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.
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.