Essay --

The â€Å"Clashing† Life of Jorge Yao Many of us have heard of the online mobile game called â€Å"Clash of Clans†. The game concept is pretty simple – you manage a village and steal others’ resources in order to upgrade your base. Surely, we have seen dozens of these games roaming on the mobile app store. But the shocking fact is that the developer, Supercell, is making $2.5 million a day off Clash of Clans, from tens of millions of active players who are given the option to spend their own money in order to speed up their army troops and upgrades. Here’s a short history and game concept of this popular game. This game was risen from the ground to the app store in early August. This online-only, multiplayer game allows players to build their village, train army troops and attack other players to steal resources from them in order to upgrade their bases and defences, which protect from other attackers. Players can lower their trophy counts to â€Å"farm† for resources (eg. gold), or win battles to increase trophies to show off but at the same time meaning attacking and defending against harder bases. Players can join groups called â€Å"clans† which players can give advices and strategies on the private clan chat. And here’s where a user who called himself Jorge Yao comes in – a well-known hero amongst experienced and amateur player. He was the first player to break the 4,000 trophy mark and held the number one spot for a whole six months. These all came to an end when Jorge announced his retirement in May, after hundreds of dollars spend into this game each week. The Beginning George Yao – his real name – immigrated to Philadelphia from China. His dad taught at the University of Pennsylvania and his mother worked at a pathology lab. George himself w... ...n that there are many stories where couples get divorced or bankrupt because of Clash of Clans, or other online multiplayer game. This all finally came to an end when six months later, in June 2013, he put down his three iPads down and quit. However as it seemed, all of his addiction, efforts, patience and fortune didn’t go to waste. In his farewell speech he posted on his social media site, he accepted his side career as a gaming design consultant for Samurai Siege, similar to Clash of Clans, and relocated to London. He thanked his clanmates, friends and fans and said he was â€Å"going out on top like Mike†, referring to Michael Jordan. â€Å"Looking back, I think I must have been insane,† he said. â€Å"I was so immersed in it at the time. I knew it was abnormal, but never to the extent that I see it now.† â€Å"Nowadays I can’t even stand opening the app, the sight of it.† He said.