The Success Story of Moonton and Mobile Legends in Indonesia

The recent acquisition of Moonton by Bytedance sparks the question about the company’s future and the fate of MLBB’s esports ecosystem. In this article, Aswin Atonie, Brand Manager of Moonton Indonesia, also shared his insights about the direction of the company’s development. Before all of that, however, let’s take a step back into the past and observe the path that Moonton took to reach its success.

Moonton’s Arduous Path in Raising Its Golden Child, Mobile Legends: Bang-Bang

According to Moonton Games’ official LinkedIn page, Shanghai Moonton Co., Ltd was founded in 2014 as a software company and, eventually, shifted its focus into game development. Moonton’s first game was called Magic Rush: Heroes, which has the generic gameplay collecting heroes through gacha.

A year after the release of Magic Rush: Heroes, Moonton released a new game we all know today as Mobile Legends. Back in 2016, the game was released under the name Mobile Legends: 5v5 MOBA, which got renamed to Mobile Legends: Bang Bang soon after.

Competitive mobile games (especially the MOBA genre) are still relatively new and underdeveloped in 2016, prompting many game developers to take the early opportunity to jump into the genre. For example, other than Mobile Legends, Vainglory was released by a new developer called Super Evil Megacorp. Gameloft, a well-established game development company, also created its own version of mobile MOBA called Heroes of Order and Chaos.

Unfortunately, Moonton’s journey in developing Mobile Legends had a rough start, facing a number of controversies in the early years.

In the early versions of Mobile Legends, the game was argued to appear unoriginal and copied ideas from other franchises. For example, back then, Alucard very much looked like Dante from the Devil May Cry series. Akai also appeared as a panda wearing pants and carrying an iron ball, which has a slight resemblance to Po from the Kung Fu Panda movie. Franco also arguably a direct copy of Pudge from Dota 2.

Interestingly, there were no complaints or lawsuits coming from the organizations that owned Dota 2, Kung Fu Panda, or Devil May Cry. However, one particular game developer, Riot Games, does have something to say about Moonton’s growing franchise.

Riot Games launched a lawsuit against Moonton in the central court of California, United States, on June 7, 2017. At that time, Riot Games accused Mobile Legends: 5v5 MOBA and Magic Rush of copying or mimicking League of Legends. In its court documents, Riot provided several screenshots that shows the similarity of the content between League of Legends and Moonton’s games. Here are some examples of the accused plagiarism, taken directly from the official court documents,

Some snippets of plagiarism allegations in Riot Games’ legal prosecution documents against Moonton in 2017. Apart from Mobile Legends, Riot Games also considers Magic Rush: Heroes to have copied League of Legends. Source: Dot Esports

Another excerpt from Riot Games’ prosecution documents towards Moonton. This time, Riot Games provides a comparison between LoL’s content and Mobile Legends’ content. Source: Dot Esports

According to the Dot Esports article published in 2018, Riot Games’ lawsuit ended in a forum non-conveniens. In these circumstances, the case is dismissed because the California court considers that another area of jurisdiction will be better suited to deal with the action. Since Moonton is based in China, the lawsuit will be adjudicated in the high court of China.

After Riot’s allegations, Moonton faced yet another lawsuit in 2018, which was filed by Tencent against Xu Zhenhua, one of Moonton’s representatives.

Dot Esports claimed that Xu Zhenhua was sued because he was deemed to have violated the non-disclosure (prohibition of submitting confidential information) and non-compete agreement (prohibition of moving to a rival company in the same field). The lawsuit initially ended with Xu Zhenhua being fined 2.6 million Yuan (approximately Rp. 5.5 billion). However, further speculation by Dot Esports’ internal source suggests that the fine got raised to about 19.4 million Yuan (approximately Rp. 42 billion).

Despite all the hard-fought trials and tribulations that Moonton went through to develop MLBB, it eventually rose over its problems and grew to the giant franchise we know of today. However, before discussing the reasons behind MLBB’s success, let’s take a look at the fate of Moonton’s other games.

Other Moonton Games That Did Not Have the Same Degree of Success as MLBB

As I mentioned earlier, Moonton has released other titles in the past. Besides Magic Rush: Heroes, Moonton created Mobile Legends: Adventure and Sweet Crossing: Snake.io.

Mobile Legends: Adventure can be considered to be more of a casual game. Similar to Magic Rush, the gameplay of ML: Adventure is an automated turn-based RPG and also applies the concept of gacha with hero collections. Sweet Crossing: Snake.io is also a game suited for casuals. It has very similar gameplay to Snake.io, which was popular among local streamers, but filled with cute animal characters.

However, these games never reached the same degree of popularity as Mobile Legends, perhaps due to the absence of an esports ecosystem. According to Google Play, Sweet Crossing, ML: Adventure, and Magic Rush, only had around 10 million installs at the time of writing this article. On the other hand, MLBB surpasses all of them by a mile, already reaching more than 100 million installs.

Sweet Crossing, one of the games made by Moonton that is very different from the previous games released by the company. Image Source – Google Play Store

The total downloads per month of the three games are actually quite decent. Using data from Sensor Tower, Sweet Crossing recorded a total of 1 million downloads on the Google Play Store worldwide in February 2021, while Mobile Legends: Adventure and Magic Rush: Heroes accumulated 400 thousand downloads and 20 thousand downloads, respectively. However, these figures are relatively insignificant when compared to MLBB, which has over 5 million worldwide downloads on the Google Play Store in February 2021.

MLBB is arguably already ingrained in the current Indonesian culture. Every day, there is always some news that is somewhat related to MLBB. These news include information about the game, such as new hero releases, Starlight, or the latest skins, to esports content, rumors, and gossip. Furthermore, a great deal of MLBB news is not released by Moonton itself, but rather by local content creators, media, pro players, and Moonton partners.

All the other three games released by Moonton do have some degree of success. After all, reaching 10 million downloads on Google Play Store is not at all an easy feat. However, MLBB is simply on another incomparable level when it comes to success, and the three games will never be able to compete with MLBB despite having decent social media followers. Why is this exactly?

In my opinion, esports is one of the biggest factors that come into play in this matter. Esports makes the discussion of the MLBB ecosystem much more interesting. Without esports, Mobile Legends’ news will only be filled with patch updates, hero releases, tips and tricks, skins, or Starlight membership.

But with the presence of esports, the Mobile Legends game has various engaging topics of discussion, ranging from rumors or gossip, pro player’s opinions (team rivalries, in-game meta), post-match interviews, and so on.

Furthermore, MLBB tournaments in Indonesia have a league format that is routinely held every week. As a result, new content and drama is constantly produced to spice up the ecosystem and the news surrounding MLBB.

The presence of esports brings a lot of content and attention to MLBB. There are also many MLBB tournaments watch parties that bring new conversations or opinions related to the game. Image Source – Nimo TV’s Facebook page

On the flip side, the other three games made by Moonton have a more casual and simple gameplay. As a result, there are rarely any competitive aspects or drive that can arise through these games.

Therefore, esports is perhaps the primary reason behind the MLBB’s rise to popularity in Indonesia. If you want to look more into the positive impacts that an esports ecosystem can bring to free-to-play games, you can read the following article.

The Mutualistic Relationship Between MLBB and the Indonesian Esports Ecosystem

MLBB and the Indonesian esports market have benefitted from each other’s existence, hence the mutualistic relationship. To understand why this is the case, we need to take a look at the development of the Indonesian esports ecosystem.

As I have previously stated, the presence of MLBB might have single-handedly resurrected Indonesian esports. One of these “revival” moments was greatly felt during MSC 2017 and MPL Season 1 in 2018, held in Taman Anggrek Mall.

These two tournaments succeeded in showing the huge potential of the gaming and esports market in Indonesia. As an illustration, normal esports events held at Taman Anggrek can usually fill the whole 1st-floor atrium of the mall. However, MSC 2017 and MPL Indonesia Season 1 were able to fill the whole mall with esports enthusiasts. People were watching from the floors above, and some even deliberately stayed in the elevator to watch the tournament. Amazing, isn’t it?

In October 2020, I also briefly discussed why Indonesia was able to overtake other regions and become superior in mobile game esports. According to the Esports Charts, MPL Indonesia was also able to beat several major international tournament in viewership numbers. In February 2021 alone, MPL Indonesia had more viewers than older esports leagues such as the Korean LCK LoL league or the biggest CS:GO tournament, IEM Katowice.

We can clearly see the impact that MLBB and Moonton have brought into Indonesian esports. Although sometimes ML is considered “only popular in Indonesia”, the Indonesian esports community has to inevitably thank Moonton for being the main catalyst of the ecosystem’s growth.

One of the effects of the growth of the Indonesian esports ecosystem is the increasing number of game developers investing in the local market. To my knowledge, there were almost no game developers directly investing in the Indonesian market before the MSC 2017 phenomenon.

However, proceeding the event, Tencent entered the Indonesian market in 2018 with PUBG Mobile. Several years later, in 2020, giants like Riot Games even penetrated directly into the local market through games like VALORANT and Wild Rift. In the case of Wild Rift, Indonesia (and other countries in SEA) even received a “special treatment” through the earlier access to the beta release compared to the Western and East Asian regions.

Moonton also gave way for the massive development of local Indonesian esports teams or organizations. Many local esports organizations, big or small, can grow and thrive thanks to MLBB. Indonesian esports teams are also able to compete and get achievements on the international stage. You can see this example in my discussion about RRQ Hoshi’s position as the most popular and successful MLBB team.

MLBB was also considered as an impetus of the largely growing RRQ’s fan base. | Source: ONE Esports

Earlier I mentioned that the relationship between Moonton’s MLBB and Indonesia’s esports scene is mutualistic, which suggests that Moonton also benefited greatly from its penetration into the Indonesian market.

Why is the Indonesian market very profitable for Moonton and MLBB? Why do Moonton and MLBB need Indonesia? Well, despite Moonton being based in China, MLBB surprisingly did not get released in China itself.

If you frequently follow Hybrid’s discussion about the development of the game industry, you will certainly understand the importance of the Chinese market. In short, China’s rapid development of gaming culture and technological advancements essentially acts as a gold mine for game developers. If you discover more about this topic, you can read the following discussion on Hybrid.co.id conducted by Ellavie.

To see why the Chinese market is considered incredibly lucrative by most developers, we need to take a look at some data. Sensor Tower had investigated mobile games with the most revenue throughout 2020 and found that PUBG Mobile and Honor of Kings were the two top-ranking ones.

PUBG Mobile was released globally (including in China) and raised $2.6 billion USD. However, Honor of Kings, which was only released in China, managed to collect revenue of $2.5 billion USD. You read that right, a game released exclusively in China can almost beat an internationally published game when it comes to revenue. Therefore, you can clearly see the scale of profitability and income that the Chinese market can bring.

Because MLBB was not able to be released in China, Moonton had to find another country with a market that can bring the same level of profitability. Eventually, Moonton found Indonesia. We also interviewed Moonton about the story behind Moonton’s market penetration into Indonesia.

Moonton Indonesia, represented by Aswin Atonie as its Brand Manager, replied, “The penetration into the Indonesian market has been carefully meticulously planned for a long time. We did various research and analysis before concluding that Indonesia’s gaming industry is essentially an empty canvas that is vastly open for development.”

Aswin Atonie, Brand Manager for Moonton Indonesia. Image Source – ONE Esports

Aswin Atonie also revealed a little behind-the-scenes story of MSC 2017. “From our studies, we prepared our breakthrough into the market through MLBB South East Asia Cup (MSC 2017), which actually has been planned since the first launch of MLBB in 2016. As we have expected, the event bore fruit and received great interest from the Indonesian fans.”

Without a doubt, Moonton’s decision to penetrate the Indonesian esports market brought in tremendous success. Through another interview conducted by Hybrid’s editor, Aswin Atonie revealed that Mobile Legends accumulated 1 billion downloads with 100 million active users today. According to an article published by ONE Esports in 2019, 31 million of those active users were from Indonesia.

The mutualistic relationship between Moonton and the Indonesian ecosystem that still holds to this very day has brought them both to the spotlight. If MLBB did not emerge as a phenomenon in 2017, the Indonesian gaming and esports market could stagnate without any skyrocketing developments. Likewise with Moonton, if it failed to realize the potential of the Indonesian gaming market, it may not have achieved the same degree of success today.

Now, the last thing we need to discuss is Moonton’s future ahead. What path of development do you think Moonton will take in the upcoming years? Will it continue to survive and grow only through Mobile Legends? Or will Moonton try to improvise and create new games in new genres?

Bytedance Acquisition, New Games, and Moonton’s Future

With the Moonton’s recent acquisition by Bytedance, this sub-topic is probably the most interesting to discuss today. In terms of MLBB game development, we saw the positive improvements of MLBB through project NEXT. Various elements in the game are improved, old heroes are updated or revamped, and in-game visuals are also upgraded while maintaining the non-graphic-intensive nature of MLBB.

With regards to esports, we can see how the Mobile Legends Professional League continues to grow in Indonesia. There is an ever-growing number of viewers, the commercial side is also constantly improving, and the scene continues to develop the competitive perspective as well. From a business standpoint, we, of course, already knew about the recent buzz of the acquisition of Bytedance (TikTok’s parent company).

With all the achievements that Moonton has achieved at this point, what will be Moonton’s next step? The recent Moonton acquisition has also spawned even more questions.

Although Aswin Atonie did touch upon this topic in our interview, he was not allowed to comment on the changes that will occur after the Bytedance acquisition. Fortunately, he did give us some hints about the direction of Moonton’s future development. Firstly, he discussed the potential of creating a new game. We already knew that Moonton has released other games such as Mobile Legends: Adventure and Sweet Crossing. However, does Moonton have any plans to dive into other competitive genres such as Battle Royale, FPS, or Digital Card Games?

“We always want to be updated with the latest trends in the game industry, but currently our focus won’t be shifting from the MOBA genre. We strongly believe that there are still countless aspects that we can develop in MLBB.” Aswin explained

“In the development of MLBB, we still focus greatly on improving player experience through the implementation various features, in-game updates, and events that we regularly release such as 515 e-Party, Project NEXT, Winter Gala, and so on. Behind the scenes, however, we (Moonton) are also currently developing other games. Information related to this will, of course, only be shared when the game is considered ready.” Aswin continued, explaining Moonton’s next plan in terms of game development.

The next question that comes to mind is the idea of expanding the MLBB market and esports to other countries. As I have explained before, even though MLBB has grown and developed tremendously, the scope of the game is mostly limited in the Southeast Asian region.

“We certainly want to continue to expand the market, and we already have specific plans for each region. Currently, we have two designated teams each responsible for managing the Developed Area, such as Southeast Asia, and Developing Area, such as Europe, the United States, and East Asia.” Aswin answered.

Despite its expansions proposals, Moonton still intends to put much of its resources into the Indonesian ecosystem. “We want to keep developing the esports ecosystem in Indonesia by educating the public perspective when it comes to the negative stigma of gaming, as well as inspiring the younger generation to play with a purpose. I feel that, so far, MLBB has opened up so many job opportunities in the esports sector, such as being an esports athlete, gaming content creator, esports team management, event management, and so on.”

Before closing the discussion with Aswin, I also asked about the possibility of Moonton exploring the world of console games in the future. Aswin answered that “As a business player in the game industry, we believe that PC and console games will continue to develop in the future. But, of course, we still want to capitalize on the current expanding mobile era. Therefore, as of now, Moonton will only be focusing on developing MLBB into a mobile game that provides the best player experience.”

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That wraps up Moonton’s Cinderella story who had a rocky start followed by a period of exponential growth which propelled it to success. Hopefully, Moonton’s journey can be an inspiration for all of you who are currently looking to invest and grow a business in the esports or gaming industry.

Featured Image – Moonton Epic Con 2019 (Source – Moonton Official). The original article is written by Akbar Priono

A Million Reasons of Why Brands Should Leverage Their Presence In Indonesia’s Esports Ecosystem

When we speak about esports, we are still talking about a billion-dollar market full of possibilities for all to get a glimpse of the esports world. Although esports was once considered a branch of sports culture, it has now evolved into a full-fledged industry in its own right.

Global investors, brands, media outlets, and customers are paying notice as competitive video games begin to evolve into mainstream culture. According to Insider Intelligence, total esports attendance is projected to rise at a 9% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) between 2019 and 2023, rising from 454 million in 2019 to 646 million in 2023. This sets the esports audience on track to almost double over a six-year period, from 335 million in 2017.

The statistics above reflect the number of unique audiences that brands can target, especially for targeting Gen Z, which is critical in the long run for businesses with at least a 20-year vision. With the massive development happening in the esports market over the last decade, brands are eager to get a head start on reaching more younger generations through esports.

Salim Group, an Indonesian conglomerate established in 1972, collaborated with ESL to establish ESL Indonesia. Image Credit: Nikkei Asia

Adidas, FC Copenhagen, Louis Vuitton, VISA, and Mercedes-Benz are only a handful of the household names who have taken part in large-scale esports activities such as tournaments, organizations, teams, and more. The brands mentioned above are legendary brands standing for virtually hundreds of years yet were involved in esports, a relatively young industry. Any conclusion implies that either esports provide a significant opportunity for their brands in the long run or that they have an unqualified risk management team standing behind the desk, the latter of which seems rather implausible.

According to Deloitte, over US$4,5 billion has been invested into the esports industry in 2018 alone. Notable transactions in the sector over the last decade include:

(Photo Courtesy of GDPVenture/Dexerto)

Traditional investors’ interest reflects the industry’s maturity and increasing mainstream appeal from an investor standpoint.

“Brands can use esports as a platform to engage lots of audience in gaming scene”- Hans Saleh, Country Head of Garena Indonesia

Many factors are taken into account as brands try to glimpse into how disruptive esports can be in their brand portfolio. Big players or international corporations often see the global market as a sandbox, yet specific brands will first scale from the bottom and choose vital regions. And with that, Indonesia is often included in the list due to its enormous potential.

Why Choose Indonesia rather than MY/SG or any others in Southeast Asia?

Speaker of People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) as Board of Trustees (Dewan Pembina) of Pengurus Besar Esports Indonesia (PBESI) with Sandiaga Uno

Indonesia, located in Southeast Asia, is home to over 237 million people and deemed the fourth largest country by population. Given that citizens’ gaming penetration is greater than that of its neighbors, Indonesia presents a significant opportunity for brands to enter the esports market. Gaming and esports analytics company Newzoo projected that Indonesia’s gaming revenues would grow significantly every year. Indonesia generated US$1,31 billion in revenue in 2019, making it Southeast Asia’s largest gaming industry, surpassing Thailand and Malaysia, which together generated US$1,466 billion in revenue. This figure speaks for itself – what you need to do is capture the Indonesian market to gain access to the combined market figure Thailand and Malaysia can offer.

Indonesia Presence Bigger Potential Reach Thanks to the Massive Adoption of Mobile Games

MLBB Professional League (MPL) Indonesia’s franchise slot was sold US$1 million each, which is now worth more if the franchisee organization wishes to resell the slot.

The lower the barrier is, the better. In Indonesia, mobile esports is the fastest-growing market. It demonstrates that accessibility reigns supreme in the modern era. The rising revenue of esports or the game industry shows how mobile gaming is the fastest increasing economy segment. According to statista.com, the mobile games sector in Indonesia will generate sales of US$1,487 million in 2021 and a business value of US$2,149 million by 2025.

Given the low cost of mobile smartphones and the ease with which the games can be obtained, Indonesia is the most exciting nation for brands looking to join esports. According to KINCIR, four of the top ten Indonesian esports titles were mobile games, with four ranked in the top five. This is also due to the more significant numbers of players engaged with mobile games and mobile gaming’s more developed microtransaction economy.

(Photo courtesy of GDP Venture/KINCIR)

It is also worth noting that 7 of the Top 10 mobile esports titles were developed by Asian developers, while this is only true of 3 of the top 10 PC esports titles. This shift suggests that mobile esports is part of a shifting balance in the global esports industry, which favors the growing Asian games market, especially Indonesia, with its excellent relationship with major players in the market such as China, Japan, South Korea, and others.

Esports is the right channel to engage 73,7% of Indonesia’s internet population.

1. Esports Can Reach Mass Audience

Playing games is one of the most popular reasons people go online in Indonesia, outnumbering those who read the news and seek entertainment. The situation motivates the brand to begin participating in esports. Social networking and entertainment content were also often linked to esports, which increased gaming and esports visibility among the general public. The amount itself will rise over time and is unlikely to fall into a downward spiral any time soon.

Long story short, several titles were developed for PC initially but were ported or adapted for mobile devices by the developers to reach a much larger audience on the platform. The broader range of genres is more welcoming to a broader audience of mobile gamers. This correlates to Indonesia’s hype over mobile games and should any brand enter the esports ecosystem of Indonesia; these brands could enjoy access to 64% of the fourth largest nation by the population who played games.

(Photo courtesy of GDPVenture/APJII)

2. The trend of Non-Endemic Brands Get Into Esports

The latest pattern in Global and Indonesia is that a growing number of non-endemic businesses (companies that are not directly involved in esports) are allocating a more significant portion of their expenditure to esports. This is due to esports’ unique potential to draw a youthful and dedicated audience.

In Indonesia, various industry leaders have taken part in Indonesia’s esports ecosystem. BCA enters the ecosystem through their venture capital company GDP Venture, which holds a stake in the Indonesian Esports Premier League (IESPL), which hosted Piala Presiden Esports. Their portfolio also includes several other media portals, including Hybrid.co.id, GGWP ID, and KINCIR.

Image Credit: ELITE8 Esports

Telkomsel and Smartfren, two telecom firms, sponsored ELITE8 and Morph Team, respectively. Biznet, Tokopedia, tiket.com, and other brands heavily participating in esports activities round out the list.

ESL has also partnered with the Indonesian conglomerate firm Salim Group to form ESL Indonesia and organize the ESL Indonesia National Championships. Pop Mie, Chitato, Indomilk, and Mercedes-Benz have also jumped at the opportunity to be the league sponsors.

“Indonesian people’s interest in esports has increased by 60% during the pandemic”

– Rangga Danu, VP of KINCIR & Co-founder of Indonesian Esports Premier League (IESPL)

Globally, thousands of non-endemic brands have taken part in the ecosystem and are looking forward to continuing their support. The most recent mega-deal was ESL’s extension of its relationship with DHL. The United States Air Force Army was one of the last organizations you’d think to get into esports. They did, really. They sponsored ELEAGUE Major Boston CS:GO 2018 and had a partnership deal with Cloud9 in 2019.

In reality, non-endemic brands accounted for 69% of new big esports sponsors in Europe. This demonstrates how confident brands with no product relationship with esports saw the future potential to keep their company relevant for the next ten years.

3. Esports Provide Diverse Channel to Reach and Engage Audience

The esports ecosystem consists of numerous parties, including teams, tournament organizers, broadcasting platforms, game creators, fans, publishers, and brands. Widespread distribution would be an advantage for brands in the esports ecosystem.

“Esports makes BCA brand relevant to younger generation”

– Armand Hartono, Vice President Director of Bank Central Asia (BCA)

4. The Ecosystem Offers a Variety of Different Opportunities

Brands have a preference to choose the best investment that fits their objectives. It could be through esports games or other parties such as esports teams, players, publishers, and many more. Intel, for example, opted to promote its brand by sponsoring ESL via the Intel Extreme Masters brand. IEM was then featured at a variety of Intel-sponsored events hosted by ESL, including IEM Cologne, IEM Katowice, and IEM Beijing-Haidian. Intel’s decision to sponsor ESL over the past two decades has resulted in them having a sizeable role in almost every esports title that ESL organizes.

Image Credit: Sports Business

5. Esports Is a Promising Platform to Build High-Quality Engagement

The fans of esports are devoted and eager to pay for their enthusiasm. They would like to spend their time and money watching, playing, and following esports updates anytime and anywhere. You can name it from subscribing to streaming individuals to buying tournament tickets and merchandise, not to mention buying games characters and vouchers.

Pokimane, an internet star well known for his Twitch Channel stream, previously stated that streamers receive approximately $10,000 per 3,000 subscribers, implying that she earns roughly $25,000 a month from subscribers alone. Additionally, she has over 6.43 million users on YouTube, and her videos have accumulated over 349 million views. In addition, we have written an overview of Where Does Game Streamers’ Revenue Come From, which can be seen here.

Meanwhile, the official Counter-Strike Global Offensive blog revealed that the selling of stickers during ESL One Cologne 2015 raised more than US$4.2 million for the participating players and teams. It shows how esports organizations will receive passive income from time to time once they reached a particular milestone, in this case, Valve Major.

FaZe Clan, 100Thieves, and TSM are only a few of the esports organizations that specialize in high-quality content creation. In less than three years after its inception, 100Thieves has grown to become one of the world’s most valuable esports organizations, with a US$190 million valuation, up 27% year over year. They defeated G2 Esports, T1 Esports, and others through their efforts to create content, establish a strong identity, and win numerous trophies. The rise demonstrates the infinite opportunities for brands to invest in esports in the coming year.

10 Most Influential People in the Development of Computer Games

Previously, we have discussed 10 of the most influential people in the development of computers. Since then, these machines which were initially seen simply as a business machine, have evolved to cater to different markets and purposes.

Computer games, in particular, have grown side-by-side with the advancement of computer technology. The two fields are intertwined, in a sense that development in one would influence the other in a positive way.

This time around, we are going to list ten of the most influential people in the field of computer games. Their contributions have paved the way for modern game titles as we know them today and provided us with a unique form of entertainment like no other. In no particular order, these are ten out of many influential people in the development of computer games of all time.

Steve Russell

One of the pioneers of computer gaming is Steve Russell, whose game Spacewar! is widely considered as one of the first video games. As an MIT student in 1961, Russell and his friends utilized the PDP-1 computer’s statistical calculations to create Spacewar! The game paved way for modern video games on computers and was widely distributed among the public domains to run on different computers.

Aside from his work on Spacewar!, Russell is responsible for the first two punch cards IBM 704 implementations of the Lisp programming language. Russell realized what John McCarthy, inventor of Lisp, thought would be impossible, that is to interpret/evaluate Lisp code instead of compiling it. In the later years, Russell proceeded to become Bill Gates’ and Paul Allen’s mentor when the two were part of the Lakeside School programming group.

Gordon Earle Moore

Known famously for his empirical approximation called Moore’s Law, Gordon Moore is one of the founders of the Intel company. As many of you might be familiar, Intel is one of the leading manufacturers and pioneers of computer microchips that essentially serve as the brain of all the technological devices, gadgets, and hence games, our world relies on.

Before producing microchips, Intel initially wanted to manufacture logic circuits based on semiconductors. However, they soon realized that their Japanese competitors were very much ahead and so they shifted to semiconductors. It was a big-brain move after all. As hinted earlier, Moore’s Law is an empirical trend which Moore posited in 1965 that projects the doubling of the number of components per integrated circuit for every two years. The trend holds true until today.

William Crowther

Before the dawn of computer graphics-based video games, most computer games were based on text-based commands. As a player, you interact with the system through different commands to which the system would respond, and thus the game would then continue to build on. One of the first text-based games was William Crowther’s Adventure.

The game Adventure was first built for the PDP-11 minicomputer and requires its players to enter two-word commands in order to navigate around. Soon after, computers became powerful enough to render prettier graphics, but Adventure served as the precursor for the adventure game genre and other role-playing computer games.

Tim Sweeney

Tim Sweeney is perhaps best known for founding one of the leading game developers and publishers of today, Epic Games. But before the company bloomed to its glorious era, Sweeney began by developing a game known as ZZT, which later became the basis of Potomac Computer Systems’ initial success in game development. Soon after that, he decided to rename his company to Epic MegaGames.

Epic MegaGames’ next successful title was the first-person shooting game Unreal. In the process, however, Sweeney developed a game engine, called Unreal Engine, that would eventually shape the foundation of today’s video games like Fortnite, PlayerUnknown’s Battleground, VALORANT, and many others. With it, developers are able to create 3D games that run on versatile platforms and even made influences on the film and television industry.

John Carmack

If some of you grew up in the early 90s, you’re probably familiar with video game titles like Wolfenstein, Doom, Quake, and their various renditions afterward. These titles are all products of id Software, a video game developer founded by four individuals, including John Carmack. Aside from these nostalgic titles, Carmack has made long-lasting impacts in the technical side of game development that allowed for modern titles like Half-Life and Call of Duty.

Particularly, Carmack popularized the usage of techniques known as adaptive tile refresh, ray casting, binary space partitioning, surface caching, z-fail stencil shadows, and various other very technical computer graphics methods. Also, Carmack is a huge advocate for open-source software over software patents, allowing others to build and work on top of the code Carmack and his team have written.

Gabe Newell

If you’re like me and grew up playing games in the early 2000s, the game distributor Steam shouldn’t be fairly new to you. And the name Gabe Newell, nicknamed Gaben, is all too coupled with the platform that he and his company Valve created. With Valve, Gabe funded the development of older game titles like Half-Life, as well as the GoldSrc game engine. The GoldSrc engine evolved into the more modern game engine known as the Source Engine.

Speaking about Source Engine, it is the very engine that the games Counter-Strike and Half-Life: 2 run on. Later down the line, it too became the engine on which esports titles like Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive live on. Steam became the home and distributor of these two beloved games alongside countless others.

David Brevik

Dubbed one of the most influential people in computer gaming of 1996, David Brevik is a video game creator of Diablo. Although, of course, the game itself was a joint effort of a group of developers, Brevik spearheaded much of the game’s early development and made much of the internal decisions within the development of Diablo.

More importantly, Diablo paved way for action and RPG games to enter the realm of computer gaming. Later on, Brevik’s company Condor Games was acquired by the company Blizzard Entertainment. With the immense popularity of Diablo as an RPG game, titles like World of Warcraft would soon follow the same path lit by Diablo.

Shigeru Miyamoto

Although the Japanese video game company Nintendo rarely dabbles with the field of computer gaming, their all-time popular video game titles like Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda surely have influenced young children of their time to play games in the comfort of their homes. Not to mention, a lot of arcade and PC game developers have also probably found inspiration by playing Nintendo’s games.

Shigeru Miyamoto is the man behind the design of both Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda. They are two out of countless famous arcade games played on the Nintendo Entertainment System and reached quite a significant percentage of the console game market.

Hideo Kojima

Like Miyamoto, Hideo Kojima is a Japanese video game designer that had a massive influence in the realm of gaming. Kojima specifically impacted the genre of stealth games with the creation of one of his most popular titles of all time, Metal Gear. Metal Gear ran on a home computer known as MSX2, with its future renditions running on both PC and various console platforms.

Kojima’s achievements would continue to rack up until today, including one of his independent studio’s first video game titles called Death Stranding. Though his primary field is video games, Kojima found multiple inspirations from movies and films. Returning his favor back to the movie industry, Kojima has spoken about producing his own films, thus completing his circle of inspiration.

Ivan Edward Sutherland

We shall end the list with the person dubbed as the father of computer graphics, Ivan Edward Sutherland. During his time as a professor in the Computer Science Department at the University of Utah, Sutherland and his colleague David Cannon Evans founded the company, Evans & Sutherland. The company pioneered the earliest works involving 3D computer graphics which would not only bleed to video games, but also movies.

In fact, some of the company’s former employees included other legendary figures like Adobe founder John Warnock, Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull, Oracle’s Scott P. Hunter, and many more. Sutherland would also continue to win a Turing Award, oftentimes considered the Nobel Prize of Computer Science, for his program known as Sketchpad. Sketchpad formed the foundations of graphical user interfaces, which are pretty much found in almost every software we use today.

Featured Image via Wikimedia Commons.

10 Best and Worst Cities for Gamers to Live In

Due to the recent growth of the esports industry, a lot of individuals and businesses today quickly grab the opportunity to enter the realm of gaming. Concurrently, Broadband Savvy has just announced the results of their study regarding the ideal cities for gamers and esports enthusiasts to live in.

One of the criteria that Broadband Savvy uses to determine whether a city is suitable for gamers is the average broadband internet speed as well as the lowest cost of a 1 Gbps internet connection in that city. In addition, they also compared the relative prices of gaming hardware (by observing the cost of an RTX 3090), the number of major esports events or gaming expos in the previous 5 years, and the number of gaming or esports-related jobs in the city. Lastly, the study also considered the average living cost and 5G availability or coverage.

Regional Performance

Broadband Savvy divided the 74 countries they included in their study into 6 different regions: North America, South America, Asia, Europe, Oceania, and Middle East & Africa. As expected, each region has its own strengths and weaknesses. For example, most cities in Asia – with China and India as exceptions – usually have high-quality internet networks at affordable prices, such as Seoul, Hong Kong, and Osaka. Furthermore, gaming gear is far more cheaper in the Asian region, which makes perfect sense since most gaming components are manufactured there.

Seoul is the second best city for gamers. | Source: Deposit Photos

On the other hand, the NA region generally provides a lot of gaming jobs. Austin and Seattle are the two cities that offer the most jobs in the gaming industry. However, it would be an understatement to say that the living cost and internet subscription fees there are expensive. Fortunately, with regards to the relative cost of gaming hardware, North America is still on the cheaper side of the spectrum when compared with Europe. Despite that, Europe generally does have a more affordable broadband cost than NA. Several European cities, such as Paris, also have an ample amount of good gaming job opportunities as well.

Although cities in South America do have a relatively low rent cost, high quality broadband speeds are rarely available. Fortunately, some cities, such as Mexico city, do have decent internet connections and are also priced reasonably well. Gaming expos and major LAN events are also often held across the region.

The Oceania region and the Middle East & Africa share the same problem as the NA region, which is the expensive internet costs. However, broadband fees in the Middle East & Africa remain substantially higher than in Oceania. For example, 1Gbps internet subscription fees in the United Arab Emirates can reach $800 USD (equivalent to around Rp.11.5 million). Despite that, Indonesia has an even more absurd broadband cost, such as the IDR 17.5 million 1Gbps broadband package offered by IndiHome in 2019.

10 Best Cities for Gamers

According to Broadband Savvy, Austin, Texas, is considered the most ideal city for gamers and esports fans. The city has a fairly fast internet speed – 138Mbps – and a relatively cheap 1Gbps internet subscription fee at only $60 USD. Most parts of Austin also accommodate 5G network and frequently holds gaming expos.

Seoul in South Korea places second in Broadband Savvy’s chart. In terms of internet quality and speed, Seoul is the cream of the crop and far exceeds Austin by a mile, able to reach internet speeds up to 602Mbps, and generally priced cheaper at only $33.24 USD. However, the downside of Seoul comes in the much scarcer opportunity to work in the esports industry. Although Seoul often hosts many large-scale esports tournaments and has a thriving esports scene, there are still far more gaming expos being held in Austin, which is why Seoul falls short of first place.

Bucharest surprisingly was ranked third as the best city for gaming enthusiasts. Bucharest has an incredibly cheap broadband fee (around $10 USD) and also has a slightly better broadband speed than Austin (averaging at 164Mbps). There is a decent degree of 5G coverage throughout the city as well. Unfortunately, the prices of gaming hardware in Bucharest are usually more expensive when compared to the two previous cities. Furthermore, similar to Seoul, there are not many gaming jobs available in Bucharest

“Depending on what you’re looking for, there are a number of different cities that would make a great place to live as a gamer. Cities such as Bucharest scored well due to their cheap, fast internet, and low costs of living. Other cities such as LA and London cost more to live in, but have a much greater number of expos and esports events each year,” said Tom Paton, the founder of Broadband Savvy, quoted from its website. “Other cities like Los Angeles and London do have higher living costs, but gaming expos and esports competitions are often held there.”

Here are the 10 best cities for gamers:

Austin, United States
Seoul South Korea
Bucharest, Romania
Paris, France
Los Angeles, United States
Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Montreal, Canada
Barcelona, Spain
Seattle, United States
Boston, United States

10 Worst Cities for Gamers

Out of the 74 cities included in the Broadband Savvy study, Dubai, unfortunately, ranked last in the list due to their highly expensive and yet mediocre internet performance. In Dubai, the average broadband speed is only 11 Mbps, and the lowest 1Gbps internet subscription fee available is $775 USD. Another factor that causes Dubai to underperform in the study is its relatively poor gaming job opportunities. Dubai does have one thing going for them: partial 5G coverage on certain sections of the city.

Sydney, Australia, managed to sneak past Dubai and ranked second last out of the cities included in the study. Sydney does have a slightly better internet performance (26Mbps) and cost ($112 USD) compared to Dubai. However, like Dubai, the living cost in Sydney can be expensive, while gaming jobs in the city are not very promising.

Abu Dhabi, another city in the United Arab Emirates, ranked third from the last. Abu Dhabi suffered the exact same problems as Dubai, namely their slow internet (9Mbps average speed), high broadband fees ($775 USD), and scarce job opportunities in the gaming industry. The marginally lower living cost of Abu Dhabi is the sole reason why it performs better than Dubai in the study.

Here are the 10 worst cities for gamers:

St Petersburg, Russia
Cairo, Egypt
Johannesburg, South Africa
Vienna, Austria
Santiago, Chile
Auckland, New Zealand
Brisbane, Australia
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Sydney, Australia
Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Translated by: Ananto Joyoadikusumo

10 Most Influential People in the Development of Computers Technology

Most of us humans take for granted a piece of technology like computers in this day and time. They are everywhere, in our desktops, laptops, mobile phones, cars, and the list goes on. These seemingly small machines have become essential in our day-to-day activities. Without them, the world we know and love would probably be unable to operate like how we used to see it.

Like every other invention, computers have a long history behind their development. The idea of computation dates back years ago, but its practical implementation only emerges in the recent decades. Being a universally used machine, there were tons of people working on the advancement of computers — each with a set of their own findings that helped improve its speed, efficiency, and capability.

Programming on a Macbook. Source: Caspar Camille Rubin on Unsplash.

Though different, their works have impacted and influenced the remaining history of computers as we know it today. From physical implementation, theoretical ideas, programming languages, you name it, these people worked on very diverse applications of a computer. If these puzzle pieces weren’t connected, today’s technological breakthroughs like blockchain, video games, the internet, including reading this very article, wouldn’t be possible.

So who were these influential people whose works impacted the development of computers? Before we dive into more niche and applied fields like PC gaming, let’s take a step back and start from the fundamentals. In no particular order, these are ten of the most influential people in the history of computer development.

Charles Babbage

One of the earliest mechanical implementations of a programmable computer was invented by Charles Babbage, a Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University. Initially, Babbage proposed the Difference Engine, a computing machine capable of generating mathematical tables. With the Difference Engine, the process of generating tables like logarithm tables, astronomical tables, and actuarial tables was easily done.

Soon enough, Babbage proposed the Analytical Engine, which is essentially a more general rendition of the Difference Engine. The capabilities of the Analytical Engine are far more versatile than its predecessor and the machine exhibits similar computing logic as modern computers can. It had a memory store, a central processing unit, conditional branching, and was controlled by a program of instructions.

Ada Lovelace

Working on top of Babbage’s previous findings, Ada Lovelace extrapolated that the Analytical Engine could be extended to applications beyond mere calculations. In fact, she expected that the machine might be able of composing “elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent.” Moreover, she programmed one of the first algorithms for the Analytical Engine that produced Bernoulli numbers. Due to that, she is widely considered the first computer programmer.

The legacy that Ada Lovelace left was part amusing and part humorous at the same time. On one side, her idea of applying computers to more general fields via programs inspired a generation of programmers. On the other hand, despite her groundbreaking findings, she surprisingly had no scientific background, was a poet’s daughter, and saw herself as a fairy.

Joseph Marie Jacquard

Nowadays, the question regarding who the first programmer really is remained greatly debated. Some speculated that Ada Lovelace’s work wasn’t truly authentic and that Babbage had thought of the same, but his ideas never really got off the drawing board. But perhaps the person to be credited with the idea of creating a program of instructions is Joseph Marie Jacquard.

Jacquard developed a loom that used a punched card-based paper tape to regulate the pattern being woven. Indeed, it was Jacquard’s weaving loom idea that Babbage adopted into his design of programming the Analytical Engine. Later down in the timeline, punched cards became one of the earliest methods of programming a modern IBM computer.

Alan Mathison Turing

A more prominent character in the modern history of computer development is Alan Turing, famous for his Enigma Code. Aside from his commendable achievement, which arguably shaped the world’s history as we know it, Turing laid out the principles of a modern computer. The machine, known as a Turing machine, operated by manipulating symbols on a strip of tape according to a table of rules.

Aside from these fundamental computing concepts and breakthroughs in codebreaking, Turing contributed to and proposed ideas related to modern concepts of artificial intelligence and artificial life. His work extends to the famous Halting problem, Turing-completeness of programming languages, and many other intriguing ideas.

John von Neumann

Like Turing, von Neumann was a lead figure in the earliest days of modern computing. Early on in his life, von Neumann was already regarded as a child prodigy. Many even dubbed him as the last representative of the great mathematicians, given his ability to integrate pure and applied sciences.

A classic example of von Neumann’s contribution to computing included the merge sort, a sorting algorithm capable of sorting items in less than quadratic complexity time. This is only one instance of his works, but he worked on countless computing concepts such as the cellular automata, game theory, and artificial intelligence.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

We shall take a detour and move back in time, as we investigate a more fundamental idea of the binary system which builds into pretty much the rest of computing and programming history. Though studied independently by multiple people from multiple regions, Leibniz helped refined the binary number system that shaped digital computation that later influenced the works of von Neumann.

Statues of Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz. Source: Wikimedia.

In case you’re unfamiliar with Leibniz, he too, is famous for the development of Calculus, independent of Isaac Newton. Nevertheless, his philosophical ideas transcended the mathematical field and into the field of computation, one of which included his dream of being able to boil reasoning down to computations. Unfortunately, it was Turing’s halting problem that ultimately deemed such a process to be impossible.

Blaise Pascal

Moving a further step backward in history, we find that the French mathematician, Blaise Pascal, invented a mechanical calculator known as Pascal’s calculator or Pascaline. The machine is capable of performing arithmetic calculations like addition and subtraction — two basic operations that could be extended to multiplication and division.

It is also this machine that influenced Leibniz’s ideas as well as calculators as simple as an office calculator in the years that came after. Further, it became the pioneer in the modern field of computer engineering as we know it and hence paved the way to designing a mechanical computation machine, or more simply, computers.

David John Wheeler

Now, we shall take a leap forward in time and jump to modern-day computers. Underneath the hood, the programs we run on our computers are processed by, well a processing unit, in a language of instructions that they understand. One major language which machines generally understand is the Assembly language, and Wheeler is one of the first creators of the language.

The Assembly language became the machine language in which higher-level languages like C and C++ are compiled into. Unlike high-level languages, the Assembly language might not be legible to the general public and resembles much closer to an architecture’s machine code instructions.

John Warner Backus

As we discussed earlier, the Assembly language isn’t the most convenient of a programming language. Instructions were very rigid and it was thus hard to produce algorithms relevant to simulating the physical world. John Warner Backus, who worked at IBM, proposed a more practical programming language known as Fortran.

Fast Fourier Transform Algorithm in Fortran. Code Source: Supercomputing Center of USTC. Source Code Generated by carbon.now.sh.

Fortran provided a novel programming method that sits on top of Assembly language — the language that machines understand. To translate Fortran code to Assembly, it required another puzzle piece known as compilers. Indeed, Fortran’s creation was the advent of compilers, and that many higher-level programming languages like Lisp, C, and Java are derived from Fortran.

Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie

Finally, we shall conclude this list with a more modern programming language that still remains influential until today. Like Fortran, C is a higher-level programming language whose main focus lies on operating systems like Windows, Unix/Linux, and Mac OS. Together with Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie worked on the creation of C at Bell Laboratories.

Applications of the C programming language are virtually countless, not to mention other programming languages derived from C, like C++ and Objective-C. More importantly, though, modern electronics like your washing machine and smart fridge most likely runs on C, given their blazing speed. Despite its age, C ranks first in the measure of the popularity of programming languages according to the May 2021 TIOBE index.

Closing Remarks

These people weren’t the only influential ones which contributed to the development of computers. Countless people should be on the list, but we only have so much time in our hands. I greatly suggest reading deeper if you’re interested in this topic of computing, as so much has been invested in this unique field.

Featured Image by Wikimedia Commons.

4 Massively Flawed Arguments Regarding the Negative Effects of Gaming

“Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are dead. ” – Aldous Huxley

Contradictions and paradoxes are perhaps the elements that define our human nature. We adore change but are often scared of new things. The realm of technology is undoubtedly populated with these contradictions, including video games. Of course, all of us always want to appear logical and intelligent. However, we frequently hate learning new pieces of knowledge and instead use preexisting stigmas in our judgments.

The esports industry has been and needs to continue dealing with the negative views about gaming. Many gamers, unfortunately, also have been carried away by the mainstream media that often injects this negative stigma.

Therefore, let us discuss and parse each of these negative views towards gaming; from the perspective of a gamer obsessed with philosophy.

1. Games Are highly addictive

Game addiction, as what most people call it, is one of the most popular arguments used when discussing the harmful effects of gaming.

The truth is, anything that stimulates our bodies to produce dopamine can be addictive. Please read this scientific article (PDF) if you would like to learn more about dopamine. In short, dopamine is a “feel-good” hormone produced by the brain, which is why it is released when we feel happy. Some drugs can even stimulate the brain to produce high amounts of dopamine and consequently pushes a dependency or addiction towards the drug.

Playing games is just one of the millions or billions of activities that can trigger our bodies to produce dopamine. For example, there are also people who are addicted to social media, watching TV series (such as local soap operas, Korean dramas, Game of Thrones, etc), shopping, working, and many more. Yet, all these activities don’t share the same degree of bad press compared to gaming.

Interestingly, love also stimulates dopamine production, which is why most people can get entangled in it. Lovers don’t ever want to be separated. They will go to any lengths to be together and care less about any other aspects of life.

I do believe that games have the potential to become addictive. However, we should also acknowledge that there are countless addictive activities out there. Should anything addictive to us be eliminated from society? What about romance, as mentioned previously? What about being a workaholic?

It would be naive to think that all activities that make us inherently happy should not be permitted in our lives. Therefore, I personally believe that the addiction argument here is extensively flawed.

2. Games Can Be Harmful to Your Health

In an article from Beritagar, there is a story about a parent who found out that their child had seizures and had a high fever after playing games on his laptop. It was later discovered that the boy suffered from epilepsy. In this case, did the game cause the boy’s seizures?

Let’s take a hypothetical example. Assume that we have a bunch of children who are allergic to peanuts and cats. In some unfortunate series of events, the kids swallowed several peanuts and came into contact with a cat, which prompted their allergic reactions. In this scenario, should we blame the peanuts and cats for harming the children? Obviously, no.

I think that many of today’s parents frequently find scapegoats for their failure to raise their children properly. Instead of spending time and paying attention to their children, parents blame video games, the internet, music (the blocking of Bruno Mars and similar musicians), and schools for their child’s misbehavior.

I have also been a parent for 11 years (at the time of writing this article), but I will not blame other subjects for anything that happens to my child. My wife and I are fully responsible for handling our child, at least until he turns 18. Having a child can be very easy. Raising them, on the other hand, can be a whole different story..

Others say that technology can make people lazy, severely damage their eyes, and so on. Like it or not, humans created technology to make their life easier and, by definition, accommodate their laziness.

Imagine the era before cars were invented. Everyone must walk or exert a lot of energy when traveling. Today’s internet makes communication effortless, which allows us to order foods and other goods from our beds. So, should technology be banned to force people to move, exercise and be healthy? I sincerely think that a life without technology will not be any better.

3. Games Promote Violent Behavior

Violence is perhaps another prevalent argument by people who hate new changes. You might remember that people back then claim that rock music induces violent behavior.

Unsurprisingly, acts of violence and crime have existed since the dawn of society. So does gaming actually increase violent behavior? To answer this question, we need to dive deep into the complex problem of violence itself.

Assume that there indeed exist a handful of people who commit crimes due to gaming. From this scenario, can we conclude that gaming causes violence? Of course, it would be naive for us to do so. Religion, for example, has been a catalyst of many wars and barbaric punishments in the past. However, religion rarely ever receives any backlash for the countless injustice it has performed.

The case is different for psychopaths or sociopaths. These individuals do have a unique way of viewing the world and would be, again, naive for us to think that gaming is the sole cause behind their unnatural behavior. A billion factors always come into play when we decide the actions (good or bad) that we make in our lives, even for psychopaths or sociopaths.

4. You Cannot Make a Living Out of Games

People who have a negative perspective towards games often think that gamers don’t have a great paycheck. There is probably some truth to this notion. However, like all careers or professions, everyone can be successful as long as they are willing to work with their utmost effort.

For example, which of the following professions earns the most money? Entrepreneurs? Bank employees? Programmers? Celebrities? Interestingly, there are more bankrupt businessmen than successful ones. Similarly, bank employees and programmers will not get promoted in their jobs if they are lazy. Celebrities can also stop being relevant if he/she does not continuously promote themselves. In reality, work ethic is the factor that determines a person’s success, not their profession.

The same thing goes in the gaming industry. Those who continuously work hard will be able to endure a long and sustainable career. I personally have lived off a career in the Indonesian gaming industry (specifically in the media sector) since 2009.

Any profession or career can be a cruel survival of the fittest. Those who cannot adapt and provide unique values as professionals will not be able to compete and thrive.

Revenue generated by the esports industry in 2018. Source: Newzoo

–

In conclusion, everything in this world all has its pros and cons. Thinking that everything can be perfect is simply unsophisticated and one-dimensional thinking. Every aspect of life can, in fact, all have their respective negative impacts, such as school (when you get an unprofessional teacher), work (an intoxicating work environment), or even religion (when used maliciously for personal gain). The same thing goes with technology, games, social media, and other upcoming trends in the future.

Socrates once said that the unexamined life is not worth living. It is, indeed, imperative that we realize the potentially negative or harmful side effects of the latest technologies such as video games. However, it is also crucial for us, humans, to look into the positivity and true nature behind these new inventions. After all, technology is created to make life more enjoyable and the world a better place.

Translated by: Ananto Joyoadikusumo

6 Factors You Must Consider Before Getting a Compact Mechanical Keyboard

60% mechanical keyboards or smaller keyboard layouts provide far more compactness than full-sized (104 keys) or TKL (87 keys) layouts. I initially got into 60-65% mechanical keyboards because I find them quite eye-catching. Furthermore, 60% layout is incredibly standardized (shapes or bodies don’t differ much between brands), so modifying the keyboard will not be much of a hassle.

Big gaming brands are also starting to get into the smaller form factor trend. Razer is one of the big gaming brands that already released a 60% mechanical keyboard called the Huntsman Mini. Ducky, one of the more well-known brands among keyboard enthusiasts, also has several mini-sized keyboards, such as the Ducky One 2 Mini, Mecha Mini, or Mecha SF. Apart from Ducky and Razer, Cooler Master also has several options for compact-sized keyboard products such as the SK622 or SK621. This year, Cooler Master also announced the release of another variant called the MK721. HyperX also recently released its own compact-sized keyboard with HyperX Alloy Origins 60.

Unfortunately, you can’t only consider the appearance of a keyboard when you are purchasing one. Blindly following the trend of small mechanical keyboards is not always a wise choice either. In fact, there are several other considerations that you need to think about before getting a 60% or other compact-sized mechanical keyboards.

1. The Number of Keys

This is the first thing you should consider when buying a compact mechanical keyboard. You might think that you will never use keys such as Del, F1-F12, numbers on the Numpad, or Arrow Keys (up, down, left, right).).

However, it is important that you closely reconsider the use of each button. The last thing you want is missing keys or functionalities that you will need to use frequently in your activities.

For example, I recently started to frequently use the Rename function, which needs to be accessed using the F2 key. The F5 key is also commonly used for Quick Save in many RPGs. Unfortunately, these keys are missing on 60% and 65% keyboards.

If you are still in college or have a job that requires a lot of typing (such as journaling or blogging), using the arrow keys will greatly speed up your work. Therefore, using a 61-key keyboard like the GK61 will not be optimal for you.

The buttons in the Numpad section are also very useful for those of you who often work with spreadsheets (Excel, Google Sheets, etc.). I even frequently use spreadsheets for playing games to track in-game stats. I also play a lot of games using ReShade, which uses weird shortcuts like Insert or Home.

Again, you need to carefully consider the buttons you currently use or might use in the future.

As a side note, compact mechanical keyboards usually have different variants of size and number of keys. At the end of this article, I will discuss these specific variants and recommend the best option for each variant in the current market.

2. Mechanical Keyboard Layout

As mentioned previously, compact mechanical keyboards have several variants in their specification. One of these variants is the keyboard layout. The keyboard layout is a crucial factor to consider when picking a keyboard as it will highly affect how you use the keyboard.

Take my unfortunate experience when selecting a keyboard layout as an example. I have a 68% keyboard with 73 keys called the GK73, which has a fairly unique layout. I was extremely careless when buying the keyboard and forgot to consider the missing keys in the GK73 layout.

The GK73 looks very slick and is incredibly ergonomic to use at first glance. The build was relatively small but still manages to include the Numpad. However, if you closely pay attention, the GK73 has several missing keys on the main part of the keyboard.

Take a look at your keyboard now. In the second row at the top, after the number 0, the standard keyboard has 2 more keys before the Backspace key. On the right side of the P key, there are “[“, “]”, and “\” respectively. Below that, following the L key, there are 2 more keys before the Enter key. Below that again, there are 3 keys between M and right Shift.

Some of these keys are missing in the GK73, which bothered me quite a lot when using the keyboard. Nevertheless, I was forced to spend a lot of time and effort to adapt to this weird layout

Besides GK73, I also have 2 other 60% keyboards: GK61 and GK64. These two keyboards have the same size or dimensions, but only have a different number of keys. The GK61 has a standard layout like a full-sized keyboard with a reduced number of keys. On the other hand, GK64 includes the arrow keys, which means that several other keys must be excluded or reduced in size. For example, in the GK64, the right ALT and CTRL keys are missing, while the right Shift key length is only 1u. In contrast, the right Shift key on a standard keyboard layout has a length of 2.75u.

Fortunately, I rarely used the right Shift key, which allowed me to adapt more quickly to the GK64. Plus, I also use the arrow keys way more than the right Shift key. The GK64 also includes the Del button that can be incredibly useful when tidying up your files. Sadly, the GK64 also slightly shrinks the left Shift key, which can be annoying when I type for an extended period of time. To reassert, you need to carefully consider keyboard layouts before purchasing one because it greatly affects your typing experience.

That was the story of how I adapt to 3 different keyboard layouts. As a reminder, layout preferences and adaptation processes will differ for each person, so don’t take my opinions that I mentioned for granted.

Lastly, it is important to note that missing keys are sometimes accessible using key combinations. For example, some 60% keyboards with 61 keys can access the arrow keys using a combination with the Fn key. However, key combinations like these will not be as effective as simply pressing a single key. You will also need to memorize these combinations, which just adds another layer of difficulty in the adaptation process.

If you want to adapt to your new keyboard quickly and effortlessly, make sure to pick a suitable and ergonomic layout for your usage.

3. Mechanical Keyboard Software

The GK6X Plus software created by makebyself

There probably aren’t many people who like to tinker with keyboard software such as Synapse from Razer or SteelSeries Engine. However, keyboard software is crucial for compact size keyboards since there is usually an incomplete number of keys, as we have established previously.

Moreover, everyone has their own needs and habits when using their keyboard. I, for example, really need to use the arrow keys and function keys. However, you might not ever use these keys, and so you can remap them using an appropriate software.

I once modified my GK61 and GK64 using Makebyself’s GK6x Plus software. Though the software is not very intuitive to use at first, the functionality it provides is quite complete. You can use the software to set key combinations and access the missing keys on the keyboard. For example, I created a key combination between the Fn key with numbers to access the function keys (Fn + 1 will access F1, and so on).

The macro functions of VIA / QMK can be difficult to use for ordinary users

The macro functions in the GK6x Plus are also relatively easy to use, unlike the macro functions from QMK / VIA which requires you to do some coding. From my experience, the GK6x Plus is by far one of the most sophisticated keyboard software out there and can also be paired with Razer Synapse.

Take the Rexus Daxa M71 Pro 65% keyboard, which is currently quite popular in the market, as another example. This keyboard does have arrow keys and several other keys such as Insert, Home, Delete, End, Pause, Page Up, and Page Down. More importantly, however, the tilde (`) button – usually used to activate Console Commands in games – is missing from the M71.

Without any keyboard software, you might have trouble accessing the tilde key. Using keyboard software, on the other hand, allows you to remap keys that are rarely used (such as Insert) to the tilde key.

Control recoils with the Razer Synapse macro function

Indeed, software from third parties such as AutoHotkey, Sharpkeys or others can be used as well. But I generally prefer to use the built-in software since it is much easier to use – those of you who have used AutoHotKey may understand what I mean.

4. Separate Numpad / Macropad

If you want a compact-sized keyboard but also really need the numpad as well, you can just purchase a separate numpad. You can even go further and buy a macropad that can be remapped with various other functions.

Purchasing numpads is usually not much of a problem since there are a lot of them, such as Magic Force 21 that has mechanical switches. There are also a lot of other cheaper options for numpads.

As for macropads, they are usually much more expensive and difficult to find, since they provide more sophisticated functionalities. However, there are several options you can try if you really want to find a macropad. First, you can buy it from abroad. Unfortunately, the shipping processes can be expensive and time-consuming. Secondly, you can buy used macropads from previous enthusiasts. The last and probably the most ideal method of getting a macropad is to order a customized one.

I once ordered a custom macropad at this link, and the results are quite satisfactory. Unfortunately, my custom macropad also has several flaws. For one, it has no backlight. The software also uses QMK / VIA, which can be difficult to use for beginners, as I mentioned before. Despite these flaws, I still prefer getting a custom macropad rather than ordering one from abroad since I do not have to worry about the shipping process.

If you order a custom macropad, you can even make special requests to modify the shape, layout, or number of keys. I strongly believe that a custom macropad is considered a must-have if you want to switch to a compact mechanical keyboard.

A minor thing you need to consider when it comes to an external macropad is the cable issue. Most macropads out there are wired, and so you will have an additional cable lying on your desk.

5. Specific Reasons or Needs Behind Getting a Smaller-Sized Mechanical Keyboard

This section will help you determine if you really should switch to a compact mechanical keyboard. If you do not have any specific needs (that I will mention later) to purchase a compact keyboard, I think that sticking to a full-sized keyboard or TKL will be a much safer (and cheaper) option.

One of the primary reasons why most people buy a smaller keyboard is their desk size. A full-sized keyboard has a relatively wide body and might not fit a small table. Interestingly, it might be a better option to actually buy a wider table than it is to shrink the size of your keyboard, since it is potentially a cheaper alternative. Furthermore, getting a bigger table means that you do not have to go through the keyboard adaptation process. A bigger table also accommodates extra space that can be used to put an additional monitor, for example. If you desperately need more space (because your mouse constantly hits your keyboard, for example), then I recommend getting TKLs. It has a smaller body compared to full-sized keyboards and is much more adaptable than the smaller form factors.

Another reason why most people buy a compact mechanical keyboard is its portability. If you want a keyboard that can easily be carried around, getting a smaller keyboard will be your only solution. Compact mechanical keyboards are usually wireless or have detachable wires. It is also perfect for laptop users who often do not find the same level of comfortability when typing on their laptop keyboard.

Hotswapability is another specific feature that most compact mechanical keyboard users want to have. As far as I know, not many full-sized keyboards are hotswapable. Tecware Phantom Elite is perhaps the only full-sized keyboard variant that offers a hotswap feature in Indonesia. However, Tecware Phantom Elite only has a 3-pin hotswap (or plate mounts), while most premium / high-end switches (such as Durock, Gateron Ink, Tealios, Zealios) often use 5 pins (PCB mount). You do have the option to cut out 2 out of the 5 plastic pins, but that will undoubtedly take some extra time and effort.

If you are really interested in trying out various high-end switches, you have 2 choices to choose from. If you have a large budget, purchasing a compact-sized keyboard with a 3/5 pin hotswappable PCB will be a more effective option. However, if you want a cheaper alternative, you will need to spend some time modifying the 5 pin switch.

Some say that using a compact keyboard is much more comfortable because the distance between the mouse and keyboard is shortened. However, I personally never felt much of a difference in this regard.

Some people also get a smaller keyboard due to their more slick or simple design. Others simply want to experience the feel of a 60% keyboard. If you really think that a smaller keyboard will fulfill your specific needs and is worth your budget, then you should probably go ahead and get one.

6. Mechanical Keyboard Size and Layout Variants

In the last part of this article, I would like to tell you the different keyboard form factors and the best current best options for each of them in the market.

60%

The 60% form factor is one of the smallest and commonly used layouts out there. There is actually a 40% form factor. However, as you may have expected, it has a lot of missing keys, and the use is pretty niche. As you have seen previously, a 60% keyboard usually has two variants: the 61-key or 64-key. The 61-key uses a standard full-sized layout with the numpads, function keys, F-rows, and arrows keys cut out. The 64-key, on the other hand, normally includes arrow keys with the exception of a shrinkage of several other keys.

65% and 68%

Rexus Daxa M71 Pro, one of the most popular 65% keyboards in Indonesia. Source: Rexus

Above 60%, the 65% form factor usually includes between 68 to 71 keys. It is considered the ideal form factor for most users since it always includes the arrow keys. Furthermore, there are a lot of good options for 65% keyboards in the market, so it is much easier to get.

With regards to the 68% form factors like the GK73, you really have to inspect which buttons are present or missing. These usually vary a lot between different brands or products.

84 and 87 Keys

There are also 84-key keyboards such as Keychron K2, AKKO 3084, KC84, and Iqunix A80. A keyboard with 84 keys has a 75% form factor and includes all the keys present in the 65% with the added bonus of the function keys. The 75% form factor is very similar to TKLs but is only more dense or compact in size. Although I do not have an 84-key keyboard myself, I am very interested in trying out this layout since it has a complete set of buttons while preserving a fairly small size. Unfortunately, this form factor is one of the most difficult form factors to find in the market.

A keyboard with 87 keys is more commonly known as TKL. This variant is the safest option to choose if you want a relatively compact keyboard that has an easily adaptable layout.

96 keys

The 96 key variant is possibly the rarest variant of the mechanical keyboard. This variant is essentially a full-sized keyboard with all the spaces between the keys removed. The layout is quite interesting since it includes all the possible keys in a keyboard but is only 1u wider than a TKL.

I, unfortunately, could not find many good recommendations for 96-key keyboards. The Leopold FC980M, Iqunix F96, Epomaker GK96, or Keychron K4 are perhaps the only best ones in the market currently.

Conclusion

Those were some of the factors that you might need to consider before purchasing a compact-sized keyboard. However, compact-sized keyboards are more difficult to find than full-sized or TKL keyboards. Their price is also much more expensive, especially if you get them from abroad.

Nevertheless, after using my 60% mechanical keyboard, I think that the experience is highly comfortable (as long as there is an external macropad). The sound of compact mechanical keyboards is pretty satisfying to hear as well, and is something that you cannot find in regular keyboards.

All in all, if you do think that getting a smaller keyboard is considered beneficial for your needs, then there is most likely no fault in purchasing one.

Translated by: Ananto Joyoadikusumo

Are Men Inherently Better at Playing Games Than Women?

Women have the same rights as men and are entitled to equal treatment without discrimination. Even so, it cannot be denied that women are different from men from a biological perspective. Of course, biological differences will affect various aspects of a person’s life, such as natural abilities in sports. Until recently, most sporting events were usually separated by gender.

Female athletes are not competing with male athletes due to the differences in physical abilities between the two genders. What about esports? In competitive gaming, physical fitness is obviously not a determining factor in winning, which means that women can hypothetically compete side by side with men.

Why Are Traditional Sports Separated by Gender?

In sports competitions, being the victor is everyone’s sole goal. However, winning isn’t always everything. The way a person wins is equally important. Therefore, in a prestigious sports competition such as the Olympics, fair play is one of the most upheld values.

“It takes more than crossing the line first to make a champion. A champion is more than a winner. A champion is someone who respects the rules, rejects doping and competes in the spirit of fair play.” – Jacques Rogge

Jacques Rogge was President of the International Olympic Committee from 2001-2013. From the quote above, it is clear how he upholds the spirit of fair play. Another element that is no less important in sports competitions is the level playing field. According to the BBC, the level playing field ensures that all participants compete by the same rules and have an equal chance of winning. By this definition, a professional NBA athlete will not compete against someone who plays basketball as a hobby.

The importance of fair play and level playing field in sports competitions is, unfortunately, one of the reasons why female athletes cannot compete against male athletes in most sports. Physically, men and women are very different. Men generally have greater muscle mass and bone mass. In addition, the fat content in the female body is usually also higher. The body fat content of female athletes ranges from 14-20%, while it is only 6-14% in the average male athlete. Furthermore, adult men also usually have a larger lung capacity. All of this suggests that male athletes will have an advantage over female athletes in terms of sheer physical strength.

Male and female body composition. | Source: The Body Counselor

According to a study entitled Women and Men in Sport Performance: The Gender Gap has not evolved since 1983, the performance of female athletes is still inferior compared to male athletes. In the study, researchers analyzed world records in various sports. They also observed the performance of Olympic athletes in five sports categories from year to year. They used data from athletes in 82 Olympics.

Data from the study shows that, on average, male athletes generally perform 10% better than female athletes. Depending on the sports, the difference in performance between male and female athletes may differ. The performance of female athletes is closest to that of male athletes in freestyle swimming, which is only 5.5%. Meanwhile, there is a huge difference – around 36.8% – in the abilities of male and female athletes in weight lifting.

“Men and women are physically different. Usually, the difference occurs in raw strength,” said Andy Lane, a sports psychologist at the University of Wolverhampton on How We Get to Next. Indeed, in certain sports – especially those that involve aerobic stamina like long-distance running – female athletes can outperform men. Fortunately, not all sports compete solely with the athletes’ physique. Several sports, such as esports, prioritize other aspects of human capabilities.

What Are the Factors That Influence the Performance of Esports Athletes?

Gender or physical conditions do not really matter in scope of esports, and almost anyone can play games. For example, Rocky Stoutenburgh, also known as RockyNoHands, managed to become a streamer on Twitch even though he could only move his head because he was paralyzed from the neck below. Of course, that doesn’t mean everyone can become a world-class esports athlete, like Johan “N0tail” Sundstein from OG or Made Bagas “Zuxxy” Pramudita and Made Bagus “Luxxy” Prabaswara from Bigetron. In fact, the chance of someone being a successful esports athlete is only 0.0001%.

Indeed, physical fitness is not the primary measure of the ability of an esports athlete. However, there are still some skills that one must master in order to become a well-known professional player, one of them being sensory-motor skills. Sensory ability is related to the ability to transmit information received by the five senses to the brain, while motor ability refers to the ability to quickly send instructions from the brain to other organs, such as the hand. Sensory-motor skills are important because they affect how quickly a person can process what he sees on the screen, make decisions about what to do in response to the stimuli, and execute the decisions he makes by operating a gaming device, such as a mouse, gamepad, keyboard, or smartphone.

Other abilities that an esports athlete must be proficient at are spatial awareness or visual-spatial abilities, which include the skill to read maps and knowing the position of objects (stationary and moving) around them. Spatial abilities also include a person’s skill to predict and anticipate the movement of objects or actions from other players. For example, when you are about to shoot a moving enemy, you need to be able to predict where the enemy will move and subsequently compensate for that movement.

In addition to sensory-motor and spatial abilities, tactical cognitive abilities also affect a person’s ability to play games, according to the study titled The structure of performance and training in esports. Tactical cognitive abilities themselves are influenced by various aspects, such as perception, creativity, and the ability to make decisions. The scope of tactical cognitive abilities is also rather broad. As a result, it is usually divided into sections such as memory and concentration, planning, and coping with complex problems. To become a good esports player, one must master all areas of tactical cognitive skills. A proficient esports athlete must be able to pay attention to his/her surroundings, analyze situations, visualize the steps that need to be taken, make decisions, and execute them efficiently.

The distribution of cognitive abilities.| Source: Journals.plos.org

Concentration is another aspect that is equally important for esports players. For sports athletes, the ability to concentrate for long periods of time is a critical skill to have. In traditional sports, players usually have time to rest (during timeouts or half-time), while esports competitions usually continue for hours with no pauses.

Social skills – such as communication and collaboration skills – also affect an esports athlete’s performance. A professional esports athlete must also control his/her emotions throughout a match. This target is not by any means easy to achieve, given the mental pressure that top esports athletes, just like Olympic athletes, have to face. A person’s failure to control their emotions in a match – such as feeling tilted or angry about making a mistake – can very likely deter their performance.

Differences in Cognitive Abilities of Men and Women

Although the esports industry can be much more inclusive than traditional sports, it is still undoubtedly more dominated by men. For example, most professional players are, indeed, males. Some believe that this happens because males are better than females when it comes to playing games. However, is that really the case? To answer this question, I tried to compare the cognitive abilities of men and women based on various studies that have been conducted.

Based on a comparative study titled Cognitive Functions Between Male and Female Medical Students: A Pilot Study, the cognitive abilities of men and women in the follicular phase are relatively equal. However, women who enter the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle will be able to perform executive tasks – tasks that require memory, flexible thinking, and self-control – better than their male counterparts. Unfortunately, women’s concentration in the luteal phase is usually lower than that of men.

Instructions from one of the memory tests. | Source: NCBI

When comparing the abilities of male and female participants, the researchers in this study took into account the menstrual cycles of the female participants as it greatly affects their hormones. There are four phases of menstruation. The follicular phase starts when a woman is menstruating until the ovulation phase begins. On the other hand, the luteal phase is also known as the postovulatory phase or the premenstrual phase. In this phase, the amount of the female hormone progesterone will increase.

The study above is not the only research that looks at the correlation between gender and cognitive abilities. Several other studies also discuss the influence of gender on a person’s cognitive and spatial abilities. A study called Sex/gender differences in cognition, neurophysiology, and neuroanatomy, conducted by Janet S. Hyde, contradicts the results of the previous research. In that study, Hyde tested 124 variables, including mathematical, verbal, perceptual, and motor skills of men and women.

From her research, she found that gender had no significant effect on a person’s performance in 78% of the variables. Gender only has a significant effect on a person’s motor skills, such as throwing speed. The study also found that men scored higher on tests related to 3D object rotation, which is often associated with higher IQ and better STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics)-related abilities. The results of this study reinforce the assumption that men have better mathematical and spatial abilities, while women are considered to have better verbal skills.

However, recent research shows that women’s and men’s spatial skills are not that different. The research was conducted by Dr. Mark Campbell and Dr. Adam Toth from the Lero Esports Science Research Lab using the latest eye-tracking technology. They found that the male participants’ spatial cognition test results were no better than the female participants, especially in the object rotation test.

“So males are better than females? Well no, actually. Our study found that there is no male advantage in mental rotation abilities,” said Toth, as quoted by Technology Networks. “By lengthening the time allowed to complete the test, the male performance advantage diminished entirely suggesting that the so-called sex difference in mental rotation is simply not there or may be explained by other factors.”

Conclusion

Researchers have conducted various studies to determine the effects of gender on various aspects of a person’s abilities, such as cognitive skills. Unfortunately, not all studies provide the same results. Some studies mention that males have superior cognitive abilities, which suggests they can play better at games, while others concluded that the mental capabilities of women and men are not that different.

Unfortunately, there is currently no study that directly investigates the correlation between gender and video game skills. After all, the esports industry is still relatively new and young, which may hinder existing research to gather data and arrive at conclusive results. However, one thing is for sure: playing video games is an activity that can be done by anyone, regardless of gender, physical ability, and economic status.

Translated by: Ananto Joyoadikusumo

Top 7 Legendary Dota Players of All Time

Dota 2 has been around for quite some time, a successor to the original Defense of the Ancients — which started out merely as a mod to Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. Since then, the game has taken various shapes, eras, and timelines which form the game we all know and love today.

However, Dota 2 isn’t just like any other MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) video games you would find. The game is famous for its ever-evolving competitive scene which has attracted millions of gamers, or more appropriately professional esports athletes, from all corners of the world.

DTS in ASUS Open Spring 2010. Source: joinDOTA.

Given how diverse the gameplay of DotA (and Dota 2) could be, different players have their own interpretation and understanding of the complex game. Distinct players have come up with their ingenious tactics and strategies which gave them the title of Dota Legends.

Though the title might be subjective to a particular person or group, these players have undoubtedly shaped the general understanding of Dota 2 and shall live on to be known as the world’s best DotA/Dota 2 players of all time.

This article shall list seven Dota Legends of all time (in no particular order), including players from both eras (DotA and Dota 2). Some of these players even played in both eras, some of which even still compete today. Aside from their legacies and victories, it’s also worth knowing what they were up to before retirement, which shall be discussed as well.

Vigoss

Dubbed V-God by the Chinese community, Ivan “Vigoss” Shinkarev is a Russian player known for his aggressive playstyle and team-ganking abilities. Indeed, he was amongst the earliest players to apply the Russian Dota playstyle of item-rushing and constant lane-pressuring — a tactic deeply rooted in the region’s playstyle. Together with ARS-ART, Vigoss quickly made Virtus.pro a Russian powerhouse in 2006-2008.

Perhaps Vigoss’ greatest achievement with Virtus.pro is his consecutive victories in MYM Prime Defending #6, #7, and #8. After his golden days in Virtus.pro, Vigoss joined other notable DotA teams like Ks.Int and DTS. Once Dota 2 was released, he joined the team Moscow 5 (M5) and even participated in The International 2012 where he, unfortunately, finished last. His last stint in the competitive scene was in 2015, but he has since hopped in and out of teams as a stand-in player.

YaphetS/PIS

Around the same time as Vigoss’ rise to popularity, Bu “YaphetS” Yanjun came to prominence in the Chinese scene. The pubstar-turned-competitive player had his skills showcased in a legendary video titled Perfect Is Shit, hence his nickname. Out of all the heroes he played, it is no doubt that YaphetS is known for his signature Shadow Fiend gameplay. In fact, one of Shadow Fiend’s nicknames was named after YaphetS himself at one time.

YaphetS playing with Tong Fu. Source: GosuGamers.

He played competitive DotA in 2010-11 and is renowned for his time playing under Nirvana.cn. They were generally known for being the second-best Chinese team at that time, ranked just below EHOME. He made a return to Dota 2 by playing with Immortal Magneto Gaming and Team FanTuan sometime in 2015, but failed to re-emulate his DotA achievements since then.

Merlini

In North America, another DotA legend soon came to prominence: Ben “Merlini” Wu. As of today, he’s probably known for being a commentator at Valve events, but his DotA career has a massive influence on the rest of the world. Merlini is popularized for his Zeus 1v3 ownage, but he too made novel strategies a popular choice in professional gameplay. For instance, Merlini arguably invented Boots of Travel Tinker and the Jungler role, both of which weren’t popular prior to his gameplay.

Merlini’s time in MYM quickly became iconic and he had joined several other organizations like EG, OK.Nirvana.int, and SK Gaming. In Dota 2, he joined Team Zephyr and Monib Baray for a short while, but ended up mainly as a commentator until 2017. From time to time, he also played with Vegetables Esports Club, a casual team consisting of Dota personalities.

YamateH

Back in the east, Ng “YamateH” Wei Poong also rose to popularity. Like his Chinese counterpart YaphetS, YamateH is iconic for his Shadow Fiend gameplay. In fact, the two faced each other off in a 1v1 Shadow Fiend show match in WDC 2010, where YamateH lost against YaphetS. Aside from that, YamateH’s Lina is also famous for outplaying SK Gaming’s Loda, which at that time, was the world’s best team.

Out of all the legends mentioned earlier, YamateH has spent the greatest amount of time in professional Dota 2. Since his transition to the new title, he has joined various Malaysian and Southeast Asian teams like Orange, Zenith, Titan, Taring, and last played for TEAM STAR in 2020.

Loda

As hinted earlier, Jonathan “Loda” Berg was part of SK Gaming which utterly dominated almost the entire DotA scene back in 2007-9. Loda is known for his skills as a Carry player and his leadership while in SK Gaming. The Swedish player has since replicated his achievements in Dota 2 by famously winning The International 2013 with his team Alliance.

Ever since his TI3 victory, Loda has continuously been in Alliance and remained as an active player in various eras of Alliance’s roster. He has only retired officially in 2018 and proceeded to become Alliance’s present coach and co-owner. No other legends mentioned earlier managed to achieve as much as Loda did after his transition to Dota 2.

BurNIng

If YaphetS is iconic for his Shadow Fiend, Xu “BurNIng” Zhilei does the equivalent for Anti-Mage. Considered the best Carry player of all time, BurNIng has been in the professional scene as early as 2010. In DotA, he played under legendary rosters of CaNt, 7L, Ks.cn, CityHunter, EHOME, and Team DK. BurNIng’s victories with EHOME in tournaments like ESWC, IEM V, SMM Grand National 2010, and World Gamemaster Tournament 2010 showed how consistently the 33-year-old player performs.

During Team DK’s transition to Dota 2, BurNIng is also included in the lineup although the team struggled in their earliest stages. However, they soon became a powerhouse in 2014 once the team recruited Southeast Asian duo Mushi and iceiceice, as well as Chinese veterans MMY! and LaNm. Although BurNIng hasn’t secured a single TI victory under his belt, he won DAC 2017 with Invictus Gaming, beating the likes of OG.

Dendi

Last on the list is Danil “Dendi” Ishutin, one of Dota 2’s earliest icons and often considered “the face of Dota.” Although the name Dendi might no longer be heard by newcomers, older players who followed the first few years of Dota 2 will certainly be familiar with his signature Pudge pick. Like many other legends, Dendi made a name in DotA and continued to do so once the scene transitioned to Dota 2.

His most notable victory is no other than Natus Vincere’s first TI1 victory, and their subsequent second-place finishes at both TI2 and TI3. Unfortunately, Dendi’s performance since then has been a steep downhill, but the legend just never stopped playing the game he knows and loves. After his memorable departure from Na`Vi, Dendi founded his own organization B8, and is currently participating in DPC 2021.

Closing Remarks

There are countless DotA and Dota 2 legends, and to cover them all would lead to an ever-growing list of players. Everyone has their most beloved legendary players who might not make the cut on this list. This list merely serves as a reminder to some of the world’s best and most iconic players who shall live on to be remembered as Dota’s legendary players of all time.

Cover Image by DotaBlast.

Why Are Most Free-to-Play Games Advertisements Incredibly Misleading?

If you play a lot of free-to-play games, you will often be exposed to false advertisements. These misleading free-to-play game ads usually take different forms. There are even some ads that include sexual innuendos that might not even exist in the actual game. Some use modified screenshots of other games. Other fraudulent advertisements use animations that do not represent the gameplay of the original game.

Such advertisements are annoying and demeaning to the targets. But why are there so many deceitful advertisements out there? There are, in fact, several reasons behind the prevalence of misleading game commercials.

Without further ado, let’s explore this topic together.

1. Game developers/publishers who are not confident in their products

Just like the exams you experience in school, you will probably not cheat if you are confident with the exam materials. On the other hand, you will most likely cheat when you have doubts about your abilities during the test.

Take social media as another example. Most people who are confident with their looks will use their own photo as their profile picture, and vice versa.

Likewise, game developers who are not satisfied or confident with their final product might want to represent something that has superior quality. As a result, they are willing to take screenshots of other games, manipulate images or videos, or even create advertisements that differ greatly from the actual gameplay.

You can try to imagine the contrary. Will CD Projekt reuse an ad for the release of The Witcher 3? Please see the trailer (which can also be considered an advertisement) of The Witcher 3 above.

Everything in the trailer is, unsurprisingly, in the game. Let’s look back at the first presupposition at the beginning of this section. If CD Projekt has succeeded in creating a high-quality game and is confident in the results, why should they manipulate the trailer or the advertisement?

2. Game developers/publishers who don’t care about branding

Some publishers or developers don’t really care about their brand image. These game developers usually create free-to-play games with the sole purpose of generating large revenues from the players as fast as possible (by incorporating a pay-to-win system).

This is not too different from fraudulent investment companies whose goal is to take your money then escape without a trace. Though the game companies mentioned previously do not operate like this, most of them do not have long-term targets.

This game advert uses screenshots from another game called Archero.

These game companies can also change their brand name if they have generated a bad image in the community. The same can be said for most toxic players in online games. They have no plans to maintain their good name in the community and hide behind anonymity. When they get banned for their toxic behaviour, they can easily create a new account.

If these companies do not have long-term thinking, it is easy to justify their misleading actions to the community, such as using fake advertisements. On the other hand, this trick is close to impossible to execute for old and well-established companies Nintendo, which is 130 years old, or Sony, which was founded in 1946, without causing a severe backlash to their brand’s integrity.

3. A digital advertising system that encourages misleading ads

Unfortunately, the cause of the phenomena of false free-to-play game adverts is also driven by many commonly used digital advertising calculation systems.

Most digital advertising cost models used today are CPM (Cost Per Mile), CPC (Cost Per Click), CPI (Cost Per Install), and CPA (Cost Per Activation).

In the CPM system, the advertiser only needs to pay for every 1000 times the ads are shown. Meanwhile, with CPC, the advertiser only needs to pay every time the ad is clicked. The CPI and CPA indicate that advertising costs will depend on the number of installs of the application (CPI) and the number of times the app is opened (CPA).

From the advertiser’s point of view, the more profitable calculation systems are usually the ones with the highest conversion rates. For example, let’s say that you are selling onions in the weeb market. Then, two advertising services, called A and B, gave you an offer.

Service A said, “I have 10 trillion followers who can see your ad.” On the other hand, service B said, “I don’t have that many followers. However, you only need to pay me every time someone buys 10 grams of onions through my ad.”

From this analogy, the better option to pick is service B because the cost (or ROI ) is much easier to calculate concretely. You know very well how much money is needed to sell every 10 grams of onions, for example.

On the flip side, if you chose service B, you cannot be sure how many of the 10 trillion followers will actually see the advertisement. Even though, for example, only 10 people see your ad, you will need to pay the full amount for 10 trillion followers.

However, there is also a downside when choosing service B because they do not care if customers will become loyal in the future. Their primary goal is, after all, to attract new customers that will buy 10 grams of onions.

Service B can also put up an extensively misleading advertisement such as: “put 10 grams of this onion around the neck in 15 minutes, and you will have a 42% chance of preventing various diseases ranging from diabetes, cancer, heart disease, blood circulation, impotence, and cavities. If you use it for half an hour, you will have a much greater chance of 80%. “

Of course, these kinds of ‘overly attractive’ advertisements will most likely get a lot of attention from non-experienced consumers. But whether the onion product actually heals diseases is not service B’s business. The advertisement service only cares about luring customers to buy 10 grams of onions. If the onions do not actually work, the service B will turn a blind eye since they will receive their commission anyways.

Disclaimer: This story is obviously fictitious and is only used as an analogy to elaborate the discussion.

4. The majority of targeted advertisements are gullible

Of course, apart from the advertiser, agency, or service provider, the ad targets are also the ones that allow these fraudulent free game ads to rise in demand.

“Click here to see a photo of a beautiful artist who has just been caught staying at the hotel with Mr. Horse.” “This 1000-storey house can be yours by simply sending a selfie while holding your ID card.” Maybe these examples are hyperbolical, but people, more often than not, still get fooled by them.

Some people’s logic can be blurred when it comes to libido. That’s why there are game ads that promote sexual innuendos even though they might not exist in the actual gameplay. Other game advertisements use graphic (photo/video) manipulation to “beautify” the game.

You and I can definitely educate the market segment that these misleading ads are targeting. As fewer people get deceived by fake advertising, the likelihood that advertisers with use these cheap tactics will also decrease. I am very well aware that if you manage to read the article up to this point, you should not be included in the gullible market segment. However, there are still many people out there who can be potential victims of false ads. So, help them out by sharing this article!

5. Unclear consumer protection laws

The last reason behind the prevalence of misleading game advertisements, in my opinion, lies in the lack of clarity about the current laws regarding consumer protection. From my googling results, two sources might be of good use. The first source is from an article on HukumOnline, while the second source comes from a study entitled Legal Responsibility of Advertising Business Actors for Advertising Products that Violate Advertising Ethics (PDF).

I am by no means an expert in the law, and I can’t quite grasp whether it is actually legitimate to bring up the issue of false advertisements in court.

Even if it can be questioned, who can be held accountable? We also have to consider the fact that most of these mischievous publishers/developers do not have companies in Indonesia. Can I dispute this through international legal channels? Furthermore, what about the advertising platforms, such as Facebook or Google, that display these fraudulent ads?

Unfortunately, even though there are laws out there concerning fraudulent advertising, it does not make the problem any easier to solve, perhaps because of the weak law enforcement on this matter.

Conclusion

I believe that the prevalence of deceptive game advertisements does not originate from just one aspect. From the 5 aspects that I mentioned above, we only have the power to change and educate the market segment, although it is not easy to do either.

Nevertheless, I hope this article can be helpful for you and the people around you. So, again, don’t forget to share it!

Translated by: Ananto Joyoadikusumo. Feat Image via: Gibbs Law Group