Minh Le

Minh Le (Vietnamese: Lê Minh, born 27 June 1977), also known by his online nickname Gooseman, is a Vietnamese Canadian video game programmer who co-created the Half-Life mod Counter-Strike with Jess Cliffe in 1999 and started the Counter-Strike series.[2] He was later employed by Valve, the developers of Half-Life, and worked for 8 years in Korea on the multiplayer first-person shooter Tactical Intervention. He is 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.

Minh Le
Minh Le in 2013
Born (1977-06-27) 27 June 1977
Vietnam
NationalityCanadian
Other namesGooseman
Alma materSimon Fraser University
OccupationVideo game programmer
Years active1996-present
EmployerFIX Korea (2009–2013)
Facepunch Studios
(2013–2018)[1]
Pearl Abyss (2018–present)
Known forCo-creator of Counter-Strike

His nickname comes from Shane Gooseman, one of the main characters of 1980s cartoon series The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers.[3]

Biography

Minh Le was born on 27 June 1977, in Vietnam. In 1979, he and his parents left Vietnam on a boat and immigrated to Canada as refugees.[4]

Le attended Simon Fraser University from 1996 to 2001, graduating in 2001 with a Bachelor of Applied Science degree in Computing Science. His curriculum and electives were "focused mainly on computer graphics courses covering subjects such as compression algorithms, 3D animation techniques, image recognition."[5]

Le 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.[6][7] While he was working on the Action Quake 2 mod, he came up with the idea for Counter-Strike and became friends with Action Quake 2's webmaster Jess Cliffe and Marcelo Dilay.

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[7] (he later graduated with a degree in computer science).[8] He spent about 20 hours a week on making the mod, expending more effort on it than he did on his schoolwork,[6] 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.[6]

By the fourth beta version, Valve, the developer who created Half-Life, began assisting in the development of Counter-Strike.[9] In 2000, Valve bought the rights to Counter-Strike and hired Le and Cliffe to work with them in Bellevue, Washington, 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.[10]

After Counter-Strike 2 was shelved, Le left Valve in 2006 to work on a project of his own.[10] After two years working with a small team on this project, he 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.[11]

In October 2013, he joined Facepunch Studios, where he worked on Rust.[12] He left Facepunch Studios in February 2018.[13]

In March 2018, he joined Pearl Abyss to start working on a new project for the game studio that made the MMORPG Black Desert Online.[14]

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.[15] IGN ranked Jess Cliffe and Minh Le as number 14 in their "Top 100 Game Creators of All Time" list.[16]

References
  1. "Devblog 196". Facepunch Studios. 1 February 2018. Retrieved 1 February 2018.
  2. Minh Le (2015-12-03). "Minh Le's tweet confirming birth year".
  3. Rose, Mike (22 January 2014). "Minh "Gooseman" Le plays CS:GO with Gamasutra". Gamasutra. Think Services. Retrieved 23 January 2014.
  4. "Forbandet af sit eget livsværk: Manden bag kæmpesuccesen 'Counter-Strike' er på ingen måde rig i dag". DR (in Danish). Retrieved 2019-08-21.
  5. Mihn Le, LinkedIn.
  6. John McLean-Foreman (2001-05-30). "Interview with Minh Le". Gamasutra. Retrieved 2009-09-28.
  7. James Yu (2001-01-25). "Gooseman Counter-Strike Interview". FiringSquad. Archived from the original on October 16, 2006. Retrieved 2006-12-02.
  8. "Interview - Minh Le of Counter Strike team". Eurogamer. 2000-10-03. Retrieved 2006-12-02.
  9. "Development a la mod". Red Herring. 2001-05-08. Archived from the original on January 23, 2010. Retrieved 2009-09-28.
  10. Ben Min (2009-09-28). "The Next Counterstrike: A conversation with Minh Le and a look at Tactical Intervention". Retrieved 2009-09-28.
  11. Breckon, Nick (2009-09-28). "Counter-Strike Creator Reveals 'Tactical Intervention'". Shacknews. Retrieved 2009-09-28.
  12. https://www.facepunch.com/team/member/minh.le/
  13. https://rust.facepunch.com/blog/devblog-196/#Goosey_Going
  14. Palumbo, Alessio (2018-04-03). "Counter-Strike Co-Creator Minh 'Gooseman' Le Joins Pearl Abyss To Work on New Project". Retrieved 2018-04-04.
  15. 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.
  16. "Top 100 Game Creators of All Time". IGN. Retrieved 2014-09-26.
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