Jeff Chau, Director of Global Esports at Razer, leads global partnerships with top esports teams and players like Faker. A gamer turned leader, Jeff’s passion for competition started with Starcraft in South Korea. At Razer, he aligns product launches with major esports events and collaborates with players to refine gaming gear. Jeff envisions Singapore as a future hub for global esports, with teams like Paper Rex and Team Flash elevating the country’s presence on the international stage.
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Watch more: https://www.asiaone.com/video
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00What's really cool is that you get to launch products and announce products that you will
00:03quite literally see a bunch of your friends end up using. If you have a circle of friends who are
00:06gamers as well, I hear my friends talking about, hey, have you seen this headset? I'm like, yeah.
00:23Hi, I'm Jeff Sujeneres Chow and I lead the global esports team here at Razer in Singapore
00:27and I'm the director of global esports and Razer is a leading lifestyle brand for gamers and I
00:33work with athletes such as Faker, the greatest of all time or GOAT as they would call it.
00:46We have teams actually across the world as well as local Singapore such as Bleed Esports,
00:51so in Europe to APAC to the US, teams like Optic Gaming in North America and I'm in charge of
00:57working with these teams, activating against all these amazing esports events and moments
01:02and creating marketing proof points as I like to say it for all of our products
01:06such as the Razer mice, keyboard, headset and so on.
01:12One of the most memorable experiences working at Razer recently was when we worked here at
01:17the Singapore office to find who will be the face of the Viper VT Pro launch esports mouse and that
01:22was an athlete known by the name of Zachary Zekin in North America who we took a bet on at an
01:28international competition and he ended up winning the International Valorant Masters of Madrid
01:32competition as the champion. So we were so happy when he won because he was the face of the mouse
01:39and he was on the prototype mouse when he won, so when I was in the office I was basically screaming
01:45on the top of my lungs when he won and the entire team was like, oh my god what's going on, what's
01:48the energy coming from and that's because Zekin won and he was the champion of the event and
01:52working esports always helped me a lot actually because people think esports is like one big thing
01:57but it's a lot of communities right, esports is based on region and based on games so by
02:03understanding that and also understanding the pros competitive schedule I'm able to better work with
02:08them on helping them work with Razer because we need for them to take photo shoots and get like
02:14testimonials for our products and we have to also work on activation ideas and marketing ideas
02:20so me understanding how hard their competitive schedule is and how to work around that and how
02:26to empathize with them and how to plan honestly better because we have so many marketing we have
02:31a marketing timeline here at Razer and we have to align it with the competitive schedule right
02:34there's seasons there's international events so that has helped me really understand both sides
02:40because coming from the esports side and now working on the sponsorship side basically really
02:44lining up the marketing timeline with the esports schedule and then activating it together and then
02:49helping our teams you know be successful at not only promoting Razer but we also promote the teams
02:55right and Razer cares and even in Singapore we we have done R&D sessions where the Singaporean
03:00players would come to the Razer office and they would give us a lot of feedback about our products
03:04what they like about it what they don't like and that's been very enjoyable to reconnect with the
03:09players right because I was a player myself I grew up in Honolulu Hawaii and which has very
03:21similar weather to Singapore and that's why I love living here in Singapore and I have three
03:25other brothers and one of them was an identical twin brother which I was extremely competitive
03:29with and I had to beat in every game that I played no matter what and one game was Dragonball Z and
03:34Nintendo and that was very competitive and then the game that really ignited all of our competitive
03:39spirit was on the Nintendo 64 a game called GoldenEye 007 so a lot of people that grew up
03:45playing that game know exactly what I'm talking about and we just played that all the time to
03:49compete and to see who was the best for the week or that weekend and then from there we actually
03:54moved to South Korea over here on the side of Singapore and I grew up there for four years
04:00going to high school in South Korea and we picked up a game called StarCraft and StarCraft was the
04:05birth of today's modern day esports where Koreans started filling up stadiums to watch other people
04:11compete and play StarCraft so my brother and I would compete against each other and also we
04:16would team up together and compete against other people in Korea to see who would be the best player
04:22at the the PC cafes that they had there so we would go PC cafe to PC cafe to see who would be
04:28become the king of that neighborhood and PC cafe and that was my first taste of modern day esports
04:34I thought we were crazy back then but I loved it going to high school in South Korea where I
04:38competed in StarCraft I was obsessed with competition and that fed my competitive spirit
04:43so I graduated first in my class and attended Cornell University in Ithaca, New York and then
04:47from there I was able to graduate and work and I wanted to be a leader because of my experience in
04:53Korea and leading teams and winning competitively I worked at Target as a GM and then went to Apple
05:00so while working at Apple they launched the iPhone 6 and a game called Vainglory was announced
05:06and I started to play the game and suddenly I became top 10 player in the world because I was
05:10super competitive and always wanted to rank up and from there I started to form my own team and
05:15compete so Hammers Esports was the team that I was a player and a co-founder of and I competed
05:21and I think one of the most amazing memories there was winning the championship so we were the most
05:25winning team again I was super competitive for my time in Korea we were the most winning team
05:30for spring and fall where we won every single tournament and championship and I'll never forget
05:36when our team would raise the trophy on stage and Razer actually sponsored us and I remember
05:41talking to Razer I was like they're such a cool brand they're from Singapore you know they have
05:44the coolest technology and branding and marketing that they do
05:58Hi I'm talking to Melvin here and you're the global product manager for Headset Audio
06:02yes so tell me more about that and what you do here well the role I mean as it sounds like it's
06:06basically you know us bringing to life a bunch of different products so for me specifically
06:12would be gaming headsets that we bring to market a lot of it being derived from the information
06:17and the understanding of gamers around the world what we really try to do with every single product
06:21is to launch something that we know gamers will love we have high standards for all of our gaming
06:27peripherals because we are the people that will use it what's really cool is that you get to
06:30launch products and announce products that you will quite literally see a bunch of your friends
06:33end up using right if you have a circle of friends for our gamers as well I hear my friends talking
06:36about hey have you seen this headset I'm like yeah so I think that's really cool because the
06:42things that we work on are things that we actually we're very passionate about and then we really
06:46make sure that even beyond gamers like us we get it to the hands of the most demanding players
06:51out there they are happy and perfectly confident in the kind of products that we launch because
06:56you know the mice the keyboards the headsets I think of it as an extension of the players
07:00themselves if the best gear out there to really you know give you the kind of performance that
07:06you expect for your competitive gaming sessions as well and with us today we have an extremely
07:12special guest Jeff Chow I was an esports caster for a lot of these titles I got the chance and
07:19was selected to be the esports caster for the Asia Games 2018 in Jakarta Palembang they introduced
07:25esports as a demonstration medal event in the Asia Olympics so that was awesome and then my
07:30parents told me okay Jeff what you're doing is really cool you can continue to do esports they
07:34wanted me to be a doctor and a lawyer and once he saw me on TV at the Asia Games like wow this is
07:38actually really cool stuff so I'll never forget that moment I think it's a highlight of my career
07:43and then it led me to Singapore where I was a caster for the PVP championships at the Suntec
07:50Exhibition Center in Singapore where I met Min the CEO of Razer as well he was in the audience
07:56and observing the competition and the esports and I was like wow the CEO of Razer is here that's so
08:02cool and I actually approached him he was very intimidating but I went up to him and introduced
08:06myself and then we just connected over there he followed me on Twitter I followed him on Twitter
08:10and who would know years later I would then join Team Razer and come here to relocate to Singapore
08:15if you think about gaming community it's really a technology story people think about gaming and
08:19they think about the basement person playing a video game by himself that is no longer the case
08:24you know technology has enabled voice communication and multiplayer there's in-game communication and
08:29they have to talk to each other and they have to work together to outsmart their opponent so that
08:34has made the entire experience around gaming to be more a focus on teamwork and community right and
08:40there's a lot of discord servers as well you can join servers game servers or community servers
08:46or team servers where you jump on the server and you can talk to people on voice these tools right
08:51around technology has made this digital experience around playing video games much more personal
08:56honestly where you connect you make friends a lot of people make friends through gaming now
09:01they play together all the time think about you come home instead of going to PC cafe
09:04I'm at home jumping on discord playing my friends right and that creates a lot of community and you
09:09connect with people all over the world and I think that has helped gaming become much more
09:14multiplayer much more commutative so esports is much more based on that
09:20I think where I envision Singapore in the future is a hub of innovation I think Singapore has some
09:26of the best world-class facilities I think we're a perfect location to host a lot of these events
09:33that attract you know thousands and thousands of fans and millions of viewers online so I think
09:38Singapore and its infrastructure is the perfect place when it comes to these international
09:44esports events right and I think locally for Singapore there's a lot of esports organizations
09:50that are making their name internationally right like paper x team flash is based in Singapore
09:55lead esports as well very competitive successful organizations that is putting Singapore's name
10:01on the map when it comes to esports because Singapore has a lot of competition against
10:05the major regions but I feel like Singapore there's a lot of hope and there's a lot of talent
10:10proving themselves on the stage and I think the future is very bright for Singapore
10:14and Singaporeans who compete follow esports here