Hello Reddit!
In 1999, I created Counter-Strike and had no clue it would become what it is today, being one of the most played online games ever. I recently launched a new FPS, Tactical Intervention (shameless plug… www.tactical-intervention.com).
CS wouldn’t be where it is today without the community, so go ahead and Ask-Me-Anything!
Proof: This is what I look like (unfortunately). @GoosemanTI
A bit about my past:
I started working on my first game mod, Navy Seals, while I was studying for a computer-science degree at SFU. It was a really cheesy mod based on the Quake SDK and nothing special, but to me it was great because it’s what inspired me to start making games for a living.
After tapping all the good resources from Quake with Navy Seals, the Half-life SDK was the next most logical choice for me. I completed my first beta for Counter-Strike about two months later and by the 5th or 6th beta release, the game had just blown up in popularity. The 4th Beta was when Valve (the developer of Half-life) started helping us with CS’s development. At the time, I decided I needed to actually make a living off of it so I decided to sell the rights of CS to Valve and start working for them professionally.
Working for Valve was the biggest move of my life, turning my hobby into a real career. I was very young when I started and I was very self-conscious about my leadership abilities, especially when your co-workers are more experienced and all very good at what they do. I had the freedom to pursue what would be the sequel to¬ Counter-Strike, but the pressure of coming up with something new while not changing too much for the CS community became a daunting task. In the end, in collaboration with Valve, I decided it would be best for me to leave the company to pursue development of my own game, where I would have the full creative freedom to focus on what I wanted to do.
I decided to work on the game I always wanted Counter-Strike to be. After a number of years, I eventually ran out of funding and was encouraged to move to South Korea to continue development. That is when I teamed up with FIX Korea to continue my new project, Tactical Intervention, adding features that I always wanted to implement with CS, such as active active civilians/hostages, human shields, attack dogs, riot shields, rappeling, and the ability to drive cars with your buddies leaning out shooting. I was finally able to make the game that I wanted.
After some issues with publishing, we finally launched T.I. with OGPlanet. Now, after quite the lengthy development process, the support of friends, family, a very patient FIX Korea and OGPlanet, T.I. was launched on March 28th, 2013. I am very excited to see this game in action at last and to watch the community grow. Now my future consists of the rewarding challenge of creating new content and giving our users new stimulating gameplay on a regular basis through updates that lay ahead.
Update: Thanks so much to everyone for sharing their questions and stories. Really humbling and motivating to be in touch with the CS community again. I'm tired as balls but will be back on and off to talk with you guys more!