00:00What's really cool is that you get to launch products and announce products that you will
00:03quite literally see a bunch of your friends end up using. If you have a circle of friends who are
00:06gamers as well, I hear my friends talking about, hey, have you seen this headset? I'm like, yeah.
00:23Hi, I'm Jeff Sujeneres Chow and I lead the global esports team here at Razer in Singapore
00:27and I'm the director of global esports and Razer is a leading lifestyle brand for gamers and I
00:33work with athletes such as Faker, the greatest of all time or GOAT as they would call it.
00:46We have teams actually across the world as well as local Singapore such as Bleed Esports,
00:51so in Europe to APAC to the US, teams like Optic Gaming in North America and I'm in charge of
00:57working with these teams, activating against all these amazing esports events and moments
01:02and creating marketing proof points as I like to say it for all of our products
01:06such as the Razer mice, keyboard, headset and so on.
01:12One of the most memorable experiences working at Razer recently was when we worked here at
01:17the Singapore office to find who will be the face of the Viper VT Pro launch esports mouse and that
01:22was an athlete known by the name of Zachary Zekin in North America who we took a bet on at an
01:28international competition and he ended up winning the International Valorant Masters of Madrid
01:32competition as the champion. So we were so happy when he won because he was the face of the mouse
01:39and he was on the prototype mouse when he won, so when I was in the office I was basically screaming
01:45on the top of my lungs when he won and the entire team was like, oh my god what's going on, what's
01:48the energy coming from and that's because Zekin won and he was the champion of the event and
01:52working esports always helped me a lot actually because people think esports is like one big thing
01:57but it's a lot of communities right, esports is based on region and based on games so by
02:03understanding that and also understanding the pros competitive schedule I'm able to better work with
02:08them on helping them work with Razer because we need for them to take photo shoots and get like
02:14testimonials for our products and we have to also work on activation ideas and marketing ideas
02:20so me understanding how hard their competitive schedule is and how to work around that and how
02:26to empathize with them and how to plan honestly better because we have so many marketing we have
02:31a marketing timeline here at Razer and we have to align it with the competitive schedule right
02:34there's seasons there's international events so that has helped me really understand both sides
02:40because coming from the esports side and now working on the sponsorship side basically really
02:44lining up the marketing timeline with the esports schedule and then activating it together and then
02:49helping our teams you know be successful at not only promoting Razer but we also promote the teams
02:55right and Razer cares and even in Singapore we we have done R&D sessions where the Singaporean
03:00players would come to the Razer office and they would give us a lot of feedback about our products
03:04what they like about it what they don't like and that's been very enjoyable to reconnect with the
03:09players right because I was a player myself I grew up in Honolulu Hawaii and which has very
03:21similar weather to Singapore and that's why I love living here in Singapore and I have three
03:25other brothers and one of them was an identical twin brother which I was extremely competitive
03:29with and I had to beat in every game that I played no matter what and one game was Dragonball Z and
03:34Nintendo and that was very competitive and then the game that really ignited all of our competitive
03:39spirit was on the Nintendo 64 a game called GoldenEye 007 so a lot of people that grew up
03:45playing that game know exactly what I'm talking about and we just played that all the time to
03:49compete and to see who was the best for the week or that weekend and then from there we actually
03:54moved to South Korea over here on the side of Singapore and I grew up there for four years
04:00going to high school in South Korea and we picked up a game called StarCraft and StarCraft was the
04:05birth of today's modern day esports where Koreans started filling up stadiums to watch other people
04:11compete and play StarCraft so my brother and I would compete against each other and also we
04:16would team up together and compete against other people in Korea to see who would be the best player
04:22at the the PC cafes that they had there so we would go PC cafe to PC cafe to see who would be
04:28become the king of that neighborhood and PC cafe and that was my first taste of modern day esports
04:34I thought we were crazy back then but I loved it going to high school in South Korea where I
04:38competed in StarCraft I was obsessed with competition and that fed my competitive spirit
04:43so I graduated first in my class and attended Cornell University in Ithaca, New York and then
04:47from there I was able to graduate and work and I wanted to be a leader because of my experience in
04:53Korea and leading teams and winning competitively I worked at Target as a GM and then went to Apple
05:00so while working at Apple they launched the iPhone 6 and a game called Vainglory was announced
05:06and I started to play the game and suddenly I became top 10 player in the world because I was
05:10super competitive and always wanted to rank up and from there I started to form my own team and
05:15compete so Hammers Esports was the team that I was a player and a co-founder of and I competed
05:21and I think one of the most amazing memories there was winning the championship so we were the most
05:25winning team again I was super competitive for my time in Korea we were the most winning team
05:30for spring and fall where we won every single tournament and championship and I'll never forget
05:36when our team would raise the trophy on stage and Razer actually sponsored us and I remember
05:41talking to Razer I was like they're such a cool brand they're from Singapore you know they have
05:44the coolest technology and branding and marketing that they do
05:58Hi I'm talking to Melvin here and you're the global product manager for Headset Audio
06:02yes so tell me more about that and what you do here well the role I mean as it sounds like it's
06:06basically you know us bringing to life a bunch of different products so for me specifically
06:12would be gaming headsets that we bring to market a lot of it being derived from the information
06:17and the understanding of gamers around the world what we really try to do with every single product
06:21is to launch something that we know gamers will love we have high standards for all of our gaming
06:27peripherals because we are the people that will use it what's really cool is that you get to
06:30launch products and announce products that you will quite literally see a bunch of your friends
06:33end up using right if you have a circle of friends for our gamers as well I hear my friends talking
06:36about hey have you seen this headset I'm like yeah so I think that's really cool because the
06:42things that we work on are things that we actually we're very passionate about and then we really
06:46make sure that even beyond gamers like us we get it to the hands of the most demanding players
06:51out there they are happy and perfectly confident in the kind of products that we launch because
06:56you know the mice the keyboards the headsets I think of it as an extension of the players
07:00themselves if the best gear out there to really you know give you the kind of performance that
07:06you expect for your competitive gaming sessions as well and with us today we have an extremely
07:12special guest Jeff Chow I was an esports caster for a lot of these titles I got the chance and
07:19was selected to be the esports caster for the Asia Games 2018 in Jakarta Palembang they introduced
07:25esports as a demonstration medal event in the Asia Olympics so that was awesome and then my
07:30parents told me okay Jeff what you're doing is really cool you can continue to do esports they
07:34wanted me to be a doctor and a lawyer and once he saw me on TV at the Asia Games like wow this is
07:38actually really cool stuff so I'll never forget that moment I think it's a highlight of my career
07:43and then it led me to Singapore where I was a caster for the PVP championships at the Suntec
07:50Exhibition Center in Singapore where I met Min the CEO of Razer as well he was in the audience
07:56and observing the competition and the esports and I was like wow the CEO of Razer is here that's so
08:02cool and I actually approached him he was very intimidating but I went up to him and introduced
08:06myself and then we just connected over there he followed me on Twitter I followed him on Twitter
08:10and who would know years later I would then join Team Razer and come here to relocate to Singapore
08:15if you think about gaming community it's really a technology story people think about gaming and
08:19they think about the basement person playing a video game by himself that is no longer the case
08:24you know technology has enabled voice communication and multiplayer there's in-game communication and
08:29they have to talk to each other and they have to work together to outsmart their opponent so that
08:34has made the entire experience around gaming to be more a focus on teamwork and community right and
08:40there's a lot of discord servers as well you can join servers game servers or community servers
08:46or team servers where you jump on the server and you can talk to people on voice these tools right
08:51around technology has made this digital experience around playing video games much more personal
08:56honestly where you connect you make friends a lot of people make friends through gaming now
09:01they play together all the time think about you come home instead of going to PC cafe
09:04I'm at home jumping on discord playing my friends right and that creates a lot of community and you
09:09connect with people all over the world and I think that has helped gaming become much more
09:14multiplayer much more commutative so esports is much more based on that
09:20I think where I envision Singapore in the future is a hub of innovation I think Singapore has some
09:26of the best world-class facilities I think we're a perfect location to host a lot of these events
09:33that attract you know thousands and thousands of fans and millions of viewers online so I think
09:38Singapore and its infrastructure is the perfect place when it comes to these international
09:44esports events right and I think locally for Singapore there's a lot of esports organizations
09:50that are making their name internationally right like paper x team flash is based in Singapore
09:55lead esports as well very competitive successful organizations that is putting Singapore's name
10:01on the map when it comes to esports because Singapore has a lot of competition against
10:05the major regions but I feel like Singapore there's a lot of hope and there's a lot of talent
10:10proving themselves on the stage and I think the future is very bright for Singapore
10:14and Singaporeans who compete follow esports here
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