Dan “Hsu” Shoe (born December 28th, 1971) is a Senior Partner Alliance Manager at Sony PlayStation, but long before his involvement with Sony, he’s had quite the involvement in the video game industry…and on a very different side.
E3 2001: Mark MacDonald, Dan “Shoe” Hsu, and Paul Gale
Shoe went to the University of Michigan and shortly after his studies of statistics, began his journalism career with Electronic Gaming Monthly in 1996. From then until 2001, Shoe developed quite the respect from fellow journalists covering video games and gained a lot of popularity with readers. In the case of my first encounter with him, it was at E3 2001 (PGN’s second E3), when I was about to play Luigi’s Mansion at Nintendo’s booth, when a representative asked if I could step aside, because two people from media had to play the game for their “Game of the Show” segment. I didn’t mind and gladly stepped aside…especially when I saw who it was: Dan “Shoe” Hsu and Mark MacDonald from EGM.
The two were very kind and even apologetic for taking my spot, but for 17 year old me, it was great getting to meet two people from my favorite magazine! After they played, I got my turn, but more importantly, we got to talk for a bit and take the above picture. Gamers.com started shortly after that year’s E3 and that allowed me to keep in contact with both men and eventually, the rest of the EGM crew…until I got asked to be a part of the Moderator team and then to be an Administrator for the site. Fun fact during this time was when Shoe told me that he had the picture that I sent him of our E3 encounter, on his desk!
E3 2005: Dan “Shoe” Hsu and Paul Gale
Over the years of writing for EGM and being both its and Gamers.com’s Editor in Chief, Shoe really showed his journalistic integrity by sharing his thoughts and disliking for the practice of video game magazines and websites selling article and editorial opportunities to video game publishers for attractive advertising agreements. This gained him even more respect from readers, whom by this time in 2005, were also following Shoe’s work as Editorial Director from 1up.com. Shoe was also involved with the decision to have me carry over my position as Administrator from Gamers.com to being a Moderator and Administrator yet again, for 1up (all the while being really kind and cool, each time we met).
E3 2006: Dan “Shoe” Hsu, Crispin Boyer, and Paul Gale
The more I got to know Shoe, the more appreciative I became of his time and support. For a person who was in charge of a lot to help me out with my projects and review an article pitch, game idea, etc., and to provide me feedback on it, was always awesome.
E3 2009: Dan “Shoe” Hsu and Paul Gale
In 2009, Shoe launched his own video game website, Bitmob.com, and needed a team he could trust, so when he reached out to me to join his Moderator/Writing team, I was more than happy to do so. He also was a big help for me, when I was creating my own video game concepts and began pitching them to various companies. It was shortly after this, that Shoe was involved in the relaunch of EGM.
E3 2011: Dan “Shoe” Hsu and Paul Gale
Through 2011, as one of my video games became seriously close to a reality and then hit a couple of snags from behind the scenes, I had Shoe’s support and recommendations on what to do. All the while, it was a privilege for me to be contributing to Bitmob through 2012 when they were acquired by Venture Beat and eventually became GamesBeat. Shoe went from Founder and CEO of Bitmob to a familiar roll as Editor in Chief at GamesBeat. Although I didn’t transition over to GamesBeat, Shoe and I still kept in close contact and his friendship continued in supporting me with growing Paul Gale Network.
E3 2013: Dan “Shoe” Hsu and Paul Gale
In his personal life, in May of 2014, Dan Hsu and Christina Ha got married and as of this article update, the two have awesomely been together for two years. Personal note: I’m glad the iPad FaceTime worked out for your mom, buddy!
E3 2016: Dan “Shoe” Hsu and Paul Gale
Shoe continued with GamesBeat up until October, 2014 and with that, it ended his nearly 19 year career in video game journalism. It wouldn’t be the end of his presence in the video game industry, for like how I mentioned in the beginning of this bio, he then began working for PlayStation and through 2016, has been hard at work at Sony and even started up his own video blog called “Going Analog“, which is a series where various video game industry folk, review relevant board games for video gamers.
Shoe is a great friend of mine, has been very supportive of my projects both before and during the PGN era, and is an all around great guy. Thank you for all you’ve done for the video game industry and I wish you the best of success in whatever you do in the future. Here’s to you, Shoe.