Interview with Leonard Lin, Founder of Tyler Projects

Are you interested in joining the game development industry? If you are a startup in this industry, what are the kind of challenges and obstacles that you have to face? After the E27 IV: You are the Media, we managed to get hold of Leonard Lin, founder and managing partner of TYLER Projects Pte Ltd, to share with us his thoughts on the game development industry, web 2.0 and being an entrepreneur in Singapore.

SGE: Welcome to SG Entrepreneurs blog and thank you for accepting this email interview. Can you share with our readers about your background and what you are currently doing?
Leonard: Most of the time I’m working as a managing partner at TYLER Projects, we develop games for PC and mobile phones. In my spare time, I’m a final year student at Singapore Management University pursing one degree in Information Systems Management and another in Business Management.

SGE: What is the story behind Tyler Projects Pte Ltd? How did your team get started in the first place?
Leonard: We actually started out doing games as a non-profit venture and it was just me and my 2 friends, Ronnie and Tianyang, developing games for fun. Back then we didn’t have an office or anything so we would just meet at McDonalds on Sundays and just do our programming on our laptops.

My Professor Desai heard about what we were doing and he told us we should get a company registered and apply for some funding the university was giving out. We did and became the first SMU start-up company.

SGE: What products and services do Tyler Projects provide in general?
Leonard: We do games and software development as well as mobile solutions. We’ve done work for companies like DBS, UOB, OCBC, Sony, etc. We’re always like the 3rd or 4th party vendor so no one ever gets to hear about the great work that we do.

SGE: In your website, one of your products, Mobile Weapon is an online RPG game. How did that come about? How difficult is it to design and write the software for the game?

Leonard: From my experience it’s more tedious than difficult to create a commercial game. Our game system isn’t technically complex. By the way, let me take the opportunity to promote our game; you can play it for free at our website, Mobile Weapon.

SGE: In your initial setup, as an entrepreneur, what kind of difficulties & challenges have you encountered and how have you overcome them?
Leonard: Working and studying at the same time is hell if you’re serious about either. Sometimes I would have to skip class to attend a client meeting, conference or attend to some other crisis. Some of my professors were understanding, some weren’t. I lost my ability to study after NS and I don’t watch TV so I have had a lot of extra time to work on my company.

I’m also thankful that my staff and business partners were understanding and didn’t complain that I didn’t contribute as much during busy project / exam periods.

SGE: What are your thoughts on the game development industry in Singapore? Perhaps, a more interesting question, is Singapore ready for this kind of industry?
Leonard: At the moment, Singapore’s game development industry seems to have decided that its competitive advantage is in producing mobile games. My hope is that TYLER will someday produce a big hit MMO like Maple Story or get our games on consoles like Nintendo DS.