The computer gaming industry worldwide is a vibrant multibillion-dollar affair and growing at a rapid pace. India’s small-change in comparison. Rajneesh De & Stanley Glancy find out what’s keeping Indian computer users from coming out to play and why our software developers aren’t scoring high in the gaming ring.

The 80s witnessed the Reagan vs. Brezhnev Cold War, the 90s were dominated by Bush Sr vs. Saddam, while 2001 saw Dubya pitted against a certain bin Laden. Many hope that in 2002 the real battle would not be fought across continents, but only across consoles and monitors with joysticks and mouse replacing Stingers and Howitzers as the missiles. The computer gaming industry, estimated at $8.6 billion worldwide in 2001, looks set to come of age in 2002 and grow up to $28.3 billion by 2004-05. However, in India, gaming is currently emerging as an industry variously estimated at between only Rs 20 crore and Rs 40 crore.

Though DOS-based games like Pacman and Carmen were popular during the 80s, the gaming industry per se started in India only around 1995, coinciding with the launch of multimedia PCs. Up to now the entire industry has been a mere mish-mash of pirated games and sundry amateurish indigenous efforts at creating local offerings. But why did gaming take so long to emerge as an industry in India? The main reason is the cultural mindset, feels Jayant Sharma, CEO, Milestone Entertainment, one of the pioneering games vendors in the country.

JAYANT SHARMA of Milestone says that the cultural mindset has prevented the gaming industry from proliferating faster in India

For a lot of people in India, ‘computer games’ and gaming are still restricted to furtive sessions of Solitaire or Freecell on the office computer, a finger hovering nervously over the ‘close program’ button. There is also a basic mindset that gaming is a waste of time and meant only for children. Internationally, though, games are something of a social sport, with online role-playing games that have massive subscriber bases, gaming tournaments and professional gamers’ leagues.

Gaming software is emerging as one of the fastest growing components of the entertainment industry worldwide and it is high time India too cashes in on the opportunity by developing it as a new segment of its software industry. India’s software industry has annual exports of around $6 billion and nearly 20 percent of the global market share in customised software. However, the country is nowhere when it comes to games development. India is not even on the radar screen today. It is estimated that close to 150 million people regularly play computer games worldwide and around 215 million games were

sold in 2001 alone. This means that every home in the US had more than two games. Therefore, Sharma feels there is a huge opportunity waiting for India to tap in the gaming industry.

Slow off the blocks

But apart from the cultural mindset, there are several other factors that inhibit the emergence of a gaming culture in India. Cost of technology is one issue. High-end PCs needed to play complex games could cost between Rs 40,000 to 50,000. In addition, India lacks a game-development fraternity that could create culturally suitable games. Gaming parlours and arcades are also largely lacking in this country.

Gradually, as barriers drop, the situation in India too is likely to change, Sharma says. Cost of technology is dropping, people here are becoming more technologically aware, and they also want newer forms of entertainment. In India, popular games could cover a wide range of possibilities, from role-playing and adventure to simulation, sports, war games and “edutainment” that blends learning and playing.

According to Sharma, international franchises like Tomb Raider, Unreal Tournament and the Quake series are very popular as are games built around sporting personalities like Brian Lara (cricket), as well as film franchises. The popularity of the Lara Croft in Tomb Raider resulted in the movie doing particularly well in India last year. Nearly all Indian gamers prefer a more ‘instant gratification’ gameplay dynamic as compared to a more stratified, immersive, deep experience. A problem facing computer gamers in India is that games, especially the more popular ones, are often imported by multiple distributors, making the prices rather arbitrary. Sharma agrees that there is a lack of consolidation, “Unfortunately this is still an unorganised industry and a lot of our ‘competition’ is still doing unofficial imports. But this is not sustainable, as the products we import tend to be the most attractively priced. Others have to price their products higher since they are not buying from the publisher in the first place.”

Milestone has partnered with six of the main global game developers. These include names like Activision, Codemasters Software, Eidos Interactive, Infogrames, Novalogic, Ubisoft Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment, Electronic Arts and VBSoft among others. Consequently, the games included in the Milestone roster are Tomb Raider, Code Master, Brian Lara Cricket, Novalogic, Rainbow series, part of Red Storm, which was bought by VBSoft. Other leading gaming vendors in India include Gayatri Impex, Sujata Infotech and Padmini Multimedia.

Competitive pricing

Vendors like Milestone are also leading the drive to make game prices more competitive and affordable. This is done by means of purchasing older catalogues from global developers, which are 2-3 years old. Reasons Sharma, “This ensures that it is not too old and since it is already back-dated for the Western countries it is also priced cheaper.” Milestone has brought the prices down from a level of Rs 1,500 to somewhere in the range of Rs 299 and Rs 399. It has just released Quake at Rs 999, which earlier cost Rs 3,000 and Sharma reveals that the company will soon release Quake Ultimate which includes Quake I, II and III at only Rs 999.

Piracy of games is rampant in India, with titles selling for as little as Rs 125 barely a week after their international release. It is estimated that for every one unit of legitimate software there are over 10 units of pirated products sold. In value terms, the piracy market could be as high as two to three times that of the legit market. Distributors like Milestone are attempting to reduce losses by making games more affordable. This is vital, because as Sharma admits, distributors are getting hit more by consumer-level piracy.

The price difference is also slowly eroding. With the release of customised budget packs, which feature three to six popular games (albeit slightly older versions) for less than Rs 1,500, the value proposition for purchasing legal gaming software suddenly makes a lot of sense. And while the relatively small size of the Indian market makes it unattractive to most game publishers, some like Electronic Arts are more proactive. This could be because EA Sports (a brand of EA) is the top publisher of interactive sports content and sports as a genre is very popular in India. Milestone has been trying to convince the publishers it is associated with, that India could grow to be a volume-driven market, though per-unit values may be lower.

Gaming platforms

What about the availability of the different gaming platforms in India? There are numerous opportunities for cross-platform conversion between the PC and next generation consoles like Microsoft Xbox, Sony PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube and Game Boy. This throws up opportunities like developing the “Indianised” version of top-selling international games on these consoles. However, Sega’s attempt in 2000 to launch its console Dreamcast in India fell flat. Nevertheless, Milestone has now gone ahead and launched the PlayStation with Sony in India.

SUDHIR MATHUR of Arena Multimedia is of the view that India can contribute significantly to the international games development scene

In addition, Milestone is planning to launch PlayStation 2 in the near future. Also both Xbox and Nintendo are expected to arrive in India by 2003. Explains Sharma, “The fact that PlayStation 1, which is obsolete in most countries in the West, is being launched here now proves we have still a long way to go. But in the next fiscal year PlayStation is likely to contribute to 33 percent of our revenues.” In India, till now there has been no culture of consoles. But there is a gradual realisation taking place that PCs are not user-friendly for gaming. Because India has not had consoles, distributors here have been selling racing games, sports, etc, for the last few years instead of first person shooters (FPS), arcade games and sci-fi theme games.

Game development

On the game development front, precious little has been happening in India, barring stray initiatives by outfits like Indiagames, with Quake clones such as Yoddha and Chakravyuha. One of the reasons for this deficiency could be the inadequate training facilities available till date. But things are changing now with both Milestone and Arena Multimedia tying up with software vendors like Discreet for imparting training on games development. This requires knowledge of complex software like 3ds Max and Maya. Milestone already has a full-fledged game development team in place. However, it does not intend to build its own game engine right now. So it just licenses the engine which is suited to a gaming idea of its interest and commissions the coding in terms of linking vehicle behaviour in different scenarios.

Sudhir Mathur, head, Arena Multimedia, feels that India can emerge as a strong provider of content or programming resources. He believes, “Game development is one area where India can seriously contribute to the international market. We have some pretty talented artists, 3D modellers and programmers, who, if given the right kind of tools and resources, can create outstanding quality content.”

A good example of a gaming success story is Starcraft that surpassed all expectations by selling over a million copies in Korea, hitherto not a huge market for computer games. The Starcraft craze in Korea even helped the developer Blizzard license the game’s characters out for products ranging from action figures to breakfast cereals. Sharma feels that several games have the potential “to do a Starcraft” in India but obviously on not as large a scale.

Miles to go

Though Sharma and Mathur sound bullish, it is true that there are many hurdles before the gaming hobby can gain mass acceptance. The cost of the technology is pretty steep. Secondly, there is a problem of accessibility: there just are not enough places that provide an immersive experience that can have a long-lasting impression on the people that try it out. Thirdly, there is a mental perception that gaming is an activity meant only for kids. There is an apprehension towards the technology involved in gaming. Lastly, we don’t have any cultural influences or icons that we can identify with in the games we play. For instance, Star Wars and science fiction is a part of American culture and games based on these influences have that instant connection with gamers in the US. In India, developers would perhaps have to think of concepts centred on our ancient mythology and indigenous cultures. Serious gaming in India has only been around for the last six or seven years, though it has been very popular in the West since the early 80s. There is still a while before we will see an exponential rise in the volume of sales.