[Dalgemseu] "Experience as a Star Pro Gamer... Great Help in Planning Baduk Game"

Hangame Baduk 'Bokmyeon Giwang' Project
"Stars and Baduk, High-Level Strategy Required"

Dalgames is an abbreviation for 'Sweet Stories of Game Developers.' It offers a glimpse into the everyday lives of game developers.

Hyun Geun Yoo, Manager of NHN GB Planning Team

[Asia Economy Reporter Jin-gyu Lee] Yuh Hyun-geun, a 31-year-old manager in charge of planning NHN's Hangame Baduk, was a professional StarCraft (Star) player on OnGameNet from 2008 to 2010. His main race was 'Zerg.' As an elementary school student, he dreamed of becoming a Baduk player and studied Baduk throughout all six years of elementary school, achieving a 3-dan rank. However, after he started enjoying StarCraft, he often heard from neighborhood older boys that he was good at Star, and he was captivated by the professional players shown on TV, which led him to pursue a career as a pro gamer.

Despite strong opposition from his parents and friends, he became a pro gamer, but reality was harsh. Although he was well-known in his neighborhood, he faced limits in the professional world where pro gamers who were considered good at Star gathered nationwide. He said, "My experience as a pro gamer has been very helpful to me as a game planner now, but from a pro gamer’s perspective, I was a failed pro gamer." He added, "During my amateur days, I placed in several tournaments, but after becoming a pro gamer, I remained only a second-tier player."

When StarCraft II was released and the popularity of StarCraft waned, Manager Yuh decided to retire. Living an ordinary office worker’s life, he happened to hear from an acquaintance about the free work atmosphere at a game company. At that moment, he felt the urge to challenge himself again, resigned from his job, and studied game programming by attending computer academies. At the academy, he was encouraged to try planning as well as development, so he learned planning tasks too.

In 2018, when he took charge of planning Hangame Baduk at NHN, his long-forgotten StarCraft skills proved valuable. He said, "StarCraft and Baduk are very similar in that both are highly strategic games involving planning the entire board and reading the opponent’s moves." He added, "If I hadn’t studied Baduk for six years in elementary school, I wouldn’t have become a pro gamer, and my experience as a pro gamer is also a great help in my current game planning work."

One of his recent projects, the 'Bokmyeon Giwang' (Masked King) content, features professional Baduk players playing while hiding their faces, and game users bet cyber money by watching only the matches. This content received great response from users, increasing the number of users by about 30% compared to the early days of its launch in May. Manager Yuh revealed the secret to its success, saying, "Just as StarCraft was easily accessible, I wanted to find elements that allow ordinary people to easily engage with Baduk."

He has also resumed playing StarCraft, enjoying the pleasures of being an amateur gamer. He said, "I often see parents who worry a lot when their children dream of becoming pro gamers," and added, "I want to show that even if you fail as a pro gamer, there are many other paths to challenge."