David Sirlin is an American

game design Game design is the art of applying design and aesthetics to create a game for entertainment or for educational, exercise, or experimental purposes. Increasingly, elements and principles of game design are also applied to other interactions, in ...

er and

fighting game A fighting game, also known as a versus fighting game, is a video game genre, genre of video game that involves combat between two or more players. Fighting game combat often features mechanics such as Blocking (martial arts), blocking, grappli ...

player. He featured in and narrated much of ''Bang the Machine'', a 2002 documentary by Tamara Katepoo about a

Street Fighter , commonly abbreviated as ''SF'' or スト (''Suto''), is a Japanese media franchise centered on a series of fighting video and arcade games developed and published by Capcom. The first game in the series was released in 1987, followed by six ...

"exhibition tournament in Japan showing the difference between American and Japanese gaming cultures" that starred other notable competitive fighting game players who were part of "Team USA." He balanced the

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

s ''

Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix ''Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo'', released in Japan as , is a tile-matching puzzle video game released in 1996 for the CP System II (CPS2) arcade board, by Capcom and its Capcom Coin-Op division. The game's title is a play on ''Super Street Figh ...

'' and ''

Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix ''Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix'' is a two dimensional fighting game released using the PlayStation Store and Xbox Live Arcade download services. A physical copy of the game was later released as part of ''Capcom Digital Collection''. It ...

''. He designed the physical and online card games ''

Yomi is the Japanese word for the land of the dead (World of Darkness). According to Shinto mythology as related in ''Kojiki'', this is where the dead go in the afterlife. Once one has eaten at the hearth of Yomi it is (mostly) impossible to return ...

'', '' Flash Duel'', ''

Codex The codex (plural codices ) was the historical ancestor of the modern book. Instead of being composed of sheets of paper, it used sheets of vellum, papyrus, or other materials. The term ''codex'' is often used for ancient manuscript books, with ...

'' and '' Puzzle Strike''. Early in his career, Sirlin was an assistant game designer at 3DO, but now works primarily for his own company, Sirlin Games. Sirlin has been described as a "renowned game theory author" by ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...

'' magazine, and as an "arcade guru" and "internet-renowned ''Street Fighter'' tournament player" by ''

Ars Technica ''Ars Technica'' is a website covering news and opinions in technology, science, politics, and society, created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews, and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, sci ...

''.

Writing

Sirlin maintains a

blog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...

where he writes primarily on the subject of game design. A frequent contributor to

Gamasutra ''Game Developer'', known as ''Gamasutra'' until 2021, is a website founded in 1997 that focuses on aspects of video game development. It is owned and operated by Informa and acts as the online sister publication to the print magazine '' Gam ...

, he is relatively infamous for his sometimes unpopular opinions towards the way companies choose to enforce rules in their games, as well as for his articles on Playing to Win. Sirlin's website, Sirlin.net, was profiled in

Katie Salen Katie Salen Tekinbas is an American game designer, animator, and educator. She is a professor at the University of California, Irvine. Previously, she taught at DePaul University College of Computing and Digital Media, Parsons The New School for ...

's '' Rules of Play'' (2004), which commended the site for its "surprising amount of thoughtful commentary and analysis". In addition to this, he has published a book called ''Playing to Win: Becoming The Champion'', a book that explores the concept of

competitive gaming Esports, short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional sports, professional players, individually or as ...

and the mindset of actively playing to win, also drawing examples of the different kinds of gamers that exist by selectively choosing and analyzing both

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...

and ''

'' players. Physical copies of this book were initially available from

Lulu.com Lulu Press, Inc., doing business under trade name Lulu, is an online print-on-demand, self-publishing, and distribution platform. By 2014, it had issued approximately two million titles. The company's founder is Red Hat co-founder Bob Young. Lu ...

before the book was released for free to the general public on his website. The book was cited by scholar David Myers in his paper "Self and selfishness in online social play". Sirlin has become critical of many mainstream competitive games for what he perceives to be manipulative business practices and other 'anti-competitive' elements. He has particularly condemned

collectible card games A collectible card game (CCG), also called a trading card game (TCG) among other names, is a type of card game that mixes strategic deck building elements with features of trading cards, introduced with ''Magic: The Gathering'' in 1993. Genera ...

such as ''

Magic: The Gathering ''Magic: The Gathering'' (colloquially known as ''Magic'' or ''MTG'') is a tabletop and digital collectable card game created by Richard Garfield. Released in 1993 by Wizards of the Coast (now a subsidiary of Hasbro), ''Magic'' was the first ...

'' for hiding strategically critical components behind the

random distribution In probability theory and statistics, a probability distribution is the mathematical function that gives the probabilities of occurrence of different possible outcomes for an experiment. It is a mathematical description of a random phenomenon ...

booster packs In collectible card games, digital collectible card games and miniature wargaming, collectible miniature wargames, a booster pack is a sealed package of cards or figurines, designed to add to a player's collection. A box of multiple booster packs i ...

and popular

multiplayer online battle arena Multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) is a subgenre of strategy video games in which two teams of players compete against each other on a predefined battlefield. Each player controls a single character with a set of distinctive abilities that im ...

(MOBA) game

League of Legends ''League of Legends'' (''LoL''), commonly referred to as ''League'', is a 2009 multiplayer online battle arena video game developed and published by Riot Games. Inspired by ''Defense of the Ancients'', a Mod (video games), custom map for War ...

for its "forced grinding," calling it "fraudulent" and disrespectful to players.

Career

Backbone

While employed at

Backbone Entertainment Backbone Entertainment was an American video game developer based in Emeryville, California. The company was formed in 2003 as the result of a merger between developers Digital Eclipse and ImaginEngine. In 2005, Backbone merged with The Collect ...

, Sirlin was lead designer behind ''

'', a

remake A remake is a film, television series, video game, song or similar form of entertainment that is based upon and retells the story of an earlier production in the same medium—e.g., a "new version of an existing film". A remake tells the same ...

of ''

Super Street Fighter II Turbo ''Super Street Fighter II Turbo'' is a fighting game released for the arcade game, arcades by Capcom in Japan on February 23, 1994, in North America on February 23 and March 26, 1994 (beta) and in Europe in March 1994 (beta). It is the fifth ins ...

''. He was also in deliberation with

Capcom is a Japanese video game developer and video game publisher, publisher. It has created a number of List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises, with its most commercially successful being ''Resident Evil' ...

in an attempt to acquire permission to use the ''

'' characters in addition to original characters from his Fantasy Strike universe for his current project, ''Yomi'', but was not granted it. During development of ''Super Street Fighter II HD Remix'', many interviews as well as a number of blog posts on Capcom Unity chronicle Sirlin's involvement in both the game's development as well the major design choices and changes made to the game itself.

Kongregate

Sirlin designed the online card game ''

Kongai Kongregate is an American web gaming portal and video game publisher. Its website features over 110,000 online games and 30+ mobile games available to the public. The company also publishes games for PC, mobile, and home consoles. It was purchase ...

'' for the gaming website,

Kongregate Kongregate is an American web gaming portal and video game publisher. Its website features over 110,000 online games and 30+ mobile games available to the public. The company also publishes games for PC, mobile, and home consoles. It was purchase ...

Sirlin Games

More recently Sirlin has been involved in the design and production of his own games—particularly, a range of tabletop games, most taking place in and featuring characters from the ''Fantasy Strike'' fictional universe he created. Two of these games (

and Flash Duel) attempt to recreate some of the game concepts found in the fighting games he is familiar with. The third game, Puzzle Strike, attempts to recreate the

Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo ''Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo'', released in Japan as , is a tile-matching puzzle video game released in 1996 for the CP System II (CPS2) arcade board, by Capcom and its Capcom Coin-Op division. The game's title is a play on '' Super Street Fig ...

experience. Another game, Pandante, is similar to Texas holdem poker, and Chess 2 is a redesigned, asymmetric version of

Chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...

. His most recently published game is Codex, a turn based game with elements from Magic: The Gathering and themes from RTS (real time strategy) games such as ''

StarCraft ''StarCraft'' is a military science fiction media franchise created by Chris Metzen and James Phinney and owned by Blizzard Entertainment. The series, set in the beginning of the 26th century, centers on a galactic struggle for dominance am ...

''. The ''Magic: The Gathering'' card "Master of Predicaments" contains the flavor text "''Designed by David Sirlin''". In January 2015 Sirlin created a podcast on his Patreon page discussing the possibility of creating a simple, accessible fighting game, and in June 2015, Sirlin announced that he would begin creating a fighting game set in and featuring characters from his ''Fantasy Strike'' universe. The resulting Fantasy Strike was released in

Early Access Early access, also known as alpha access, alpha founding, paid alpha, or game preview, is a funding model in the video game industry by which consumers can purchase and play a game in the various pre-release development cycles, such as pre-alph ...

Steam Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization ...

in September 2017. In December 2022, Sirlin Games LLC issued a DMCA take-down to two games, Yomi Hustle and Yomi Domini into changing their names, enforcing his trademark of the Japanese word "Yomi". While Yomi Hustle would comply and reach an agreement due to the similarities between the two games, no reason has been given for Yomi Domini's removal.

Speaking engagements

Game Developers Conference (2009,2017)

In 2009, Sirlin was one of the speakers at the

Game Developers Conference The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is an annual conference for video game developers. The event includes an expo, networking events, and awards shows like the Game Developers Choice Awards and Independent Games Festival, and a variety of tutori ...

, the largest annual gathering of professional video game developers. His one-hour lecture was about balancing multiplayer competitive games. In 2017, Sirlin gave a design talk discussing Puzzle Strike specifically.

Montreal International Game Summit

In 2009, Sirlin spoke at the Montreal International Game Summit about the subject of omitting unnecessary clicks from games. The talk was entitled ''Every Click Counts''.

Personal life

Sirlin grew up in

Sacramento ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

and graduated from

Rio Americano High School Rio Americano High School, colloquially known as Rio, is a public high school in Arden-Arcade, California, just outside Sacramento, serving students in grades 9 through 12 as part of the San Juan Unified School District. Rio Americano students com ...

. He is the son of Ted (1923-2009) and Thela Sirlin. His father was a photographer and owner of Sirlin Photography Studios for over 40 years. David Sirlin currently lives in

Emeryville Emeryville may refer to: * Emeryville, California Emeryville is a city located in northwest Alameda County, California, in the United States. It lies in a corridor between the cities of Berkeley and Oakland, with a border on the shore of San ...

, California. He has obtained degrees in

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

and

business Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or Trade, buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and Service (economics), services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for pr ...

from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

and

MIT Sloan School of Management The MIT Sloan School of Management (MIT Sloan or Sloan) is the business school of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT Sloan offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree programs, ...

. David Sirlin is in a relationship with his long-time girlfriend Lina Jemili.

References

External links

Sirlin.netSirlinGames.comFantasy Strike.comDavid Sirlin's Patreon: Thinky Games and Podcasts
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sirlin, David Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American esports players Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni MIT Sloan School of Management alumni Writers from Sacramento, California People from Emeryville, California Artists from Sacramento, California American game designers Board game designers Video game designers Fighting game players