Today we’d like to introduce you to Zhong Hu.
Zhong, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
First of all, thanks for having me here! I’m honored to have the opportunity to share my story with the readers of VoyageLA.
My name is Zhong, and I am a game producer. Before beginning my career in game production, I was aiming to become a software engineer. But that choice was a result of me blindly following my peers to pursue any career in the tech industry. At the time, all my friends flocked to software because of its prospective lucrativeness, but after some deep soul-searching, I realized it wasn’t for me. I went looking for the intersection of what I enjoy, what I believed to be good at, and where I could add value to our society. And so, I decided that that intersection for me existed in entertainment.
I was always extremely interested in how people perceive technology (in the present or the future) versus how it actually manifests itself in the present day. For example, when you compare a Tesla in 2022 with a car from the 1900s, functionally, the cars are the same. They both have wheels, tires and get the passenger from A to B… etc. But it’s in the ways that “technology” has developed that the differences between each car become very apparent. This is the “gap” that I find fascinating and am hoping to explore more through my work in entertainment and more specifically, games.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Although I know what my passion is now, I did not see a clear goal when I first started my career. It was a very bumpy road, and I would say the biggest challenge was finding that intersection between what I enjoyed and what I am good at, as I mentioned earlier. I started off as a Computer science major, but my courses only made me realize I didn’t have the aptitude for creating difficult algorithms. And I was hesitant to give up Computer Science initially because I knew it could be lucrative for me in the future and earn the respect of my peers to go into the field. But I knew I had to trust my instincts and make the trade-off between my interest and passion and how others would think of me. So, knowing that Computer Science wouldn’t be sustainable for me, I switched majors to Aerospace Engineering, then Physics, then Philosophy, and finally settled in Information Science, a curriculum that was at the center of design, engineering, and arts. But by the time I got there, I was covered with so many bruises.
After school, I continued to make my career choices with that intersection of passion and skill in mind. It also became important for me to work in a field that could have longer-term impacts on society and could bring value to people. With that direction defined, I bounced between different subfields that I was interested in, exploring different challenges. And by the end of this process, I was happy to have chosen a career in game production.
For people who have yet to find their passion, be patient. For people who have already identified what they love, take more risks because the future will favor the bold.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Currently, I am a game producer at Riot Games, working on League of Legends: Wift Rift. I function as a Delivery Lead, focusing on “how we can build and when” versus a Product Lead who would focus more on “why we are making and what we are going to do.”
On a day-to-day basis, I aim to lead my teams into thinking about their problem spaces from a more long-term perspective versus focusing solely on the immediate result or outcome. I want to give them the space and agency to envision the change they want and to accomplish it either indirectly or directly. “How we can build” is such a broad prompt, so defining and interpreting that question in every facet of game production could lead to very creative solutions and ideas.
Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
For me, everything started to click once I reframed the way I thought about success and my own ambition. I realized my goals were less about the more tangible benefits like money or status (external motivations) and more about what drove me internally (philosophy, value to society, etc.). I also disliked the notion of having external factors determine my choices or having to bend to the thoughts of what others consider important. As a result, I believe that my personal, intrinsic drive has been the most important to my success.
But it is difficult at times to follow that drive at times. For me, having a strong faith helps. The right motivations are hard to define a set of rules for, but you know it when you see it.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hszsfhcy_
