David Kim

[e][h] dayvie

Player Information

Name:

David Kim - 김태연 - Kim Taeyeon

Nationality:

 Canada

Born:

July 24, 1982 (age 42)

Race:

Random

Alternate IDs:

dayvie

Links

David "dayvie" Taeyeon (born July 24, 1982) is a Canadian Random player. He most notably worked at Blizzard Entertainment as a developer and balance designer for StarCraft II until 2017.

As a Blizzard Employee, he was not allowed to play in tournaments, but routinely played on the ladder at a high level to test out game balance.

Biography

(From left to right) Matt Cooper, Dustin Browder, David Kim, and Greg Canessa hosted the SC2 Secrets of the Masters Panel at Blizzcon 2010.

David Kim was born in Korea, and lived there through the end of high school. He then moved to Vancouver, Canada to go to college, majoring in Computer Science. He originally was going to work with a Canadian game developer, as he shortly held a position with Canadian company Relic Entertainment, famous for the Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War series. But when StarCraft II was announced in 2007 at the WWI, he decided to seek a position at Blizzard Entertainment, and succeeded in winter of 2007. David Kim has always enjoyed Blizzard games, and has even played World of Warcraft as an undead mage. During the development of StarCraft II, he was one of the 50 core developers of StarCraft II, specializing in game balance. He continued to work on StarCraft II team as a game balance designer and moved to a new project (Diablo IV) team in April 2017. In April 2021, he left Blizzard Entertainment.

Working mostly with StarCraft II Game Director Dustin Browder, Battle.net Project Director Greg Canessa, Senior Game Designer Josh Menke, and Associate Game Balance Designer Matt Cooper, David Kim and the team he works with employ an array of measures to ensure game balance, including listening to feedback from professional gamers, analyzing tournament results, playing on the ladder themselves, using spreadsheets, using combat simulators, and analyzing battle.net statistics.

David Kim was a competitive StarCraft 1 player, playing with CuteBoy(gm) as well as ZeuS. His favorite sport to watch on TV is StarCraft. He switched to Warcraft III when it came out, but StarCraft was still his favorite RTS game (and is to this day).

In Beta

David Kim was generally regarded as the best player in the beta, even though he did not participate in any tournaments. He won all four of Blizzard's "battle reports," which were complete 1v1 matches released by Blizzard during the development of StarCraft II. Also, he was consistently ranked number 1 on the ladders during beta.

Wings of Liberty

In the time right after launch, David Kim was ranked first on the ladder, under the ID dayvie. He continued to hold a top-100 global rank until late December 2010, and since then his global rank has varied (top 500 as of June 2011).

Heart of the Swarm

David Kim played in the three released Heart of the Swarm Battle reports. He won two of them, as Protoss in the PvZ match-up and as Zerg in the ZvT match-up. However he lost as Protoss in the PvT match-up.

Trivia

• He has not played in any tournaments, except in house (Blizzard only) ones, as he is a Blizzard employee. However, Dustin Browder at Blizzcon 2010 stated that David Kim has placed either first or second in every single one.

Achievements

Was in the global top-100 on the ladder from launch until about December 22, 2010.

Beta Achievements

Won all four "Battle Reports."

WoL Matches

• Blizzard In-House Tournament Grand Finals Bo5 David "dayvie" Kim (R) vs Matt "GnoME" Cooper (R) Casted by Day9 - Game 1 Game 2 Game 3 Game 4 Game 5
• David Kim vs pROvOKED
• GoSu(T) vs Dayvie(R)

Beta Matches

• Battle Report 1
• Battle Report 2
• Battle Report 3
• Battle Report 4
• 2v2 Exhibition game at Blizzcon 09: Game 1
• 2v2 Exhibition game at Blizzcon 09: Game 2
• David Kim v Nony
• PsyonicReaver v David Kim

Interviews

• [e] 2013-08-24 | David Kim on Balance at IEM Shanghai by Digmouse at IEM Season VIII - Shanghai

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• David Kim interview with chosun.com and freechal.com
• Interview with PlayXP where he explains game balance design

Gallery

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