It is highly undeniable that India have a potential in gaming since E-sports is finally finding its way in India with gaming events being hosted at college fests. But why India have not made its place in the global gaming map yet? Let’s discuss.
In my seven years of experience as a video analyst I can only say that it’s not like that India doesn’t have skilled animators, video game engineers or coders to develop a big budget game as because in the past UBISOFT MONTREAL, EA, ROCKSTAR GAMES have collaborated with Indian Producers and developers in some famous titles like ASSASSINS CREED CHRONICLES:-INDIA which was a side scrolling platformer based on an Indian Assassin and a mobile version of PRINCE OF PERSIA:-SHADOW AND FLAMES was based on an Indian Prince but both of them failed badly while titles like FAR CRY 4 which had a protagonist of Indian-American descend and was mostly set in India and LA NOIRE which had Indian Collaborators had found huge success. But what about the Indian games itself? Did India ever tried their hands at a big budget video game of their own? Yes they did, Back in 2008 when Bollywood movie Ghajini revolutionized the action genre in Indian cinema, a small gaming company in India made attempt to make a PC game based off that movie which will directly or indirectly enter the AAA realm with high end realistic graphics, console level game-play and high octane action, but the game was full of drawbacks that we can’t stop to point out, first of a possible backstory presented in the form of graphic novel strip which was a direct copy of MAX PAYNE, Buggy level design and A.I. and a failed reverse tactic of making the entire first half of the game based on stealth with poor crouch and sneak mechanics made the game more frustrating than challenging, however the combats over the second half was intense and was mostly based on melee then gun fights but was poorly executed. I get the fact that it was India’s first attempt at making a movie tie-in game being inspired by the Hollywood marketing formula and all those things, but cloning a successful game like MAX PAYNE and making out something stale was highly underwhelmed despite being the movie itself doing so good for that time.
The second time India made a high end game based off a movie was KRRISH 3, a side scrolling game based on Krrish which had some elements of endless runner as well as parkour along with platforming. The game was optimized for already buggy Microsoft 8.1 and was made a fully online experience on Microsoft’s store and later was optimized for Windows and Android phones but faced poor outcomes.
Also another major factor being the piracy of games and third party sites as well as plagiarism which is effecting the sales of games in India just how it is effecting the movie and music industry. A paid game over the app store for mobile or Steam for PC and console gets cracked and leaked over a third party website which is making just another effort to encourage piracy at high risk. Also ever since the market of multiplayer game got the attention of India as well as Pakistan, the developers now are just busy in making rip off games then to develop something original.
However, we are not ignoring the fact that we are failing in the industry, indeed we are, but we don’t really lack content, because there is still hope and we have better and bigger concept to develop an original game maybe even on Ancient mythologies or science fiction since such ideas were being used on 2D realm as well as AA realm or if we are talking about 3D graphics in India by the Indian developers mainly over the cinema scene in South Indian movies or Bollywood movies since technology and VFX animation have graced our industry in a very well mannered way but the problem is that we have an age old habits of converting archetypes into stereotypes and we might end up stereotyping a bigger concept at our hands which should have been based on logic if we are develop a big game of our own at a Hollywood or Japanese level and apart from that we need a better financial establishment as well as better opportunities for programmers and coders to come up with some new ideas in the industry itself and sometimes such concepts tends to be nuanced and ends up being a bizarre one for most audience. However, I would more likely say that India must finally learn to accept that gaming is not just a child’s activity in India anymore and acknowledge the passion, and that there are actual career options and job opportunities in the gaming industry and a youth can actually have a future in this industry as well. Also, in the recent events, Reliance Digital Industries of India made some major announcement to do something for the gaming scene in India and benefit the Jio customers with better data plans for a satisfying online gaming experience.
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