Minh Le

Minh Le

Minh Le in 2013
Born (1977-06-27) 27 June 1977
Nationality Canadian
Other names Gooseman
Alma mater Simon Fraser University
Occupation Video game programmer
Years active 1996-present
Employer FIX Korea (2009–2014)
Facepunch Studios
(2014–present)
Known for Co-creator of Counter-Strike

Minh Le (Vietnamese: Lê Minh, born June 27, 1977[1]), also known by his online nickname Gooseman, is a Canadian video game programmer who co-created the popular Half-Life mod Counter-Strike with Jess Cliffe in 1999. He was later employed by Valve Corporation, the developers of Half-Life, and worked for 8 years in Korea on the multiplayer first-person shooter Tactical Intervention. He is currently a contractor on the multiplayer survival first-person shooter Rust. In the small-team games that he has worked on, Le has been a programmer, modeler, and designer.

His nickname comes from Shane Gooseman, one of the main characters of 1980s cartoon series The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers.[2]

Career

Le first picked up id Software's Quake in 1996 and began playing with its software development kit, and after about a year he completed his first mod, Navy SEALs, Counter-Strike's spiritual predecessor.[3][4] While he was working on the Action Quake 2 mod, he came up with the idea for Counter-Strike and became friends with AQ2's webmaster Jess Cliffe.

Le began work on Counter-Strike as a mod for Half-Life while he was in the middle of his fourth year at Simon Fraser University[4] (he later graduated with a degree in computer science[5]). He spent about 20 hours a week on making the mod, expending more effort on it than he did on his schoolwork,[3] and released the first beta version in June 1999. The "Counter-Strike Team" quickly produced several more beta releases in the following months as the game's popularity skyrocketed.[3]

By the fourth beta version, Valve Corporation, the developer who created Half-Life, began assisting in the development of Counter-Strike.[6] In 2000, Valve bought the rights to Counter-Strike and hired Le and Cliffe to work with them in Bellevue, Washington, USA where Le continued to work on Counter-Strike and related games. During this time he was developing Counter-Strike 2, however Valve eventually put this project on hold indefinitely.[7]

After Counter-Strike 2 was shelved, Le left Valve to work on a project of his own.[7] After two years working with a small team on this project, he then moved to South Korea in 2008 to work with a business named FIX Korea who provided funding for further development. Le's new game was later revealed to be Tactical Intervention, a game similar in style to Counter-Strike created with a modified version of Valve's Source engine.[8]

In 2014, he joined Facepunch Studios, where he works on Rust.

Recognition

In 2003, a GameSpy editorial cited Minh Le as the most important reason Half-Life was still popular five years after it was released.[9] IGN ranked Jess Cliffe and Minh Le as number 14 in their "Top 100 Game Creators of All Time" list.[10]

References

  1. ↑ Minh Le (2015-12-03). "Minh Le's tweet confirming birth year".
  2. ↑ Rose, Mike (22 January 2014). "Minh "Gooseman" Le plays CS:GO with Gamasutra". Gamasutra. Think Services. Retrieved 23 January 2014.
  3. 1 2 3 John McLean-Foreman (2001-05-30). "Interview with Minh Le". Gamasutra. Retrieved 2009-09-28.
  4. 1 2 James Yu (2001-01-25). "Gooseman Counter-Strike Interview". FiringSquad. Archived from the original on October 16, 2006. Retrieved 2006-12-02.
  5. ↑ "Interview - Minh Le of Counter Strike team". Eurogamer. 2000-10-03. Retrieved 2006-12-02.
  6. ↑ "Development a la mod". Red Herring (magazine). 2001-05-08. Archived from the original on January 23, 2010. Retrieved 2009-09-28.
  7. 1 2 Ben Min (2009-09-28). "The Next Counterstrike: A conversation with Minh Le and a look at Tactical Intervention.". Retrieved 2009-09-28.
  8. ↑ Breckon, Nick (2009-09-28). "Counter-Strike Creator Reveals 'Tactical Intervention'". Shacknews. Retrieved 2009-09-28.
  9. ↑ Kevin Bowen (2003-02-09). "Top Ten Reasons Half-Life is Still #1". GameSpy. Archived from the original on March 24, 2005. Retrieved 2006-12-02.
  10. ↑ "Top 100 Game Creators of All Time". IGN. Retrieved 2014-09-26.
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