dyani: absolutely. It's important to make sure that someone is there to make sure that it comes off the way you want to. It's authentic, not offensive, all of those things. So it sounds like you guys have a very tight process in place to make sure all those things happen.
Value: Yeah. In addition, I also like travel to AIPAC regions like Australia, Singapore, and China to set up user focus group and observe, you know, player interactions and sometimes they chat about things and what they like and try to make it as natural as possible. So,
Dyani: Mm hmm.
Value: So they will, you know, be like themself. Then we write down their feedbacks, try to incorporate both players, and sometimes operators, they have a lot of experience dealing with their own players. And can provide a lot of great feedback, bring that into the game.
Dyani: I love that. I think it's So critical to involve the voice of the customer as we develop products to make sure that they do what we want them to do and that we don't offend anyone, but most importantly, that they're most effective. So as you think about the future and you think about staying ahead of the curve, what does LionDragon do, or how are you making sure that you're keeping up with the advancements in tech and the evolving gaming landscape?
Value: So we go to conferences and make sure we stay up to date on what's going on with gaming, what's going on with technologies. Whenever we can, we try to bring as many people in the team as possible. That really help us to stay up to date so we can make games that's relevant.
Dyani: Absolutely. Well, I absolutely love running into you and members of your team when we're out at the conferences. I just love to connect live with you when I see you guys.
So where do you hope to see yourself and where do you hope to see LionDragon in the next five years?
Value: For me, I would continue to groom the next generation of leaders and help them grow and be able to run the company.
And for LionDragon, I think, you know, it's in a better hand. We have a head of game studio, Shane's doing a wonderful job. He's very innovative and Senior game designer who can also program. So we see that, you know, we will continue to be the go to studio when there are tough problem to solve.
I want to be able to create jobs for new graduates and young professionals, and embrace them with what would be a good culture of a team that, you know, they they would want to work or build for themself in the future.
Dyani: That sounds like a wonderful five year plan there. And then this last question here for you. What is the legacy you hope to leave behind in the gaming industry?
Value: My legacy will be the teams that I build, the leaders, you know, who's going to do bigger, better things than I can, and all the great experience that the team can take that making games and making apps is fun. And learning, you know, technologies and art is, is a good thing to do, you know, when they're in college.
Dyani: Absolutely. Well, that's amazing legacy to leave behind. So Value, thank you so much for your time today. I really enjoyed our conversation. I enjoyed learning about your journey, about all of the innovations and great projects and the great impact that you are having as a professional. So thank you so very much for being on Level Up with Wondr.
Value: Dyani, thank you so much. It was such an honor to be on the podcast with Wondr Nation. Wondr Nation really do wonderful things for our players and I can't wait to see what's coming up in the future.
Dyani: Well, we are excited about the future as well. Thank you.
