Roller Coaster

Indian Game Developer Summit 2010

2010-02-28T04:43:00.000-08:00

I attended the Saltmarch Media's Indian Game Developer Summit 2010 in Bangalore on 27th Feb. Now someone may ask, Why? After all, I am no game developer. I can't even write a few 100 lines of programming code to save my life. I am an investment banker and what the hell is an I-Banker doing at a conference mingling with the tech geeks? Well, being an I-Banker doesn't stop someone from being a game enthusiast (check my twitter intro: http://twitter.com/swapstick) and it is in this capacity that I flew to Bangalore on Friday (26th Feb) night.

The flight was delayed by an hour and a half ensuring that I'd only reach Bangalore on Saturday (00:20 hours to be precise). I told myself that things can only get better from hereon. Except that half an hour later, I got a call from my travel agent that the bus I was planning to take for my return journey was cancelled. Anyways, I reached Bangalore by 00:30 am and reached my friend's place by 2:00 am. After a little sleep (yep, that's what I call 4.5 hours of sleep), I was at the conference venue (Nimhans Convention Centre) by 9:00 am. After registering myself for the event (and receiving a nice blue bag), I entered the IGDS arena (believe gamers like that word).

The opening keynote ("Envision, Enable, Achieve") was delivered by Carl Jones, Director - Global Business Development for CryENGINE at Crytek. Carl spoke about how Crytek was founded in 1999 by a small team of 10 people in a smallish town in Germany. And how within 10 years of consistently pursuing 'AAA' success and focusing only on organic growth, it has become one of Europe's largest independent game developers. There were a few demo videos which demonstrated the capabilities of Crytek's engine (understand that the latest version would be made more affordable for developers shortly). It was also interesting to note that at Crytek, game designers don't focus too much on having detailed design documents. Instead the core design framework focuses on documenting the game pillars supported by various game features and according the developers more flexibility. In the Q&A session that followed, I wanted to ask him as to why don't they look at inorganic growth strategy (esp since EA has been growing this way) but the clock struck 10:20 before the microphone could reach me. All in all, it was a fantastic opening to what would eventually turn out to be a trend-setting event.

From thereon, three sessions ran parallel in three halls. So the next session that I attended was "Creating Successful Online Games" by Robin Alter, Co-Founder and CTO at Kreeda Games India. Robin emphasized on how important it is to involve the client (i.e. publisher) throughout the game development process by providing them with prototypes, animation modules etc. At Kreeda, the developers follow Kreeda Development Methodology comprising 5 Ds: Discover, Define, Design (enterprise-level), Develop and Deploy. Robin also touched upon a new game they are developing and announced that the Beta version would be launched shortly. A good session but once again I couldn't ask my question in the shortish Q&A session.

In college, we were the perennial LLBs (Lords of Last Benches) but here, sitting at the back was costing me the opportunities to ask my questions. So I broke the norm and sat among the first few rows for the next session, "Create, Distribute and Monetize your Games using Adobe Flash Platform" by Harish Sivaramakrishnan, a Computer Scientist and Platform Evangelist at Adobe Systems. In the 'Create' subsection of his presentation, Harish talked about powerful runtimes like Flash Player 10.1 (beta) which can be used for porting PC games to mobile platforms and Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR 3) for desktop games as well as tools like Adobe Stratus. He also touched upon 3rd party libraries which could be used for creating different applications. But for me, what took the cake was the next subsection, 'Distribute'. Here, Harish introduced Adobe Distribution Manager, a powerful tool that can be used to add Adobe applications (like games) to social networking platforms like Facebook, MySpace, iGoogle etc.; track and analyse user engagement (eg no. of gamers) and distribution data; create campaigns & make MONEY (through ads). Finally, he had just enough time to introduce Shibuya (still in Beta version) which can be thought of as an online marketplace for AIR applications. This time I had an opportunity to ask a couple of questions. But there was one little problem. Being technologically challenged (i.e. TCed), I didn't have any.

Did I forget to mention about the various exhibition stalls by various sponsors like Nvidia, Adobe, DSK Supinfocom, AIGA among others? On display were state-of-the-art systems, demo videos, information on various gaming courses etc. This truly enhanced the value proposition of IGDS 2010.

My 3rd session was "Business of Online Games" by Tridib Roy Chowdhary, Director of Products at Adobe Systems. Now this was one session where I expected myself to be an active participant. Tridib started off by talking about the typical value chain in the video game industry (developer -> publisher / aggregator -> portal -> gamer and advertisers who bring in the revenue). The depressing part (if you are a developer) was that in the traditional value chain, typically only 5% of revenues reach the developer. Given that advertisement in games is still under-penetrated, Tridib suggested trying other gaming genres like advergames, dynamic in-game advertising, social games etc. But all these pale in comparison to the Mochi model. In the Mochi model, developers can earn as much as 50% of the revenues and publishers thrive on volume-play. And finally I did ask a question (about developers building their own brands) and received a satisfactory reply. A great session and a perfect way to go into lunch.

The food served at lunch was tasty and hygienic & quite frankly, I was pleasantly surprised. A big thanks to the organizers as they ensured that none of us had to go out for lunch. That left us some time to visit the stalls and network.

Post-lunch sessions are always tough (at least from what I can recall from my college days). So once settled into the comforts of the audi chair, I should have been excused for taking a little nap. But the prospects of my next session ("Sell Your Game, Adopt a Game Designer" by the DSK Supinfocom team) kept me awake. It was a decent session wherein the importance of game design was emphasized. It was also useful to watch a couple of game review videos (from Gamespot.com) and appreciate the difference a good game design makes.

"Preparing for the Great Indian Social Gaming Rush" by Sumit Gupta was my next session. At the outset, Sumit (CEO and Founder of BitRhymes) defined social gaming and for the sake of "TCed" people like me, I'll repeat the same here. Social games are casual games designed for non-gamers urging them to play with their friends for 5-10 minutes daily. Having evolved from Asia (China, South Korea and Japan) and spreading to the West, India needs to catch up. Growth drivers for the Indian market include continued growth of social networking sites, low cost of production and convergence of business models towards virtual goods. It was interesting to listen to Sumit explaining how iteration is a critical part of social games, post-production is longer than pre-production, cost of gamer acquistion is very low, and how BitRhymes (set up 2 years ago) started making profits from the 1st quarter itself (truly inspiring, I must add). At ARPUs of $0.4/month(for good games) to $1.0/month (for top games) in the US, this seems a great idea.

Time for the last session, "The Creative Core Team" by Jithin Rao, Producer at Ubisoft Pune. Going into the session, I thought this would be more about how to assemble a core team for a startup studio. However, this session was more about how important it is for an established studio (typically spending mega bucks on each title) to have a core team who complement each other very well (given that so much is at stake). Having said that, it was a good session since it gave us a fair idea as to the involved parties in the development of a game (of course, most of us don't think of this while playing a game). Producer, creative director, art director, lead designer, lead level designer, lead sound designer, lead programmer and brand manager. All of them play a very important role in making an entertaining game. For small studios, most of the core team members play a dual-role.

That brought an end to a thoroughly entertaining, exhausting and enlightening day. I couldn't attend all the sessions even though I wanted to. To compensate, the organizers have promised us soft copies of the presentation materials and video sessions. And to round it off, all of us received a T-Shirt and certificate as a token to mark India's first game developer summit.

A word of thanks to the organizers for putting together a fantastic show. The planning and execution of this event were absolutely top notch. Keep it up guys. Remember what I said at the start, things could only get better. They certainly did.

The Year of Tendulkar Redemption!

2008-12-31T03:36:00.000-08:00

They said he couldn't score in the finals of an ODI tournament. They said he had never won us a test match by scoring a 100 in the 4th innings. They said he was on a downslide and capable of only minnow bashing. Also that Ponting, Kallis, Dravid etc. will easily surpass him. So in a year where India staked a genuine claim to being a world beating side, Sachin Tendulkar has answered his critics in the most befitting manner.

Right from SCG to Chepauk, Tendulkar batted like a man possessed. While his 154 at SCG wasn't enough to save India from an umpire-induced defeat, his 71 (which came to an end with another questionable decision) at Perth and his partnership with Rahul Dravid went a long way in helping India towards becoming the first sub-continent nation to win a Test at the bouncy WACA. This was followed by another gem at Adelaide. In the ODIs, he helped India win the tri series final (2-0) with two amazing knocks, first controlling a tricky chase with the calmness of a monk and then setting up a fighting total in the second final. Injury ruled him out from the SA series and the subsequent ODI tournaments (also part of IPL). He came back against Sri Lanka in the tests with the series billed as the battle between M&M (Murali and Mendis) and India's Fab 4. Sachin failed to make an impact on the tests although he picked Mendis better than most. He looked comfortable in all his innings (except the last where he was troubled by injury) before he found out a way to get out (BTW, Mendis picked him up only once i.e. in the last innings). Despite this being just one blip since WC 2007, the media roundly criticized him (and the others as well) after the series labelling the Fab 4 "over the hill".

The following series against Australia was thus the marquee series of the year. Indian team had to prove to themselves as well as others that Sri Lanka was just a minor blip on the progressive radar. It was a battle of Australia's fading heroes against India's upcoming stars. It was Ganguly's last series (later turned out Kumble's farewell series as well) and India's most successful skipper wanted to stamp his authority one final time. There was also a small matter of Tendulkar being just a few runs away from becoming the highest run scorer in Tests.

The first test was a close affair with Australia dominating till Zaheer and Harbhajan fought back through some resilient late order batting. The 4th innings required India to bat through the final day and save the match. When Tendulkar walked in at 24/2, familiar last day horror scenes must have been racing through the minds of the fans. But Tendulkar (in the company of Gambhir and Laxman) displayed exceptional determination and technique in handling the pressure and bowlers and his innings helped India draw the match. As it turned out, this was Australia's best chance of enforcing a win in the series.

The second test at Mohali began with all the talk about the little champion breaking Lara's record in the match. India batted first and Sehwag and Gambhir gave them an excellent start through a stand of 70. However, India lost a few quick wickets and when Ganguly joined Tendulkar in the middle, the score read 163/4. Tendulkar again came to the rescue with a fluent 88 and a 142 run stand with Ganguly. In the process, he also broke Lara's record and became the 1st person to score 12,000 test runs. Thereafter Dhoni and Ganguly ensured that India reached 469 and with Australia's top order struggling, India won the match by 320 runs. Dhoni made 50 in both the innings and debutant Amit Mishra picked up 7 wickets in the match.

By the time the 3rd test started in Delhi, India were on a high and Australia were really struggling. So when India batted first, everybody expected another run feast. But with Sehwag failing and Dravid's prolonged slump continuing, Tendulkar was again at the crease at 27/2. Continuing with his rich vein of form, he again rescued India with a lovely 68 and in company of Gambhir (who was in great "touch", Shane Watson notwithstanding) took India to 157/2. With both Gambhir and Laxman striking double centuries, India posted a mamoth 613/7 decl. But Australia fought back with all the premier batsmen contributing and cut the lead to just 36. India had to bat really well in the 2nd innings but again India fell to 53/3 and again Tendulkar (47) in the company of Gambhir and Laxman denied Australia any sniff of victory. The match ended in a draw. This test was also the last for Kumble and he was a given a heroic farewell.

It was left to the final test at Nagpur to decide the series. Ironically, it was here at Nagpur four years ago that Australia clinched its first test series on Indian soil in more than 35 years. India needed to deny Australia a win to retain the Border-Gavaskar trophy. India won the toss, Dhoni decided to bat and Sehwag in the company of M. Vijay (making his debut in the absence of the suspended-Gambhir) provided a solid 98 run opening partnership. Everything was going according to the script before the debutant off-spinner Jason Krejza struck twice to remove Dravid and Sehwag to leave India in a spot of bother at 116/3. In came Tendulkar and he continued his excellent showing in the series, stitching together a crucial 146 run partnership with Laxman and scoring his 40th ton (10th against Australia) in the process. India posted a competitive 441 and although Australia fought back gallantly, Virender Sehwag and Dhoni ensured that the advantage wasn't squandered and the series was won with a resounding 2-0 margin. Gambhir was adjudged as the man of the series but its pretty clear that Tendulkar was the difference between the two sides.

Having done so much, one would have felt that this was good enough for the year. Little did we know that the best was still to come. Inspite of the terror attacks in Mumbai, the English team showed great courage to continue with the test series and were the frontrunners in the 1st test at Chennai with a 75 run lead in the first innings. Strauss and Collingwood were going strong and at one stage it looked like India will have to battle really hard to even save the match. Then three things happened. Zaheer Khan gave an amazing exhibition of reverse swing in the afternoon of the 4th day and Sehwag smashed a 68 ball 83 to give India a realistic chance of victory on the 5th day. Finally Sachin Tendulkar decided that it was about time that he erased those painful memories of 1999 at the same ground. England had no answers as Tendulkar swept, cut, pulled, drove his way to glory. India chased down 387 and Tendulkar brought up his 41st century.

Hence, in 12 months of brilliant batting, Sachin Tendulkar answered all his critics in style. In 2008, he scored 479 runs at 60 with 2 100s in matches that India won. Not bad for someone who has been criticized (unfairly, shall we say?) for not contributing in India's wins. Tendulkar has indeed redeemed himself in 2008.

Federer: 3rd favourite?

2008-06-19T07:50:00.000-07:00

I just read somewhere that Bjorn Bjorg believes that Federer is the 3rd favourite at this year's Wimbledon behind Nadal and Djokovic. Now, there is no denying that Nadal has improved his grass court game tremendously and Djokovic has been in great touch this year. But to discount a 59 match winning record on the surface and five straight Wimbys would be a folly. If anything, Federer's mono-affected performances reveal the steely character of the man. That he managed to reach the semis or better at the two slams is no mean feat. Who knows? By September, we might see him equalling Sampras' record of 14 slams.

Atheletes are known to go through such "bad" patches (compared to their own high standards). Tendulkar, Woods, Sampras, Ali have all been through this. Great champions find a way out of this and emerge stronger.

I don't see any crisis with his game as yet. Even if he fails to win the next two slams. Federer's game is based on precision in shot-making and creativity. The creative mindset is still intact. Its just that his consistency has deserted him to a certain extent (look at his unforced error count this year). This can be attributed to the after-effects of mono as well as the rise of several other players (including Djokovic) who throw him off his rhythm. Once he gets his consistency back (more likely on the faster surfaces), the beautiful game will start flowing again. That punishing forehand, that versatile backhand, those angled volleys as well as the deceptive serves. The very facets that brought me back as a die-hard tennis fan during 2003 Masters Cup (victory over Agassi in the final with a 6-0 second set).

Nadal's victory at Roland Garros will spur Federer on to play better and we all know that if Federer starts playing in the "zone", there's likely to be only one winner (especially on the faster surfaces). Part of the reason why baseliners have started to do well at Wimby is due to slower courts and slower balls. Its a tribute to Federer's adaptability that he's won at Wimby using serve & volley (to a significant extent in 2003) as well as by staying back (2006, 2007). Therein lies the answer to all the critics' questions. That he's by no means finished. And that he is the strongest contender at Wimby '08. Those in doubt will have to wait till 6th July.