Minh Le

Minh Le (Vietnamese: Lê Minh, born June 27, 1977), also known by his online nickname Gooseman, is a Vietnamese-Canadian computer game developer who co-created the popular Half-Life mod Counter-Strike with Jess Cliffe in 1999. He was later employed by Valve Software, the developers of Half-Life, and is currently working on the multiplayer first-person shooter Tactical Intervention. In the small-team games that he has worked on, Le has been a programmer, modeler, and designer.

Le first 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 (short for "modification") called Navy SEALs, Counter-Strike's spiritual predecessor.^[1][2] While he was working on the Action Quake 2 mod, he came up with the idea for Counter-Strike and became friends with AQ2's webmaster Jess Cliffe.

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^[2] (he later graduated with a degree in computer science^[3]). He spent about 20 hours a week on making the mod, expending more effort on it than he did on his schoolwork,^[1] 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.^[1]

By the fourth beta version, Valve Software, the developer who created Half-Life, began assisting in the development of Counter-Strike.^[4] In 2000, Valve bought the rights to Counter-Strike and hired Le and Cliffe to work with them in Bellevue, Washington, USA 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.^[5]

After Counter-Strike 2 was shelved, Le left Valve to work on a project of his own.^[5] After two years working with a small team on this project, he then 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.^[6]

In 2003, a GameSpy editorial cited Minh Le as the most important reason Half-Life was still popular five years after it was released.^[7] IGN ranked Jess Cliffe and Minh Le as number 14 in their "Top 100 Game Creators of All Time" list.^[8]

In a very popular map of the game Counter-Strike, de_dust2, the name "Goose" is sprayed on the wall at bombsite A.

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} John McLean-Foreman (2001-05-30). "Interview with Minh Le". Gamasutra. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3072/interview_with_minh_le.php. Retrieved 2009-09-28. 
2. ^ ^{a b} James Yu (2001-01-25). "Gooseman Counter-Strike Interview". FiringSquad. http://www.firingsquad.com/features/gooseint/. Retrieved 2006-12-02. 
3. ^ "Interview - Minh Le of Counter Strike team". Eurogamer. 2000-10-03. http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=265. Retrieved 2006-12-02. 
4. ^ "Development a la mod"". Red Herring (magazine). 2001-05-08. http://www.redherring.com/Home/3717. Retrieved 2009-09-28. 
5. ^ ^{a b} Ben Min (2009-09-28). "The Next Counterstrike: A conversation with Minh Le and a look at Tactical Intervention.". http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/102/1028810p1.html. Retrieved 2009-09-28. 
6. ^ Breckon, Nick (2009-09-28). "Counter-Strike Creator Reveals 'Tactical Intervention'". Shacknews. http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/60649. Retrieved 2009-09-28. 
7. ^ Kevin Bowen (2003-02-09). "Top Ten Reasons Half-Life is Still #1". GameSpy. http://www.gamespy.com/articles/489/489723p4.html. Retrieved 2006-12-02. 
8. ^ "Top 100 Game Creators of All Time". IGN. http://games.ign.com/top-100-game-creators/14.html. Retrieved 2009-09-28. 

Persondata
Name	Le, Minh
Alternative names	Lê Minh; "토니"
Short description	Vietnamese-Canadian computer game developer who created the mod Counter-Strike
Date of birth	1977-06-27
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death