How a lawyer and banker quit their jobs… to create a game about being a doctor

WIGU Games is a young studio, but it’s already making a name for itself in the freemium management game arena. Doctor Life, its first title, quickly became one of the top-grossing education apps in 20 countries with 130,000 downloads across iOS, Android, and PC. Thanks to that success, WIGU Games is now working on a second, similar management game called Canine Life. But how is life panning out for a small, privately-funded games studio in Malaysia, a country presently still largely bereft of support for its game developers?

When I Grow Up

Husband-and-wife pair Richard Sun and Joyce Lim were a banker and a lawyer, respectively, before they decided to make the leap into game development.

“Both of us are gamers and we always wanted to be entrepreneurs,” Sun said, during an interview with Games in Asia at Astro’s recent #GoInnovate conference. “We saw this TED talk by Jane McGonigal and she talked about the positive power of gaming and how it can bring good to people’s lives. We felt there’s a stigma that gaming is bad and a waste of time, but we always knew that it’s great. And we wanted to harness that positive power.”

Sun also shared how Lim and himself were wondering if corporate jobs were what they wanted to do for the rest of their lives. That was when they came up with the idea to do profession-themed games, to inspire people to do things they loved. WIGU Games is actually an abbreviation for “when I grow up”.

We wanted to give the player a takeaway at the end of the day. At least they learn or absorb something they can use in everyday life.

But it wasn’t easy for two non-technical people to enter a field that depends heavily on tech.

See: More gaming startups need to work together. Malaysia’s 1337 Accelerator is why.

When WIGU first started recruiting, neither Sun nor Lim were able to tell who was a good programmer, and who wasn’t. With no technical knowledge between them, they were unable to test applicants. Fortunately, the local developer community was more than happy to help. An industry friend consulted for WIGU Games pro-bono, and helped shortlist and interview candidates for technical positions. Sun and Lim also engaged other consultants, and talked to mentors from Malaysia’s Intellectual Property Creators’ Challenge (IPCC).

WIGU Games won an IPCC grant later on.

Looking back, Sun shared that knowing what exactly the game’s design would be from the get-go would have helped production tremendously. The Doctor Life game design document changed a lot as production progressed, and led to a lot of inefficiency.

Parental support, or a lackthereof, was another challenge. Sun’s mother questioned how he and Lim, who were engaged at that point, were going to afford to feed themselves and raise children. While Lim’s mother was supportive, her father was disappointed that she had not chosen to join him in the family business.

Grown-up woes

Into the future