Not everyone can make gaming a career, or specifically, producing gaming content via videos and streams. The pay won’t be as good when you first start, and there’s no guarantee of success. But if you are looking for decent and stable job there’s plenty of other ways to make a living while still doing something indirectly involved in games. That’s where our gamer of the week comes in. Meet SyahXNakara of SyahX Production. SyahX has tried out making a career as a competitive gamer but he’s now pivoting to be a game maker. For the time being, he still maintains a YouTube channel now dedicated to all things anime.
Gaming Origins, And The Power Of Friendship
SyahX first discovered gaming at the age of 12. Minecraft was one of his first gaming love, or rather, to use his own words, addictions. “Minecraft is a really nice game and you will not feel boring playing it,” he said. “Especially when you have friends to play with.” Later on he started to play various other games including CS:GO, Osu and Paladins.
He credited his friends when it comes to why he keeps on playing games. “I can just say that my friends always motivated me to play games with them.” Playing together online, whether it’s co-op or competitive, has a different sensation to the traditional solo experience, especially in the age where everyone can easily connect and communicate.
And one thing that SyahX benefited from gaming, aside from it being a great tool to learn English and general knowledge, it is understanding the power of friendship.
“There are a few interesting things that I learned from playing games. It is friendship. Friendship is the most important thing when you are playing games,” he explained.
“Your friends will not make you bored when they are playing games together with you. Or we could just say that they will make you feel fun and comfortable.”
Forging relationships is an important aspect of life, and having common ground, like a passion for games, certainly helps. Games like the Persona series have used the theme of friendship that will come in handy in dire times, and while it’s not entirely realistic (no, you cannot summon stronger demons in real life if you have closer ties to friends), it helps portray that having someone you can depend on will have a long-term benefit.
This friendship that SyahX has formed lead him to another opportunity: forming the gaming group that was called Skematik Gaming.
The Brief Stint At Skematik Gaming And The Switch To Anime Content
Last year, SyahX and a group of his friends went forward to do form a gaming team: Skematik Gaming. However, we were not able to find enough information about what the group is really about. “What can I say is Skematik Gaming was just an unknown name,” he explained. The group then disbanded not long after. SyahX cited there were “a lot of problems that happened between [the members]”.
However, SyahX does not hold any grudges over the failed venture. Whatever that happened during the short stint together was a learning experience for him.
“I want to thank all my friends who are always with me from my beginning journey until now. Without you guys (Skematik Gaming), I wouldn’t had learn a lot of things and surely I wouldn’t had fun back there.”
With that, SyahX moved on to do something more closer to his heart: animes. His channel SyahX Production is mostly dedicated to anime coverage. “Yes, most of my content are related to anime. My interest to anime inspired me to head into that direction,” he said.
“As an anime lover, I want to share with all of people what are the best anime to watch according to their interest with a good storyline.”
Some of his top 10 videos has also past the 500,000 views, so clearly he has found his new niche when it comes to content. As such, we asked some recommendations of what anime to watch for this year. He shortlisted four that surely be interesting since each of them revolves around video games:
“All of these animes have their own storyline which the protagonist or main character is a professional gamer in their own story. So I highly recommend it to make sure you guys can feel and know how the professional gamer’s life by watching all of these,” he added. And yes, SyahX assured us that these are all suitable for ages 15 and up. We will have to take his word on this one.
The Need For Active Gaming Communities
The one thing that SyahX pointed out as a problem with gaming here is the lack of a strong community presence. “I think the biggest problem for gamers currently is they don’t know how to find the way to join the gaming community so that they can try the other fun games too.
“Currently, they always stuck with one game and don’t really know that there are a lot of other games that are fun to play than what are they playing right now.”
The increased use of social media has sparked some gaming groups over on Facebook, Steam and even on Twitter. But in Malaysia, gaming communities exists in small pockets. There are established groups here and there but the reach is still not as far as it could potentially go. The increased success of the Malaysian fighting game community with their continuous stream of events and Garena Malaysia taking more proactive actions to help grow the esports community for their games are good steps forward, so is gathering events like twtupgamersmy. But we surely need more.
As these gaming events continue to rise in number, big brands will be more comfortable to invest in the community and help it get the right exposure.
“I think that brand involvement in gaming is really positive because they can prove to the other people out there that gaming is just not an activity that will waste your time, “SyahX explained.
“Moreover, it will motivate people to join the community when they see a lot of good brands support the gaming scene especially in Malaysia.” Brands like Acer and Lenovo have stepped up their community presence with sponsorships for esports events in Malaysia. All we need now is the right people that can form and lead a community to organise such events that can attract all the gamers here.
The Dream- A Game Maker
At one moment in his life, SyahX wants to run a great gaming team in Malaysia. Something that can rival FaZe Clan, a household name in the Call Of Duty, CS:GO and more recently Overwatch esports scene. A dream similar to previous featured gamer Pyroful. However, he has now moved on and set sights for something else: a career in programming.
“I don’t really prefer being a gamer as my potential career path for me right now because I am more interested in programming. I think it’s the time for me to just playing games for fun and not to achieve anything from it,” he explained.
“Instead being a player, I really want to be a maker of games.” A dream similar to previous featured gamer SashaMocha, whose already planning and designing her own games.
SyahX mentioned his interest of programming comes from watching hacking documentaries. “Obviously, I don’t want to be a hacker or anything, I just want to be a good programmer,” he added. He cites John Carmack (co-founder and former tech expert of id Software, now working with Oculus on VR projects), Donald Knuth (a well known computer scientist) and Linus Torvalds (creator of the Linux OS) as influences.
When it comes to the general opinion that programming is hard, SyahX disagrees. “Programming is not that hard as some might say. For me, I can understand what I am studying right now,” he said. Though he also added that having time constraints can make solving programming problems more complicated. He is currently set at learning Python first, one of the easier languages to pick up aside from the usual picks such as C or C++.
Programming skills are certainly handy nowadays, with the rise of the IT sector in Malaysia, as well as the game development scene, there’s certainly a demand for coders. If we are to expect local-based dev teams like Streamline Studios to start producing games of their own they need the right manpower
We wish all the best for SyahXNakara on his future endeavours.
You can find SyahXProduction over on Youtube.
This feature was written as part of a partnership with Fundeavour, a site that helps aspiring gamers around the world to get a head start on beginning their journey as content creators, streamers and esports players. Want to be featured and share your stories with over 50,000 readers? Check out more info here or sign up with Fundeavour.com!