Songyee Yoon is president of NCSoft, the South Korean maker of on-line video games together with Aion, Guild Wars, Guild Wars 2, Blade & Soul, Lineage, Lineage 2, Tabula Rasa, Metropolis of Heroes and Fuser.

She is without doubt one of the uncommon girls leaders at one of many trade’s largest firms, and she or he typically will get quizzed by dad and mom about why video games are good for kids. A lot in order that she wrote Push Play: Gaming for a Higher World, which paperwork how play is in our DNA.

All mammals play. And because the first people carved a sport board into the dust, we’ve been advised that enjoying round isn’t a helpful option to spend our time. However gaming is in our nature. We sport to experiment with concepts and to study. We play to create new worlds so we will change this one. Gaming pushes us to think about what extra we will turn into, in keeping with Yoon.

I talked to Yoon, whom I met final yr on a visit to Saudi Arabia, in a hearth chat on Monday at GamesBeat Summit 2024. I recalled how she advised me that she obtained a regulation diploma through the pandemic, and it made me mirror on how I obtained 4 victories in Name of Responsibility: Warzone through the pandemic.

At all times targeted on science, know-how, engineering and math (STEM), Yoon graduated from the Korea Superior Institute of Science and Expertise and went on to earn her Ph.D. from MIT in Computational Neuroscience.

A can-do spirit has helped Yoon all through her profession in gaming, which has been perceived as a boy’s membership that has saved many proficient girls from main gaming firms. She wrote within the e book how

We talked about her quest for a extra numerous and equitable gaming and tech neighborhood, with supportive environments for working moms. Yoon desires to create the best situations for welcoming extra range in each making video games and enjoying video games. I believed it was some of the fascinating talks at our occasion.

Right here’s an edited transcript of our interview.

GamesBeat: May you get us began by telling us about your self, the 30-second model?

Songyee Yoon: I’m the president of NCSoft, which is without doubt one of the largest MMORPG developer-publishers in South Korea. I’ve been with the corporate for 15 years.

GamesBeat: I’ve a replica of your e book, referred to as “Push Play: Gaming for a Higher World.” What impressed you to jot down this?

Yoon: It got here out in March this yr. As I discussed, I’ve been within the gaming trade for greater than 15 years. The rationale I considered scripting this e book–I began getting so many query from my fellow dad and mom, the dad and mom of my children’ associates, asking me, “Why are you making video games? My children play video games on a regular basis. It’s so evil. It’s due to individuals such as you.” I spotted there’s a form of disconnect between thsee children, who’re in gaming and having fun with it and loving it and studying from it, and their dad and mom, who aren’t essentially avid gamers, who’re simply watching them from the skin and getting pissed off. I wished to elucidate what gaming actually means, why it’s essential by way of innovation and studying.

GamesBeat: It’s fascinating that you just related issues, within the e book, to the notion that everyone performs. We’re all gamers. It’s how we find out about issues.

Yoon: There’s a saying. When you solely work and by no means play, you turn into silly? Is that the way it goes?

GamesBeat: “All work and no play…” I neglect how the remainder of it goes. [Such mindsets, Yoon wrote in her book, make it harder for children to make friends and adjust to social situations. Such children have higher incidences of anxiety and depression].

Yoon: I wished to place a perspective on the function of play. Play has been an integral a part of human evolution for so long as humanity has been round. When you take a look at how polar bear infants play with one another, they simulate issues just like the act of looking once they chase one another. It’s how they develop their muscle tissues and abilities. Sea lions, that’s what they do all day lengthy. They simulate the world – one thing like a shark attacking different sea lions – and learn to defend themselves. Even earlier than gaming, children did every kind of role-playing. It’s essential as a result of we discovered social norms and how one can work together with one another.

That’s at all times been the function of play in human evolution. At this time, it simply includes a pc or a tool. That’s probably the most intriguing artifact over time. We play on this platform referred to as gaming, however the function of play and the way it impacts our studying hasn’t modified.

GamesBeat: How do you carry extra analytical or research-oriented solutions to the query? Too typically individuals appear to have a politicized reply. How do you rationally clarify why this trade is so huge, why artistic freedom issues, and why that is one thing persons are so enthusiastic about?

Yoon: Something extreme is unhealthy. I’m not saying we must always play solely video games all day lengthy. There must be steadiness. However in case you do something to extra – in case you go operating 12 hours a day – that’s not good for you both. You need to have a steadiness in your life. However that doesn’t imply that the worth of play in studying needs to be utterly discounted.

GamesBeat: The gaming trade has been historically male-dominated. What sort of challenges have you ever confronted as a girl?

Yoon: What number of minutes do I’ve? However personally–there are various issues that we may speak about. Personally, once I was rising up, I used to be at all times the one girl. I didn’t actually take into consideration why that was the case, but it surely didn’t hassle me very a lot. I actually preferred arithmetic. I preferred robotics. I went to competitions yearly. And I spotted, everybody round me was a boy. There have been no women. Once I was in faculty I majored in electrical engineering. There have been six girls out of about 220 individuals within the class, and three of them transferred to different majors. There weren’t many ladies round me, on a regular basis.

I didn’t suppose a lot about it once I was younger. I didn’t consider it as an issue. However once I obtained older–due to that, all of my associates have been males. Pals from highschool, from center faculty, from faculty. All of them obtained married and there began to be loads of distance between us. They weren’t as pleasant to me as soon as they obtained married and all of that. Impulsively I misplaced all of my associates. I spotted it was essential to have feminine associates and invite them into this world that I actually preferred. That was one motivation.

The opposite is, we’re within the enterprise of gaming. Half of the inhabitants, half of our viewers are girls. Girls designers have an excellent understanding of what girls are on the lookout for, what resonates. For enterprise causes we now have to encourage a extra numerous workforce to take part in sport design. If the world is designed in such a manner that it’s very exhausting to make associates with different individuals, then it’s not going to be very enticing.

I began to make a aware effort to make a office that’s extra pleasant to girls in many alternative methods. I began a daycare at NCSoft headquarters [applause]. I didn’t suppose it was such an enormous deal on the time, however then I spotted–the federal government says you need to present entry to daycare after you have greater than 300 workers. However daycares that have been made to simply examine that field have been open from 9 a.m. to five p.m. Because of this, loads of moms have been late for 9 a.m. conferences. They obtained accused of being lazy. I began holding the daycare open from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., with an additional shift of lecturers. I employed employees specializing in youngsters’s meals and arrange different applications tailor-made to maximise age-appropriate stimulation and schooling and all that.

Shortly our daycare, regardless that it wasn’t began by daycare specialists, grew to become the primary daycare within the nation. It was featured in a nationwide promotional video about how Korea is an effective place to work. We discovered that it elevated retention in our workforce. A whole lot of nice expertise utilized to our firm as a result of we supplied an answer for his or her complete household. There have been loads of constructive advantages. We realized that having a daycare designed from the angle of oldsters and household would assist with retention at our firm, in addition to the delivery fee, which is a dire drawback in South Korea. We began promoting what we’d discovered and achieved, and I wrote a e book in regards to the daycare program that reached lots of people. A whole lot of public daycares began opening at 8AM, together with the one in Parliament. It’s had a constructive influence on society.

GamesBeat: How would you prefer to see the sport trade evolve in the case of girls and gender range?

Yoon: There are lots of issues, however similar to in some other trade, I feel it’s essential to have extra feminine leaders. I wasn’t actually counting the numbers, paying a lot consideration to what’s occurring, however there was a information article that in contrast 4 huge sport firms in South Korea. Two of them didn’t have a feminine government. We had about 10 on the time. The distinction comes from the truth that if in case you have extra girls leaders, they’re keen to offer different girls alternatives. They will work collectively at attracting extra numerous employees.

About 10 years in the past or so, I spotted loads of the heroes in our video games have been all males. Feminine characters weren’t actually aspirational heroes. They have been topics to be saved. I talked to our builders about attempting to have the identical variety of feminine heroes as male in our video games. I anticipated that it was going to be a very simple, easy dialog. “Oh, that’s proper, I didn’t actually understand. Let’s make a change.” However as a substitute what I used to be confronted with was a robust pushback. “Why is it higher to have equal illustration? Why is it higher to have extra feminine heroes in our video games?” That led me to suppose quite a bit in regards to the significance of sharing totally different views and totally different worth units brazenly in our conversations, in addition to the significance of getting a extra numerous workforce, individuals who take note of totally different points of constructing worlds and video games.

GamesBeat: We’ve seen some large shifts within the sport trade lately, from an enormous spike in engagement to layoffs and uncertainty now post-pandemic. What’s your tackle what’s occurring?

Yoon: It’s a fancy query. There are lots of various factors to attribute. One factor I take into consideration quite a bit is that we must always deal with first rules. As a sport trade, we’re imagined to be on the reducing fringe of innovation. Our viewers is early adopters. They need us to proceed to thrive in presenting novel experiences. What’s actually enjoyable about video games–they arrive into sport worlds to see an expertise that they’ll’t see anyplace else.

It may be troublesome to proceed that sort of innovation. By the pandemic it was very exhausting. We had much less collaboration. There have been loads of challenges and different components that influenced what we do. The way in which for us to thrive is to proceed displaying innovation and increasing what’s doable.

GamesBeat: Talking of the pandemic, throughout these 18 months or so I used to be fairly proud to get about 4 wins in Name of Responsibility: Warzone. I discovered from Songyee that she obtained a regulation diploma in the identical time. With operating NCSoft and every thing else that you just do, how did you handle that?

Yoon: In the course of the pandemic there was no enterprise journey. I had loads of time. I used to be all in favour of it due to AI and the moral implications. Speaking about it on the time, I spotted that folks had very totally different values and views. They’re all contributing to implementing how AI is making judgments and influencing how choices are made in society. I grew to become extra all in favour of how we will give you an efficient coverage framework and be sure that we’re working towards a extra protected society, minimizing the hazard of hurt from bias and so forth. I at all times wished to learn the way coverage is made. The pandemic was an ideal time to check additional. I had loads of time and loads of programs have been provided on-line.

GamesBeat: In your e book you speak about AI chat bots. There are fears rising inside the trade about elevated use of AI in video games and in making video games. Because it pertains to the present wave of layoffs and future job prospects, how do you suppose we must always view AI or deal with AI?

Yoon: Once more, we now have to deal with what the gaming trade is all about. AI is a instrument. At NCSoft, like most different firms, we’ve had a VP of AI since 2005. We began our AI lab in 2011. It’s at all times been an integral a part of sport growth. It’s nice to have the assistance of clever instruments that permit us to create with out boundaries. We have to use AI in methods that may maximize our creativity and never be hindered by bodily limitations and time restrictions. We will deal with working in a more practical manner that sparks creativity and creativeness in our viewers.

GamesBeat: I met you once we each traveled to Saudi Arabia for a gaming occasion. What have been your impressions of the area in the case of video games?

Yoon: I used to be pleasantly stunned. It wasn’t my first time in Saudi Arabia, however I discovered that the typical age within the nation was solely round 35. A lot of the younger individuals there wish to work in gaming. I feel the determine was 80%, which is a big quantity. Esports is extraordinarily well-liked. Younger individuals seeking to work in sport growth, sport providers, it’s comprehensible.

It goes again to the notion that gaming is a lens into the long run. It reveals the place know-how innovation goes and the place the market is headed. It’s comprehensible, given the younger age of the inhabitants, that there’s an immense curiosity in sport growth. It was very constructive. I used to be pleasantly stunned by the constructive reception and their eager curiosity in gaming.

GamesBeat: Your story, I feel, is an inspirational one to lots of people right here. Do you see any parallels between being personally resilient and having a resilient firm?

Yoon: The way in which to remain resilient, like for all of us, is to remain humble. At all times take heed to the market and the viewers. Be able to adapt. That’s what’s essential for our firms. Be true to your mission, to why you’re doing this and what you wish to be.