I love building things. building things with lego bricks has been a thing for me since I was a child. I love drawing, so it is not uncommon to hear my mum shouting "stop drawing on the walls at home" or my teacher saying "next time maybe double-check your answers instead of scribbling on the back of the exam paper if you have extra time".
I love playing video games since I was small. To me, video game is like a piece of art, a channel for developers to express themselves and a world for players to enjoy themselves. Each game I played when I was small represented a different experience for me.
NeoPets gave me my first pets which always smiled at me despite the fact that I always forgot to feed them. Platform Racing gave me the tools to express my creativity by creating different maps and compete with other popular creators.
Runescape was the game that opened my eyes when I realised it's possible to create a virtual world as immersive as the real world, with thousands of players online at the same time, thousands of virtual villagers and monsters that "live" in the world, hundreds of places to explore and a lot of skills (e.g. mining, crafting) to learn.
There are also numerous games that I really love such as Realm of the Mad God and League of Legends, but I'll leave their stories for another time.
As much as I enjoy playing games, I have always wanted to develop a game of my own, where I can design everything from scratch, from each grass on the ground, to the cheerful pet that a player would feel happy to own, to the almighty final boss with dragon form awaiting to be defeated.
War of The Gum Balls is the first game I developed, a side-scroller shooter built where players shoot bullets at monsters. At that time I have very limited programming knowledge and I was 17 years old, so I guess it's great work!
Shootz.io is the first online multiplayer game I developed when I have some programming background when studying Computer Science in HKU. I've always wanted to develop an online game, where players can play with each other, since I'm also a great fan of MMORPGs.
It's also the first .io game I have created because I'm also a huge fan of Agar.io and Slither.io. I like how the .io games trend is developed, a team of a few persons (or solo) can build games as popular as Agar.io with thousands (if not millions) of players and compete with high-quality games published by big companies.
Over the next 4 years, I have continued to develop games, with monthly active players hitting 1 million and YouTube views reaching 10 millions. Some of the games are: Fightz.io, Swordz.io, GunWars.io, Throwz.io...
According to Albert Einstein, compound interest is the 8th wonder of the world. An interesting example to prove this is if I were to offer you the choice between an immediate cash payment of one million dollars or a magic penny that doubled every day for 30 days, which one would you take? Most people might jump onto the million dollar deal at first glance, but if you do some simple maths you will be amazed that your penny would be worth over 5 million after 30 days.
Apart from my passion in game development, I have also discovered my interest in data analysis and equity research in financial markets. I enjoy developing models, analysing data, and forecasting the future - just like a numbers game or poker.
Value investing is also a game of long-term strategy and mentality, just like how you assign your troops for different duties as a commander. Capital needs to be allocated efficiently on good investments and businesses for a long time, regardless of the daily fluctuation of stock prices.
Warren Buffett has managed to achieve annual investment returns of 20% for 50 years, which means an initial $1,000 investment would become $9,100,000 after 50 years. He is a great teacher with great books and interviews on investing in the future. Similar to other competitive gamers, nothing is more fun than learning from your idol and trying to be as good as him in the game, right?
Like how you love Kobe Bryant and his great plays in NBA, and want to learn his fadeaway shots and spin moves so badly.
Some of the investment books that shaped my investment strategies:
Over the next 2 years, some of the companies I invested in are Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook, generating returns of +122%, +86%, +81%, and +78% respectively.
I like jogging, cycling and hiking, especially in places where I can have a glimpse of the sea, mountains or anything from Mother Nature.
I like playing basketball too, even though I absolutely suck at those. And yes, I like Kobe Bryant and Jeremy Lin (And his spin moves).
I also like listening to music, reading books and watching movies.