<FONT COLOR="#FF0033"><B>Guest article:</B></FONT> Where is the next hit game for mobiles coming from?

Contrary to what some of the popular Indian mobile game studios claim about the success of these games, the final word rests with consumers and subscribers. The unanimous opinion among gaming enthusiasts spread across demographics is that the mobile games made by Indian mobile game studios suck! And suck real BAD

Rajan Arya

Oxigen Infovision India

Where is the next hit game for mobile phones coming from? Are we destined to spend the rest of our lives passing the pillow in the grand Bollywood tradition of the Barjatyas or just shooting people aimlessly to take your body count to 56... a la ‘Ab Tak Chappan’?

Contrary to what some of the popular Indian mobile game studios claim about the success of these games, the final word rests with consumers or subscribers. Trust me, I have spoken with a lot of gaming enthusiasts spread across demographics and the unanimous opinion is that the latest crop of mobile games made by Indian mobile game studios suck! And suck real BAD!

Without detracting from the hard work put in by game designers/ pre-production artists/ art designers/ programmers/ coders/ quality assurance/ porting teams, etc., the quality of the final product leaves a lot to be desired. This is due to the simple fact that Bollywood products generically do not lend themselves well to gaming, even on a casual gaming platform like the mobile phone.

Forget about dedicated gaming devices such as the Xbox 360, PlayStation and Wii. Our so-called games are a zillion light years behind these magnificent platforms. We have simply been making a mockery of the gullible paying public, but they cannot be taken for granted for long. They have begun rejecting these games outright, which explains why revenues from value added services (VAS), especially mobile gaming, have not climbed even though the wireless subscriber base has more than doubled in the last 12 months and GPRS/ data services have been made free by most operators.

But why does a game studio make a mobile game on a mundane Bollywood title? The economics of making a mobile game lend themselves well to the wireless ecosystem currently prevailing in the subcontinent. Our burgeoning wireless population (approximately 150 million), is currently adding nearly six million subscribers every month. The monies spent on marketing a typical Bollywood movie gets the curiosity factor rolling (eyeballs and thumb-clicks assured). However, the tight timelines set by studio bosses ensure that gaming products are ready within a fortnight, but that they are rather run-of-the-mill.

For those who are not familiar with mobile gaming, most of the games produced in India are a straight lift from older titles. In gaming parlance, they would be called re-skinned games.

Which means in Game A, if the protagonist was Garfield coming down the skies to collect food for himself, in Game B, it is Hanuman who is evading numerous obstacles to collect a herb for Lakshman. The studios effectively replace the characters and graphics, but keep the same game engine running in the background. If Garfield can be replaced by Hanuman, Hanuman, in turn, can be replaced with a kite to make a game for ‘Makar Sankranti’, or the kite can be replaced by a Kingfisher jet to make a branded game.

This ensures very low turnaround times and large volumes to fill the game deck. I know of one game studio that had set a target of eight game deliveries every month for a large CDMA operator simply because the management had an overwhelming desire to flood the game deck with their products and have the largest share of the revenue pie.

This, in turn, explains the mass exodus of people from big game studios. In fact, one of the biggest in the country, recently acquired by a huge media house, is facing an identity crisis (they know that Bollywood games do not contribute to their revenue kitty, but they will now end up making a lot more Bollywood games simply because the media company that has acquired them produces a lot of movies every year). Most of its talent pool is either being drained away by the competition, or exiting from the industry altogether.

With such mundane re-skinning work happening, challenges being shown the door, and ideas not being appreciated, this was bound to happen sooner than later. This might just be the crisis that shakes the mobile gaming industry awake and forces it to gets its act together.

Bollywood hardly contributes towards mobile gaming. Though it is an accepted fact that non-gaming products, especially ring tones, do the most business, we just cannot continue churning out products that do not complement the storyline (Munnabhai climbing up the walls of Dr Asthana’s hospital to collect certificates), or take the consumer for a ride with a memory game for a movie like ‘Musafir’. Wake up, guys! The consumer is not a moron, she is your wife and you better behave yourself or get ready to be shown the door.

(The writer heads business development at Oxigen Infovision India Pvt. Ltd-Bugzy. You can write to him at rajan.arya@bugzy.in).

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