From Start-Up to Marvel Entertainment: Being Unprepared Now Doesn’t Mean You’ll Never Be Ready

You, Josh Singh, who’s been on our show before. He shared his story of going from hobbyist artists to video game designer at the multi-billion-dollar video game company Blizzard Entertainment. Josh now tells us the story of how his dream wasn’t everything he thought it would be. We would join him at Blizzard on the Research and Development Project Team Four. Here’s Josh. I don’t think I was prepared to work at such a high-functioning studio that just demanded excellence routinely. I didn’t know how to navigate the political waters, and I just didn’t know. I think I think I made a bad impress, to, you know, if I could take responsibility for that. I was a great artist. But I got disillusioned, and I think that I let that disillusion sort of like taint my experience and cause me to get a little sour. Because what I noticed at Blizzard is everybody’s a genius. Everybody. Everybody is the best. Everybody’s extremely talented, from management to recruiting, to art, to, you know, HR. They’re all just intelligent, bright people. But the thing is, when you’re full of people like that, you gotta wait your turn. Like they had a really ingrained, sort of ten-year system. So I was like, ‘What? I gotta wait like five years for anybody to take me seriously?’ Until that time, I had to keep my head down and just like impress. And it felt like I had to impress someone every single day. It was stressful. I didn’t quite understand what the expectations were. You know, this was a project that had been in Research and Development for quite a long time. And then, to be fair, it was a Research and Development project with a hundred and twenty people. It was extremely loaded. So, it was like, it was, it was weird. The perks were amazing, but it was hard to understand like how to make the game awesome. Because when you’re surrounded by awesome, but then they’re treating the awesome things that everybody’s making is like normal, throwaway stuff, you can get frustrated. You know, you’re like, ‘What do you want? Like, what do you want? Like, we’re making such great stuff, or are you just throwing it away because you can, you know?’ That’s what it felt like to me. So, to be fair, I wasn’t prepared either. And so, after a year at Blizzard, I was already like, ‘Man, I don’t know if I can do this.’ So, I learned a lot there that, you know, and I was like, ‘This…’ And I was like, ‘If this is the top of the mountain, like, do I even want to be here anymore?’ I was like considering it, like, ‘Should I go into film? Should I like start building networks with like, you know, some my Hollywood buddies and start getting into like movie of effects, because like the skills kind of transfer, you know, not everything, but I could always get in, you know.’ And I was just kind of thinking, like all this stuff. And, um, then one of the producers on a Team Four, Project Titan. His name was Stephen Lim. We call him Slim. So, Slim left Blizzard to go to this get little studio called Riot Games. And this was about 2011. And then Riot Games was working on this game called League of Legends, and everybody’s kind of started talking about it and playing it at lunch breaks and stuff like that. And I was like, ‘This is a pretty cool game. It’s fun, but it’s really ugly. Like, the characters are ugly.’ And so I knew that Slim was over there, and so I hit him up and said, ‘Hey, man, you guys looking for character artists?’ He’s like, ‘Yes!’ And I was like, ‘Hey, uh, I’m thinking of leaving Blizzard. You guys have room over there?’ He’s like, ‘Yes!’ And he got me in like so fast into Riot. And this was 2011, and I kind of lucked out because I guess Riot had just got a huge investment of like four hundred million dollars from this big Chinese company called Tencent, and Riot had huge plans to create something called esports in America. They had seen that in Korea. StarCraft was a huge esport in Korea, and they’re like, ‘We could do that in America with League of Legends,’ and that was their goal. And so part of that strategy was to get triple-A talent, right, and team. The team that they had was kind of like the same team that they started with right when they were young and scrappy and didn’t have any money. And so me coming in from Blizzard was like one of the first, like, ‘Oh, Josh worked at Blizzard, you know. Oh, man, you know.’ So I came in, and they were like, ‘Dude, what was it like working at Blizzard?’ Uh, and I didn’t want to be a jerk or anything. I was just like, ‘Yeah, this is kind of different, like, you know.’ And I was a little bit down, you know. But, you know, so I go into Riot. They give me the job, you know, they like it. I like them. The vibe is awesome. They’re all very, very kind and generous, and I got the feeling that they really needed me, right, whereas Blizzard didn’t. I didn’t feel like they needed me. I felt like I was disposable. But Riot gave me this feeling. They’re like, ‘Josh, like, we need you to do this!’ And I was like, ‘Dude, I’m right, that’s what I want!’ And so I kind of, like I said, a little bit down. And I show up to work and I’m talking to the producer, and I’m like, ‘Well, what do you want me to do? Like, what’s my first assignment?’ And it’s a guy named Thomas Vo. I think he’s like an Executive Vice President over now. He’s a good guy. And Thomas was like, ‘Dude, do whatever you want to do. Like, what do you want to do?’ And I was like, ‘What?’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, man.’ He’s like, ‘We could tell you what to do, like, but, like, what would you do to improve our game?’ And I’m like, ‘Dude, I don’t want to redo all your characters because you guys are, you know, you guys are getting huge, and you can’t have your game looking like this.’ He’s like, ‘I agree a hundred percent.’ So they put me on a few assignments so that I could get familiar with the pipeline and how to make skins. And this is the first time skins, you know, sort of was the thing. Like, if you play Fortnite, if you play, you know, any of these games, like skins is a huge monetization tool, but League of Legends was one of the first ones. It kind of like made this a thing, and I kind of learned how everything worked. And, you know, it was an incredibly ambitious young team, and they had the funds and they had the runway to make amazing things. And so I was part of the team that really made skins valuable. Like, we worked on this one skin for a character named Ezreal, and it was called Pulsefire Ezreal, and we put all the bells and wheels on it. We made it like transform every time you leveled up. And they wanted to sell it for thirty bucks, and everybody was like, ‘What? Like, no one will pay thirty bucks for this, as digital is not even real!’ But they did it, and it sold so well, it made so much money, and they’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, we are onto something!’ And so they really beefed up, you know, the pipeline for the skins team to make. He’s really just top-of-the-line cosmetics for player expression, and they found that that was a huge market. And then I split off and I created, or I helped create, you know, this other team, cut, was the Champion Update Team. It started out with visual updates, where I was just redoing textures. And then eventually I was redoing the models. And then eventually we were redoing the models, textures, and animations. And then we found that those were getting as much engagement as like a brand-new champion, and so they’re like, ‘Hey, why don’t we give this a few like, get this a proper, a proper team?’ And it was really fun, and I was there for five years. I was the longest I’ve ever been at a studio because, you know, it was just so much variety. They let me help out with so many things. Like it hadn’t been locked down, it was, it was a studio becoming a big studio, you know. So I had small studio mentality where, like, I could kind of do whatever I wanted because it was needed. But it hadn’t really crystallized into, you know, ‘stay in your lane. You know, you only do this.’ So I got to help out, like, with making merchandise, cinematics. And it was just such a fun time. Um, got to travel the world, you know, I went to Cologne, Germany a couple times for Gamescom, and, you know, went to, you know, went to Seoul, Korea for the Worlds. Like, they did it. You know, they made esports a thing. You know, if esports is now a thing, they’re in the red for many, many years, but, you know, they had faith, and now esports is like a viable thing, you know, on Twitch and stuff like that. And you’ve been listening to Josh Singh share his story. He had made it to the big time. He had made it to Blizzard, and Blizzard Entertainment is a multi-billion-dollar video game production company, a huge studio. And, by the way, video games, it’s as big a business as movies, if not bigger. And he wasn’t prepared for the big time. He wasn’t prepared for a giant studio where everybody, everybody was excellence, and it was routinely demanded excellence from everybody — a lot of great people. Well, it just overwhelmed Josh, and he felt the need to impress people every day. The perks weren’t bad either. That kept a lot of people at bay. At one point he tired, ‘If this is the top of the mountain, do I really want to be here?’ And then he gets the call or makes the call to Riot. ‘I had the feeling they needed me. At Blizzard, I was disposable.’ When we come back, more of Josh Singh’s story here on Our American Stories, and we’re back with Our American Stories and the story of Josh Singh. Josh was working at Riot Games, the developer of the esports phenomenon, League of Legends, a game created in 2009. It still has 180 million unique monthly users. Back to Josh. And then I eventually got the itch again. I felt like I, as an individual contributor, I had done everything I wanted to do. I now wanted to be an Art Director. I knew how to make great art, and I wanted to learn how to make great artists because I felt like that was the next logical step. And I kind of saw the value in helping people versus just having a portfolio of awesome art. I kind of wanted to have like a network of awesome people that I’ve helped. I thought that would be more valuable, and that’d be a longer-lasting legacy. So that was like around 2016, Tencent bought Riot Games, and I had shares in the company that were just kind of granted to me. I didn’t really think much about it, and all of a sudden, those shares were worth, you know, a lot of money, like seven figures. And I was like, ‘Okay, what’s the next step?’ So I was working on this card game called Legends of Runeterra, and I was there for about a year at Riot, and I was kind of like, ‘Hey, make me an Art Director, make me a lead! Like, I want to learn how to lead! Teach me, teach me! teach me.’ But they were like, ‘Uh, you know.’ I felt like a carrot on a stick kind of thing, you know, no hard feelings or anything. But it felt like I just didn’t want to wait. And now that I had some cash, I didn’t have to work. I was like, ‘All right, I’m out of here. I’m gonna figure it out on my own.’ I had enough money to sort of like go on like a two-year sabbatical, buy a house, and figure out what I wanted to do. So we moved away from Orange County, back to the hometown of Utah, back to Saint George, bought our first house, and I’m just sort of like, ‘All right, I’m just gonna chill, you know.’ I got a buddy reach out to me and say, ‘Hey, what are you doing these days?’ And I was like, ‘Dude, I’m just like goofing off trying to do artwork, but just hanging out with my’ kids, and, you know, enjoying, enjoying not having to work for a second. And he said, ‘How would you like to work as an Art Director on a fully-funded fighting game?’ And I was like, ‘Oh, I love fighting games! Tell me more!’ And so he got me in touch with his friends, and it was a group of guys that were fairly new, but they had just received like 10 million in funding. They were in Las Vegas. I’m only two hours away from Las Vegas. They’re at Las Vegas, at EVO, which is a fighting game sort of tournament, and they were showing their prototype to people. And the General Manager, or, you know, one of the founders, he was in Salt Lake, and he was passing by, and he said, ‘Hey, you want to get some dinner, and we’ll talk about it?’ And we got dinner, and we talked about it, and I said, ‘Sure, man, I’ll come see what’s going on at EVO.’ And so I drove down to Vegas, and I saw people playing their prototype, and I was like, ‘This looks pretty fun. Looks at his potential,’ and I just kind of started introducing myself as the Art Director because I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll do it!’ And I said, ‘I’ll invest too! I’ll invest some money in this, you know, I’ll have a part of this, and I’ll be the Art Director.’ Um, so, so the thing here, um, so, long story short, it was… It was incredibly stressful. The money was all gone, it was not received well. And, you know, a lot of people — like, emotional and mental health — took a toll. I was there for three years as the Art Director on this, on this game, and I had never been an Art Director before, and I wanted to be a good Art Director. I wanted to be emotionally invested in my people, and because money was running out and mistakes were made, I wanted to lead with empathy and lead with, like, emotional intelligence. But at the same time, when they were all stressed out, like, it stressed me out, and I didn’t have anybody to help me. And I had basically bought myself an Art Director title, like jumped into the, just jumped in the deep end, that I’m an Art Director. And so I was an Art Director, you know, and I learned everything from outsource management to, you know, Excel sheets and manpower and all this sort of stuff. And then I’m having one-on-ones with everybody, making sure they’re okay, they need raises, you know, dictating the art style, creating slides for investors, like, just everything. Not all fun stuff. It was also tedious stuff and emotionally heavy stuff. At times, I had fire people. I had to talk to people about, you know, ‘You’re being late to work, man. Like, these are the core hours.’ I had to be the man, right? I was the man, you know, in the, in the bad way, like, you know, and I wasn’t used to it. And but I, you know, I try to do it as best I could. Anyway, took a huge toll. I’m gaining in weight, my hair’s, you know, I’m growing my beard out, got gray in my beard, gray in my hair, and I’m. Every year in San Francisco, you know, there’s this event called the GDC, the Game Developer Conference. And we were in Oakland at the time. I would live in Saint George, Utah, and then I would fly down to Oakland, and I would stay there. I would stay in Oakland Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. And then Wednesday night I fly back home, and then do Thursday, Friday, and then the weekend. And I do that every other week, and anyway, I was in Oakland. GDC was happening in San Francisco. Easy-peasy, go over there, see some awesome talks. And I’m just chilling, you know, doing that thing that I do when I’m uncomfortable. I’m in my sketchbook. I’m just drawing in my sketchbook, you know, like same kid from middle middle school drawing Ninja Turtles or something. And my old Art Director from Riot, as well as a couple other Art Directors, like, so the Studio Head Art Director, and then a few other Art Directors from Riot that I’m friends with, are like, ‘Josh, what’s up? Oh, you know what I mean?’ And I’m like, kind of, like, not feeling very social, and I’m just like, ‘Hey, what’s going on, you know?’ And they’re like, ‘Dude, how’s how’s the game going on? How’s everything?’ And I’m like, ‘Ah, you know, it wasn’t going good, but, you know, you don’t tell people that.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, you know, it’s going, it’s going,’ and I just had so much on my mind, and they just kind of they won’t leave me alone. They kept talking to me, and eventually they wore me down, and I asked the Studio Art Director, a guy named Adam Murghia, who I was never really close with, I’ll be honest. He was just so high-level. We would see each other, and I think we had a few, like, one-on-ones when he first got hired at Riot, but he very quickly became like the Studio Head Art Director of Riot Games. So we knew each other, but we didn’t, like, no, know each other. But I just opened up to him and I said, ‘Hey, man, like, you know, how do you fire someone that everybody likes? And how do you, you know, how do you maintain your emotional and mental health when you have to hold people accountable? Um, how do you get people to step up and become senior artists, you know, and, and, and lead artists when they don’t want to? Because this Art Director, I’m doing everything, and I can’t delegate because nobody wants to step up.’ And he’s like, ‘Wow, man, you’re asking the real good questions.’ And so we went to dinner, and we just talked it out, man. It was so cathartic to have a group of other Art Directors that had these like leadership questions that they could answer for me, you know. Fast forward to 2018, a very, very hard year. We closed the studio. Um, you know, the General Manager and the CEO, they left the board, and they made me like the wartime CEO with not a lot of money in the bank and a ton of outsourcers that needed to get paid. Thankfully, we were able to pay everyone’s salary and lay them off. You know, they were laid off, you know, with a pretty good, pretty good advance. But we still owed a lot of money to outsourcers, and so I had to negotiate it down. I had to be like, ‘Hey, man, like, I know, we owe you X,’ a…