Interviews with Talented Game Players #2: Game Academy graduate Ian Z.
Top 1% in CS:GO. Diamond 2 ranking and in the top 7% in Apex Legends. Ian is a software developer based in London, a self-confessed “Perseverance Awareness Junkie”, who is one of the early graduates of Game Academy’s online programme on decision-making.
We caught up with Ian in between his work in financial technology and competing in Apex Legends. We talked of his early days playing Tomb Raider and admiration for Dr Gordon Freeman of Half-Life, the theoretical physicist who defends the human race against hostile aliens.
GA: Congratulations on completing the Game Academy quests! Why did you do it? And how did it go?
Ian: I’m a perseverance awareness junkie — at least that’s how I describe myself as a player — and I enjoyed the quests a lot. I wanted to learn the fundamentals of what goes into good and effective decision-making. It’s not a school or university subject and people expect you to figure it out yourself. Game Academy forced me to step back, think about it all and train my skill.
GA: What games do you play?
Ian: The first ever game that I played was when I was three years old and my dad bought me Tomb Raider - the original one.
In 2008, we were able to afford a small PC and that was when I got a Steam account for the first time. I got into the shooter genre...Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Counterstrike and in 2015, I reached the top 1% in that game.
There’s loads of times where with friends we just load up a little multiplayer thing like Besiege. We also enjoy Factorio, a game in which you build and maintain factories…stuff like that just for relaxation.
GA: Do these games call upon particular skills?
Ian: Apex Legends is all about mechanical skills, like reaction and quick thinking. CS:GO — resource management, team coordination and communication skills.
GA: What industry would you like to follow in a career?
Ian: I’m torn between game design and cyber security.
I’ve designed my own game, a puzzle game where you have an enchanted bow and four different elements that do different things depending on the surface they interact with.
But I’m also interested in cyber-security. I like the idea of finding security vulnerabilities and helping make them safe. Sometimes when I play games, I want to see how ‘broken’ the game is, to find various glitches, bugs and rules that you can break.
GA: Is there a link between your work as a programmer and your game play?
Ian: For sure. Programming is like a game. As in gaming, you have to like to do programming to get better at it. You have to practice every day —I even attend and enjoy programming and hacking competitions - think logically and build logical machines of software.
GA: Do you think you apply in-game skills to your daily job?
Ian: Very much so. I play a lot of fast paced games and know for a fact that at work, in tense situations, I’m more stress free than colleagues. That’s because in game, if you make a mistake, you can lose your position — and fast. You need to be resilient.
GA: In Apex, you usually play Wattson, the skilled electrical engineer who fights in the arena she helped build. She’s a defensive character, with immense tactical and ultimate abilities. Decision-making is the theme of our first set of Game Academy quests. How does decision-making feature in your game play?
Ian: I’m in the top 7% in Apex Legends — in Diamond 2 - in a game that’s not dissimilar to Counterstrike but works at a much faster pace.
Apex is a survival kind of game where you play against 19 other teams and you have to try your best to survive. You have to think about where you have to position yourself, where you have to go, the random-ness of the zone that you would be put in. But you also have to keep in mind what your enemies are doing, how they’re trying to approach you and how you will react. Survival is all about thinking fast on your feet and decision-making.
GA: Finally, what did you especially like about the Game Academy experience?
Ian: I found playing games and pausing and seeing how your in-game decision-making effects your actions an easier way of training your skill, compared to hardcore book and paper study.
I played Civilization as the first game — it’s a really good game to play to fulfil the quests — but later on, I did play some other games, Dark Soul-style games which are a little more fast paced.
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Ian was interviewed by David Barrie of Game Academy.
He completed Game Academy’s early access programme on decision-making — you can go to our site to find out more and sign up.
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