Disney on games that capture India's imagination - PG Connects Bangalore 2015

so we make games uh the kind of games we make is uh educational games for preschool and kindergarten kids um we've been doing this for about 2 years we have 14 games uh users are across the world uh most of our users are in tier one countries uh us UK Canada Australia hi guys my name is Rohit I am founder and CEO of we make Ultra casual games big size game 1 MB 2 m and uh you can very much closely relate to FL if you think about our Gams hi my name is Robbie uh I run a studio called June software we have two Brands June a brand and tap to learn tap make educational games been doing this since since 2010 uh we also we also one of the companies that got funded by y com so YC through the company from there uh most most recent game was a game for ninjam

dash it's a realtime multiplayer game did really well about 6 million Downs in the last 4 months uh it's a game that you can play with your friends all the games that we make now involves making Real Time games that you can play with your friends so I'm rajes ra i chair the nasc gaming forum and I also conf CEO OFA interactive which is IND games comp and I'm I'm moderating this panel and I go around as first round of questioning to all these guys is uh you know share quickly bit of your uh Journey maybe a couple of minutes how did you start it and and and uh where you are now uh so we actually started uh we started the company in May of of 2010 when we saw the iPad we looked at the iPad and we thought that hey this can change learning as we know it because finally we can get people to lean in and enjoy UC ation uh so we made our first game in

June of 2010 we got featured a week later when we launched we went to the top 25 grossing right there as a 2% company that started off in a town called Puna close to Bombay uh we took the company from a 2% company we we went back to the Silicon Valley studied and work there uh went to the Silicon Valley applied to Y combinator and imagine kid well I got got inside of YC uh and a year after starting doing education games I was actually pitching app learn to uh you know l p jobs the wife of Steve Jobs for me that was that was a AA moment of saying hey here's something that I started in a small room in Puna wanting to do education because my wife was 7 months pregnant at that time uh to actually building have to learn as a brand which about 35 million downloads so so do you have a team which is both India and so we have a we have an office in in we got a small team there we focus

exclusively on the US for an education system so working on the core standards working with teachers in the US that's the kind of team that we employed there all of our development is done from our studio how big is a studio our studio in India is 26 I know you were fairly embedded in the uh the Pune Tech scene right tell us more about that because I think it's one of the key differentiators from my conversation with you earlier CU you know one of the things that most uh Indies and develop in India find difficult is to get good quality Talent who are interested in games so tell us tell us a bit of your secret Source um so two things you know I one brought up in Puna I went to the went to C which is like a government engineering College in Puna uh I was a gold medic engineering I taught at the University of Puna for 10 years from 2 to 2010 uh so I knew a lot of Engineers and I taught programming uh so I knew a lot of Engineers uh right at the University level uh so when I started a company my two co-founders also students

that I taught uh you know so all of her talent that came in in the initial days people that I already knew and had worked with uh that really helped to set up a base for the company uh and today you know being in Puna and lived in Puna for for 35 years you know no fairly good amount of people great so uh so Rohit sister so I graduated from it in 2012 uh I till the time I started P play I would have never imagined that I would be starting a gaming company I never played so many games or was never around it but I started two companies before PEX Play I Started PEX play in 2013 and we developed just one game in one year and we never earned any money out of it we were going into the traditional path chasing investors and all we almost were rejected Byers but uh after 2013 and 2014 we started uh changing our business model uh

and we move to ultra casual category so our uh business model is mostly focused on Advertising bus model now and we are having much enough revenue on our own now all the VES are after us and we are saying that we don't need the money so things have definitely Chang that's a good position to be in so how big is your group now so currently we are only three five three four people and we don't need much people in terms of head count uh ours is like our development cycle is like uh 2 weeks after that it's all data game play once the game is in to the market everything is dependent on data and analytics so so what kind of how many products have you put out last year uh so we released four products till now and we have more than 3 million downloads but uh our speciality is into a revenue per user and retention so we have 30 40% retention right that's awesome 30 40% retention is uh great so uh I think we'll come back to that so let's let's uh um so our story is uh kind of

similar to Robbie's but not exactly so for us educational gaming kind of happened uh on the side uh we were a uh work for higher company we used to build apps and games for other people and that's when like Robbie said the iPad came out and uh the space kind of looked interesting so we kind of toyed around with it on the side uh and kind of let let it run on its own uh on the side but we saw some really good traction uh there's a lot of demand for educational games uh from the uh customer base um so we moved away from uh work for hire and uh started doing this on a full-time basis uh about a couple years ago um it's been a great journey it's it's what we like doing uh Myer is my wife um so we both uh come up with these game game Concepts we have a small team of uh two designers two programmers uh so I I was uh you know sitting here for the previous panel and uh one of the things that came came to my mind was at least specific to our

company is that um we share our vision a lot with our team and uh in the end uh each of our team members buys into the end goal uh for each for each game and and then we just let it let let let them roll right and and that really helps us uh turn out really quality games so how many games have you put uh we have 14 games 14 games how many last year uh so a chunk of that has been this year because uh we pushed it a lot this year so we've done uh eight games this year eight games this year and business model our business model is a combination of AD revenue and uh in purchases and focusing on which Market uh tier one so us UK Canada Australia uh India India is something that we are looking at now and we very heavily going to be uh pushing our content in India and I'm assuming you're profitable oh yeah very well uh so yeah that's that's

one of the good things about this space uh they're very well profitable you know when it comes to parents uh they don't think twice before spending for their children yeah it is true as a parent I can tell that most apps on the App Store uh which are of any quality uh know some of the high some of the biggest ticket prices you see on the App Store are for Education cont and uh and you know quality is important right uh the graphics we do the art it's uh it's really soothing really appealing um and and I think that's what gets parents to so have you had discoverability as an issue that that is issue for my personal experience has been that uh for our space uh the ecosystem itself helps helps discoverability so I think uh so I I'll give you Apple's example Apple really promotes good content good games by featuring You by recommending you so I think what happens is that if you download a game Apple will then recommend other games to you and that gets you a lot of organic downloads uh and there is a community of reviewers

bloggers who talk about so at least in our community that has helped us so the reviews um ratings all that has played yeah yeah yeah I I I'll just give you an anecdote one of our games uh it's about learning what animals eat so you know we show a dog and then we give the child an option of three three food items and the child has to pick which which which food the dog eats and it's a whole game based on several other animals one of the parents actually took print outs of this and made a a physical game out of it like cutting hes in the animal's mouth and uh giving it to the child and the child was actually feeding the food of the animal so uh good quality content always gets appreciation so so how long did it take uh before you see that that whole virality and and the whole trating and thing kind of kicking in I'm guessing that products we put out now are are apparently having a lot more momentum and the L yes so some of our oldest

games are still some of our best performers um and uh in our case Vitality comes from the fact that if we have one good game we have a we have 14 games right so uh apparent if they download one of our games they are bound to download three or four of other games so what kind of downloads overall have uh we have close to 2 million downloads cool so I'm going to have another round of questions on inflection points some Milestones good or bad in your uh in your stories which may have given you that you know those learnings that may have helped you become successful so inflection points in our case was you know just looking at people children you know play and solve more math problems on our games than on any other platform and then we realize that you know the reason why you know and we are called tap to learn which means you'll tap to actually learn something you actually interact with that Medium there a lesser chance of you getting distracted uh and being on task which is

really one of the key problems in education is that kids they have low attention spans and they don't practice their problems enough if he did something it which was not like bubble WAP was pop up but something that can be visual that can be that can create that permanent learning we felt that that was of value and the moment we created something of value we actually saw that parents were most willing to play and that's how that's how we kept growing we changed our model completely uh you know we don't have any marketing we we' gone to about 35 million downloads with you know $25,000 in marketing uh our marketing strategy was hey make a make a high quality game give it away for free see what the audience things over a period of time make the same game of paid game and $5 that's what we've done uh that's that's realizing this model cool so so today in your uh is your portfolio of all of them are paid paid games so we only you have on a portfolio you may

have premium games or free games there's no advertising on any of those there might be a little bit of cross promotion but no advertising because parents ultimately want their child to actually play a high quality product that's what they want that's what they're willing to pay for and we guarantee that experience so so apart from tapar we also as June are are into more traditional game development correct so tell us a bit about that so that was a funny story because we were actually building games for kids that that we would give out as rewards for the kids we wanted to be show that you know hey it's that's a nice game that you actually play as rewards and and those games had the best retention so while building a good game we suddenly found that the game play of that game had insane amount of retention you know it had it had 40% retention on D30 and we so we so we actually pitched that game to one of our investors uh and you know they liked it and that's how we got the license to do ninja on so that's we took the ninj iped on it and that game so so today do do you have uh are

these two uh these two companies do they have shared resources or are they separate companies they have shared resources they just want I think our first inflection point was when we had the first dollar after 6 months of releasing our first IP then the second inflection point was didn't reach $100 in next 6 months so after that we changed the business model then then the next inflection point was earning ,000 in a single day so I mean those were the inflection points for us and then came the fan following of our games so people actually made birthday cakes on their birthday of our uh like the first screen of our game so we have a game called sparm R and many people were uh instagramming a cake photo which were which was basically surface as the screen of spa R that's pretty cool so uh

so um you you said most of your revenues are coming from ads so it's interesting that we have different business models that are working for each of you guys isn't it um how about premium so uh basically uh our first game was actually premium we put up a lot of powers and things like stuff like that uh to earn by spending some money but what we found was that uh in a purchase kind of model doesn't work for uh basically it either works for very high quality of games like Clash of Clan or maybe Zinga some top Zinga games but it doesn't work just even after you come a level down after that and you can't build Clash of Clans sitting in India having not having $10 million $20 million so we found that problem in that model so we followed that currently it is very crucial for us to come out with another type of model so that we made a rule that not following any Rule and we

will just make we will make our own rules from now on that's pretty cool so uh inflection points um for us the inflection point uh I guess in our journey was when we went from uh doing this as a side project to uh you know our Core Business uh and that inflection point happened uh because we saw so we put out a game called uh Alex the handyman and it's a game that teachers children about various handyman jobs around the house and that was massively received by uh the community uh by Apple they featured us we got tremendous number of downloads that really was the inflection point for us to really go after this uh segment so how many developers in this room okay so if you had to kind of give a couple of tips developers today they're all successful

let's say you know don't ever give up you know and dream break because whatever you dream you make that f as I told I'm not a gamer so I would say think about the business and that's what matters okay um I think you need to be very clear from the get go about what your end goal is you know are you looking to build the next Blockbuster or or are you looking to build this into a business I think that has to be very clear from the first day um because the strategies for both will be very different okay all right so do we have time for questions I think we we fit in like two very quick questions questions mik hello I'm Mike I'm an N development from UK um so my question is I think at least two of you specifically said your primary audience is US UK a Australia Canada and what's really interesting

hearing you speak is in those countries the native developers there who are making games for that market we're all focusing on premium content we're making $10 games $20 games um for that audience because there seems to be an audience for that um and a lot of people in my bracket aren't doing free premium because that's seem much more difficult and I'm really interested that every India I've met in India who's targeting those markets is going for what I would consider a more difficult play I'm interested why you attracted that why you're not making Xbox games PC games is it because you don't see the same room for growth is it a hardware issue is it culturally just seems off to you I'm just really interested Mike I'm a big fan of the game oh thank you so uh the reason why the reason why I did that actually was because you know when my daughter was born all that I saw was that she took the she took to the touch screen naturally you know and we felt that you know giving ourselves that

edge in everybody on the touch game play was as old as us they had the same experience they've never seen like why would I compete with somebody who's been building console games for years you know when I know that hey tablets are coming touch is coming and I've had the same experience as everybody else give me a Level Playing Field distribution also gave us that Level Playing Field that's why you know that's why we went after that that's no SM sir thank you question uh so one uh the challenge we we have had is uh how to make engaging game that do not come in the way of learning I'm not I'm not sure uh so you're saying that engagement hinders learning no no so um so we have got this uh game where fishes fishes we are trying to feed a fish with the answers and then shark comes in if it's not

answered correctly and all that so for example when the question moves it hinders a little bit of readability so we can't have the fish moving too fast and all that because the fish is carrying the PST so yeah I I think that's that's that's a factor of design right I mean you need to fix that design it has to be us usable Uhn so you know so the way that I think about it is like you shouldn't essentially make gamification of the game if you can embed learning into the game itself then that's valuable the way that we've thought about it is we always give the child so to say a a objective of how can he use his knowledge to solve real problems you know you empower the child so that education doesn't get in the way you always accept that hey you know all of this now save the world using that knowledge and that's really something that we build we feel that that's what work thank you good okay so we're done here thank you everybody than I'm sorry so sorry to you guys and

you it's been great to hear from you what we'll do is we'll ask the next group to come up uh we're going to be talking about brand uh the intent over the next 20 minutes TR and give you a sneak peek on what happens with branded IP and the fact that Bollywood and uh and and Cricket is is a is a big uh value Creator in India and and we've got some very interesting insights on the Hollywood space as well uh well I've got a esteemed out here and I'd like them to to introduce themselves I've got Rohit B uh the CEO at robosoft Amit sha uh EVP and uh a business head at Reliance games and I've Got chagai U head of content development for vacom so uh the intent today is to actually just ask them a set of questions and get them to start talking about their businesses and how they've gone about building branded IP uh the fact here is that uh Bollywood and and

and movies is a very very big play play both in India as well as abroad and uh each of these uh these individuals have done various uh various I development various distribution around this this this space so wanted roh to probably start and share with us uh what the the the larger play on branded entertainment has been branded gaming has been and how have you seen this opportunity Ro for robosoft yeah yeah for those who don't know what robosoft is about you know we basically help our customers plan design and build you know awesome apps and you know mobile games uh that's you know a lot of you know work for highest work that we do and we also have a sub brand called 99 games where we build our own IPS uh one of the things you know that recent experiments that we did we call it an experiment because that was the first time we were licensing a brand and know creating a game around it we licensed the Doom uh the the Doom IP and

you know build the game you know Doom three the game uh which was coinciding with the launch of the movie and it got tremendous response uh he did you know more than you know 16 million downloads of this game within you know 6 months of the movie launch we started the entire Activity 2 months before the movie launch which was unheard of before that but generally movie based games used to launch a week before the ual movie release and you know it sustained its momentum for four or five months after the movie release uh we looked at you know the IP more from a discoverability perspective cuz you know we knew that we could never do this discoverability Sol this Discovery P in the Indian context and you know we just wanted to ride on top of a more established brand and that is you know how we started uh you know from our perspective so the whole 16 million download was without any marketing budget spending any marketing

Budget on our own but not spending some time on social media and you know getting the starcast getting the studios to you know do the tweets and know do their own social media amplification so in terms of the game play the amount of time spent by consumers the number of times the consumers were coming back did you see a he heightened usage during the life cycle of the film being released and how did you see that compared to regular gaming that you've released and what's been what's been the differential in both those values yeah on the day of the movie launch we saw 400k downloads on that single day December 20th on one day we saw 400,000 you know downloads of this game you know it was like you know massive and you know it was a good thing because Apple featured us around the same time Google featured us around the same time Microsoft you know we were working with them for you know some time on that IP and you know that was the you know Pinacle you know of that you know game for us now even now you know even after 1 and a half year on its own the game gets around 3 to 4,000 down on it on its own without any activity yeah but

the engagement was not high during the movie launch but it fell off you know it held on its own you know probably was getting around 30 to 40,000 download even two to 3 months after the movie release Amit u i mean would love to get you to talk about the Hollywood space and I'd like you to also share the Hollywood to Bollywood comparison because the fact is that as Reliance game you guys also release BW titles as well and how's been that journey and where do you see both the the the the strength of these IPS and the values that they create and where do you see weaknesses of these IPS knowing that they have very very large U heightened growth and then there's there's massive dips because they're linked to an asset class if the film doesn't do well and there there is an impact in the overall life cycle of that again uh thanks sir first of all you know I want to absolutely Echo what what R said uh the game is the IP the brand

is used more for discoverability point of view we we've taken that as a as a big manthra when we looking at a brand we looking at an IP we looking at a movie we be going after because that's one of the basic components you need to look at another component we look you know if you see that there not that many big movie IPS or TV IP games are very successible there are very few very handful out there in the marketplace the reason being is you you know we typically say that okay there's a big movie out there there's a movie like jom 3 or Hunger Games or Real Steel or whatever maybe you know it will drive the the game for its own perspective unless they make a great game for Doom 3 which you want to play it has a good session time it has a good you know D you want you when you feel like I want to play a game you know you can get those downloads but you'll never have a sustainability so discoverability for Branded IP engage ability for a great game so both of them have to go hand in hand and as you know as Reliance games

or Jump games or zipack as few of you guys know we have done all of them you know we've learned the Hardway by building a capping game where we've launched it and had a great you know biggest movie we last year we did the biggest movie of Hunger Games although you know in the Hollywood space we started to work quite late the game wasn't ready but we launched it and we got we got tons of downloads but the sustainability of the game wasn't there as soon as the two weeks happened we got 9 10 in downloads in the first 3 4 3 weeks and then the game died it just does not unless you have a good game you'll never have a sustainability of that another example be we did a great game for Real Steel you know we did that about 3 years ago the movie wasn't that a big hit but the game has been a great hit since then we've had 70 plus million downloads of that game since then and we have had three iterations of it from P free we launched another version of it about 6 weeks ago in the first 6 weeks alone we've gotten 5 million downloads globally and these are numbers which are

Global as you know s mentioned talking about these are Global numbers we are most of our games are Global Perspective from a relance game perspective we've also done games in India and there also we've had some big successes and big failures because in the gaming world it is very hard to say how are what is going to be a success and what is going to be a failure you can't suain just say that because I have a big brand and big IP I will have a great game and a big success we launched ICC games Cricket World Cup games launched it late you know the time of the games was wrong we were like launching it right at the end of it did not have enough discoverability in the games have there right I mean Cricket World Cup the whole world they said there were billion plus people watching the World Cup if you don't have the game at the right time right place and the right game play the game will Le to well then we have also done games like three idiots you know I still remember when we worked on three idiots few years ago the transition was happening from a feature phone Java device to to the to the uh to the smartphone an iPhone and you know in the first week of the launch we gotten

so many downloads at that time 100,000 downloads was like a big deal right I'm talking about two and a half three years ago but that was a big big deal that you know you get those downloads and we were very happy but then there have been games like afterward we've done we gun G based on After Earth movie the movie tanked and the movie was written off before it was released you know with all the features and everything we only sustained about you know 20,000 downloads on the day one a week later I was getting 100 downloads I I'm you know so it all depends IP how how they're marketing it what you using it and how do you how which game you so what would you say would be one strength and one weakness to keep in mind when you're dealing with IP gam the the biggest thing which we have learned after doing these for 3 years and you know personally I've been working on Brands and IP for so long pick a brand and pick on IP based on which you really believe you can build a game on don't just say go after something because the movie is going to be big or a brand is going to be big uh

you know we've looked at some big big movies where I mean we were Give an example right Hunger Games biggest movie of the world we did it after that Kabam did it both the games haven't done well we we were given the option to do it another game would we do it I'm not very sure I'll do it because the IP has too many restrictions you know you want to do certain you know they want to do few things with the game which is not possible in the movie you know they have restrictions other so you know given a chance even the biggest movie we'll go back and say we're not going to do it be pass uh so CH why don't you share with us both from a TV perspective because you can give a different view from television because television is is viewed very differently as a content type and uh again on the movie side as well and if you could get differentiations in how do you see both the content and IP and then what is the larger treatment in the gaming form that you take take take take up here so YC is basically uh you know a large company with u various TV channels under them

MTV MTV VH1 um there is uh colors and there is the whole kids cluster called Nickelodeon what until three or four years ago Yom did not do a lot of work on digital about 3 years ago when the first time wcom started exploring digital in the form of using games and apps one of the first games we made for wcom was a game based movie called now this was a big risk because though it was a big budget movie B did not have the big stars it did not have the plus it was a biopic biopics don't really particularly do very well in the mass uh entertainment but we made a game the game did a couple of million downloads within the first month the movie was a brilliant success what really worked is that for a good brand you need a strong brand it really helps drive your game post that you need a good game to keep sustaining itself if the game's not great you get it downward not to do uh it has a short shelf life the movie is over and forgotten the game

is forgotten the advantage that happens with the shows that we have for example a lot of the Nick shows that we have there are popular shows such as Kon there are the SpongeBob square fants when you make games of the show and the game is good it's not connected to one particular show as far as the brand is alive on television as far as the show keeps running the game has a much much longer sh so in a nutshell you're seeing TV is V for than M at times yes so Dr why don't you shed a little bit of light around the entire Roi space finally all of this is done because we all want to make money out it so the return on investment on games such as this how does that play out yeah you know specifically in the case of Doom you know for us it was an Roi positive and know positive even though the positive was you not so large as such even after not so many downloads uh couple of reasons for that you know the install

base in India 2 years ago was you know much smaller than you know it is now so we made you know some money you know by branded endorsement Brands you know uh brought the space and you know sponsored in know part of the game and all those kind of things uh what we need to look at uh see know basically know for robosoft was I mean for 9 GES robosoft it was more like an experiment we wanted to see the potential and we we learned a few things and know we knew that the star you know what kind of things you can get if you can combine the star power the IP and everything and align them all closely you get great discoverability now it's up to us or know the Creator to build that sustainability in the game because otherwise you know the the the LTV is almost you know very very low so something like me real still you Reliance did a great job in making sure that the LTV lasted longer but when we build in a future our our the way we look at it is you know in future when we

license a Bollywood IP we would like to see if we can do a kingdom of hbit or fast and furious kind of a play where we say know let's take this license and you know milk it for the next 3 years you know whenever we have that rights so that's the whole idea so we'll be ready when we are license our next time so so am tell me what's your specifically what's your specific take with regards to these games and now I'm talking the West here the go to market in these games gam would because these are Global games and you guys go out and get such large downloads I would presume there would be separate monies being put out to Market this extensively because you've got ltvs running now do you wait for the game to have certain amount of sustainability before you put in marketing dollars because you see the effective rois to start coming out or do you spend certain amount to see what the core buildup of the game is and then you take a call on how you want to sustain it I I I I think it's a mix of both right when we launching a game you know

that we absolutely believe in CER country testing we spending a lot of time in getting uh getting clear uh you know getting in focus on the country testing getting the data right getting making sure that kpis uh the ltvs which we talking about are there in the game before we start even launching foret about from a market you know before spending any money on it that's one the second thing is when we launching these games uh you know because of a Big Brand IP there's a big marketing budget associated with like 30 4050 million of marketing behind that that is giving us a big push typically we have stayed away from spending money at the time of the launch uh you know we spend money on Real Steel now after 3 3 and a half years of being launch in there because there is you know the game has a certain sustainability and availability and it drives the downloads itself I don't have to go spend a lot of money and that's what IP does the recognition because of the IP gets you the cost of CPI down quite significantly can you can you the the big metrics is can you bring it down

to zero that's that's what it is right you're spending bring your marketing down low spend your money High you know and get higher that's the right balance for CH lastly if you could share with me do you end up doing half the TV games because the producer and the the TV channel wants you to do it or you really do it fori we've all been in the same space uh so uh it's a mix of both um there partly we make the games because they help promote the show uh they they a marketing function but partly we pick on shows which will have a good return on our investments certain really popular shows shows which have a great great audience and and I think those those games do end up making they take a little longer uh than a movie based game which happens all together they take a little longer but they eventually work gives a lot more time to we and maintain uh great so that was uh the a sense with regards to giving you a play on what branded branded gaming and entertainment is in and the takeout is

that at the end of the game the game needs to be good from a gameplay perspective the ROI by default comes in because the asset class which is movies and the and the cost which is investment that are done to release this content is so high that that itself drives the larger distribution of that the LTV becomes a question once you have a great game and you've got consumption happening that's when you start deciding you want to further invest in distribution to actually create LTV value and what you hear out of out of the panel here is that yes branded games are great to have but you need choose the right IP you need to choose the right game play and then be able to uh get the distribution out there and now I open uh it to the floor if you got any questions for the for the panel would love to take that we probably get take a couple of

questions anyone got any questions I mean for me I wish there was some European developers hearing some of the stuff you would say particularly the comments about Real Steel because you know when you get an example where someone's taking a movie Li and made the game its own identity out of that that's something that more people should do where the game itself has its own momentum but it's got a foundation that's something familiar I think that's an incredibly important lesson it's been it's been a it's been a mix a great game play and uh you know and something which has worked with the audience and we' continued to focus on quality in game but uh there few few of the team may I think which started off and uh you know and I think the team has continued to build on it it's been it's been a great experience uh taking that IP and continue to build on and it's a lesson I think a lot of people can take with them because you know we know so many companies that have gone down the roof finding IP spending a lot of money on getting the IP and then they just go they haven't got enough money left to build it that LE do the marketing of the thing that they' just

made I I think that's bang on I mean one of the biggest uh dja vu in IP base is actually what he just said the fact that you spend so much of money to get the IP and by the time you realize that you got to build a great game you don't have the fund to do that and there are three letters to be scared of th HQ on that note on that note sorry I I have lots of old friends who TQ so I apologize to minute um so thank you very much guys that was fantastic obviously what we've been doing there is talking about taking someone else's content and ideas thank for great running on little bit delayed little bit delayed and I think that's what um we need to catch up on time because there will be an indie award ceremony and then I don't want to hold people longer from their drinks and party and all that stuff yeah so guys thank you very much for being here uh the the the topic is very exciting very

inspiring very like how do we create games which can ignite the imagination of India now do you think this topic is worth discussing or not or do you think there are some nuances of this top no you you you will not be allowed to do that you have to get the reason for no yeah start with um okay um um sorry is this topic worth discussing hi my name is Anand I'm with the tiny m games I had designed there um sorry you want well yes I think there are some things worth discussing um yeah I mean I can't just say like make Sunny Leon games let's make sunny Leoni games that will work in India Final close let's go home but it'll work

so yeah but um no I think it's um just a couple of quick things one in terms of capture India's imagination I just think we need to Define that if this discussion is not to meander and I would just say that uh it's a couple of things firstly of course India is not a monolith there's no Indian imagination I mean that's a large really large kind of thing to say right captures he does it mean that the guy in Kerala Tam Kashmir Gujarat everybody is going to trip on the same thing there are very few things that will have such Universal appeal and those are likely to have Global appeal so maybe there you know are smaller chunks that are still worth pursuing just because of the share weight of numbers uh but in terms of capturing imagination I would like to say there like two things right uh there's the what is capture imagination are we fair in saying it's something that uh uh the Indian audience would like a want to look at download and try and then play constantly you know for an X period of time and engage with that game and enjoy

it um there are two aspects to that so the first part can be got through some theme some thematic thing that connects emotionally with Indian audience so there's a theme but sometimes we tend to think that it's only that right the the second part of the people actually after downloading your game and playing the first 10 minutes staying engaged with it is in the details of the implementation of how you take that theme and how you it's not just like a lazy slap on uh sort of skinning that will give you that your uh if you must and if you believe that you want an Indian them and that's a separate discussion but if you want an Indian theme to appeal to the uh Indian audience and if you want then you need to really get into the details of implementing that and do that really carefully for it to work

so what Anan said so essentially anan's point was that India is a monolith and you can't really think India is one entity and then think of creating games for India now I just wanted to check reality check whether all of us are in Union and in agreement with them or we do have some other perspective and I just wanted an perspective on that so to an extent uh to what an says but then there is also a set of games which I think transcends Beyond regions Beyond borders like M said yes we create games which a particular set of people but then if you look at examples like a candylash s or uh a temple Clash of Clans today if you look at any app store Indian as these are the games which are in the top rank not because they are

targeted at the Indian audience but because there is a strong depth of game play which engages the user yes initially you probably download it because you see the other guy next to you on the Flight playing it but then what holds you is the content of the game and the production quality and the depth of game play which playing so it's a combination of both so Rishi being a Rishi and shales being the really the creative Geniuses uh here um here Anam spoke about we can't create games for mon Nan says that it has to be emotional engagement and all of it so how do you what what's your take on it how does one go about crafting games pitch for India I don't know I mean uh honestly we've never really made games for the Indian audience we only made games so the way I look is IM India's imagination can be imagination doesn't

have any boundaries right like people all over the world can imagine about the same things and if you can make a good game for the global audience Indians will like it as well so my take has always been like don't just limit to India because if you can like was pointing out like even in India the top games don't really need to have an Indian theme to be successful so make a good game make it Global and you know it'll work in India as well as uh yeah um yeah my view is slightly uh off this topic a little bit it's uh it's the the the question I'm asking is uh are there enough reasons to make games that will capture the Indians imagination uh as opposed to making a game that what Shish is talking about n is talking about that is just appeals to people in general right um and if you do

tend to make those kind of games then you're just appealing to a you know Global audience and we've seen that in a couple of panels before also all the India Indies all the small developers they tend to make games that appeal to Global audience so why is it that developers are not really making games to to capture the uh India's imagination and is it even worth it right and the question of being worth it is a question of business rather than the craft or the creativity and and is that problem Sol and is it too too early to be talking about even capturing India's imagination I see Anand really raising his hand before I go can you just pass on M to and let him yeah um I think it's worth it depending on who you are uh if you're like a really small Studio who needs to turn around profits like really quickly and you need to stay alive maybe not but um for some people I think it's worth it because just see the way I look at it there is nothing I care about more and

people who known me in the industry know this that I've been yapping about making games for India for like donkeys years that's the only thing I care about and the reason I care about it is that um you just look at any other Entertainment form you look at movies uh we like to watch our own movies we like to watch movies in Hindi or Tamil or Telugu or Malay right and those are huge numbers we consume television it's it's local television that's consumed far more than and it's not just a question of language it's a question of language it's a question of flavor it's a question of cultural effect it's we just consume content in other mediums that is significantly different from you know um something with a western or Japanese sensibility or we have a very very unique flavor so why should games be any different because right now we're talking about people who already play games who are already exposed to International games and hence do that but we're talking about a huge Emerging Market of people who have never played games simply because nobody's made a game that they like hey I want to try this right and um so it is definitely worth

going after that and we believe in that as a as a studio which is why we're going after just to build on that point and a very interesting point uh today we are talking about um Mobile gaming audience which are playing let's say even if I take Candy Crush 30 million 40 million people either in their house somebody is very enamored with the Western games has been an internet Savvy person and hence he or she introduced the game in the house I think my point is when when I'm looking at India's imagination I'm looking at those 300 million people which have never seen internet never played games and when they're going to come on mobile internet U do you really believe that these guys may some of them may also have a word of P some of they may come to know about Temple and blah blah blah but if you want kind of induct them into gaming uh is there something which you have got to do differently than just aing what is happening in West and or maybe the same same games and which is where shales my kind of question to you was

that do you think then for that audience making a game for them would be different than making a game again I don't really know because I've not done it but um in of course it will be different but I don't know how because I and like my concern is also that these people do they have devices to play these games on because yes we have so many Android devices but how many of them are actually capable of running decent games you would know that more than anyone else yeah no decent is like okay do are they technologically capable of running good games like so many games frame so badly on yeah Flappy Bird can also frame on some devices like we are pting soci ball to Android right now that is struggling on so many Android deves so many Android devices so it's it's two things one is so the question is are we ready today

from the business point of view of maybe maybe not right but to kind of take forward what Manish said that uh to kind of answer your question ging like all forms of entertainment is largely cultur we grew up reading we grew up watching they were not crappy I also object to that H and buad still is the better show than whatever happens today moving on so it's it's also about how do you kind of get a person who's never played a game before to get introduced to the concept of gameing that's the point I Wasing yeah so it can and and the cultural thing can play a role today if you launch maybe a poal game will work in India but but maybe not India we have seen with Teti and Ry those games are kind of they touch a card with you that oh I know I as a kid I played on this and on the phone so it's also about how you use uh

like what an was saying the them but integrated with the concept and the content in such a way that the game becomes compelling for both uh regular gamer as well as a new person who's coming into the gaming space to get inod gaming to start consuming these games so so um hold on for there youve touched upon a very good point about themy and we have seen recent inflow of money coming into two companies which are doing great themy games now rid point to you you said that is it the right time to make a game is it uh so timing the market has been a a curse or a or a Hallmark depending upon you end up with side of the success or failure now do you think these companies have taken that risk and hence being rewarded and they will keep on growing like in any other vertical uh the small Studios they have nothing to lose they go for all out

and they see success and then BCS coming back them versus Corporate like us which have a profitability quarter this that all such baggages to deal with and hence we are not able to do that is that the thing which we are grappling with because there are examples of Indian uh ecosystem getting funded in double digit um uh billion dollars and do you see them as a green shoots or do you see them as fluks yeah like we talking about it's timing right it's too early to tell um uh but definitely you need that inlow of money to be able to uh uh address that and uh you know startups have their own problems corporates have their own problems Indies have their own problems uh and you know when it comes to financial and all of that then helps them take a decision of what do we do next uh do we create content that is going to be for the Indian audience which will capture the India India's

imagination or uh um you know do we do something that is more Global in nature and we don't have that appetite to earn money because you're competing on a platform where you have high level production quality of international players as well right and the the grammar of that platform right gaming the grammar of gaming is not the same as all the other entertainment medium right because when we're talking about games in the end it's about the game it's about that chess move it's about sorry to intervene here a Salan Khan movie versus a shamle movie versus a gravity obviously there is a difference in content but Salman Khan movie makes tons and tons of money and audience for that right now you may say story depth you may say XY Z but it is working and some people are getting entertained then you say grandmar of gaming versus grammar of other bdms how is it different I mean um

because it's about the game it's not about the theme right this is what similar to what uh what Anand was saying and now shaking it but it is about the game right I mean you just agreed on that so um I don't believe that it is only about that I think team plays a very strong role because someone of the same mechanics will play as somebody will play Halo but will not play Call of Duty and they like it's because of the theme uh it's because I I I like science fiction but I don't like to play World War Games themes are important they're not all important not play Call of Duty because they don't think it's as maybe but I'm just say yeah but it's not a nonissue it is not theme is not a nonissue it is a strong issue and it is an important issue so can I just uh just say a couple of things from in terms of what we have learnings from uh we're seeing some fairly good numbers from simple uh games that we've been releasing on say hip messenger we're seeing hundreds of

thousands of plays and we're seeing a strong difference in uh uh uh you know uh games that like the same game uh they simple games they like quizzes or guessing games and stuff like that so not they're not really uh uh in terms of like mechanics based games like you guys are talking about and that's a different story but the exact same um the kind of the same kind of game is seeing dramatically different uh adoption raise and retention just based on things because because the grammar is equal uh because the grammar is equal in both Sid then your theme on top of that makes a differentiator and I agree I agree it will make a differentiator once your grammar is better than everything else that is in the market so you have to compete with the uh the international players at that at the game play stage first before you can slap on a theme which will um take it to the next level for the Indian audience it depends on see if you're talking about the Indian

audience the buring Indian audence guys are using the phone for the first time guys you're using a game for the first time see I just think that you need to make games uh which you don't have to teach anything you don't teach anything the most successful game that we did was a game which had no tutorial like nothing no yellow arrows I hate those like bouncing here this that click here click there so um we did a game with none of that and that was our most successful game so whether it is theme or mechanics the mechanics need to be simple for that audience if you're talking about a hardcore audience who's used to playing other games and stuffff that's a different story but if you're looking at Mass Market games just make super simple stuff mechanics have to be super simple clean easy to understand theme has to be easy to understand something that they're already familiar with something that they feel comfortable with I don't think it's a so so guys there are two from the discussion two clear segments which are emerging if you were to look at India one is the segment which you're talking about which is exposed to International Quality of gaming expects the same quality uh knows how to go and discover for those games is driven by a lot of your leaderboards etc etc and there is

another segment which is going to be emerging or emerged which is non mobile internet savy not internet savy mobile is the first point have never played games I think the behaviors are very going to be very very different for these two segments and I think one of the thing which I really understand from this panel is that you got to make choices on which segment are you trying to make your game for and if you're trying to make game for a global oriented exposed segment then you don't need to just live it for IND then you can make a game which is a global standards Global game because then it's a game it's a game and I absolutely agree theme will allow you to get downloaded but if the game sucks the game sucks theme can't do anything about it so but the the my my kind of one of the thing which I wanted to really uh understand more the is the second segment of audience which if you kind of see around us which is kind of really coming to mobile ecosystem very fast very thick are there any thoughts on which what kind of games what kind of mechanisms what kind of things or what

can be simple checklists which we should really think of uh and while we are really kind of planning to do that or if you think that's not the segment too early that's also fine I'm saying then kind of focus on the first segment and think about if we were to some do it that there are green shoots and or somebody wants to take a risk of when uh but wants to make games what are the things which they should keep in mind while they are really creating those games for India so I think from my perspective uh if you look at the second set of audience uh were just entering Ultra casual localized and uh social if if a develop takes care of these three parameters I think you can really reach out to that audience does the language play a part in that a language does play that it's related to those the language in which they actually using the phone but at some point sure so so language as well as the Thematic part of it right

I from a theme perspective what might appeal to say a person gazabad may not to somebody in coaching because this culture so it has so a localize it it's not just language it's also contextually how relevant it is the US so the whole concept of solo which is soci that you come into play and um no I um I I agree um there is you know I mean for for the uh the natives out there uh who for this this is the first uh uh internet accessible game game medium there is content that they they'll have to uh you know that that will be relevant only for them um and that right so I mean if you can get the right level of game play and I'm going to put that cavat and everything you can get it because you know you are competing with the candy crushes and as long as the Candy Crush are you really

competing and that's that's a question are you really competing those audience may not even aware of what Candy Crash is they will never start Google Play Store is a question which I'm saying because the local OEM has something embedded or a local OEM App Store and whatever is available what they consume but then that's a distribution problem right that's not distri cont problem I mean if you're saying that when in the old days of the wall Gardens where the distribution was limited to only what you're seeing in on the two TV set for example right then that's all you have to watch right and that's all you have to access today if the availability is there it's a it's a if question that he's not going to visit the Google Play Store but then he has equal likelihood of visiting the Google Play Store than visiting the local stores or the embedded things simple question like if you talk to microa they will tell you how many games are getting downloaded of their App Store right and if you talk to Google Play We will also know sure and it's not the ratio

difference is of 100 is to 1 it is also not 50 is to1 so the local app store for that phone for that phone yes yes of course so the point I'm trying to make is microx if gets X number of downloads and Google play gets y number correct they could be in these in the not very very difference in magnitude now the point which I'm trying to make sh is that the guys which are still early majority of mobile internet I'm not even talking about late majority which is going to come in future they're still consuming from Micromax or lava or carbon their app stores and in spite of Google Play and all of it then do you think what is the reason for them to go to those app stores I have no idea exactly why would they go to their stores exactly my point um do they go to their stores big time yes can you share I I can't share with them would I make game for numbers which I don't know what they are like why would I make a game for an audience I don't

know how much they're going to pay I don't know if they exist I don't know how many of them are going to go to Google versus going to this thing so it just doesn't add for is it is it the lack of information which which will which will form a lack of strategy for that elment so if the information was available will you consum yes okay this information sure so I my job would be to separately one-onone get you the information let's do it because because those are the Realties and and I need to why I'm not sharing I need to check with those guys that's the only reason why I'm yes 1 minute um so yes so shoot uh so this question is for Anor and Rishi can also go for it but he's not sure whether is can go for it yeah if you want to you can so you saying

theme is important and uh you're saying game play is important uh and in my opinion yes I agree with I'm saying both are important I didn't say only one so both are important so the question goes if today the Candy Crush quality is available as nula sweets with Jiles nadas and kajuk Le will it sell more if yes why if no why um yeah I think it will make a small difference uh for the thing in like I can talk about our audience like for hike users in B towns and C towns uh it would definitely be more easy for them to relate to that stuff and have a better emotional bond with the game for sure but the game play of Candy Crush is what is going to hold them in that for longer but that emotional connect like I mean look if Mike did not put in the story in Thomas Was Alone right with those they're just rectangles that's all they are but because they thas and LC or I don't remember the names but that added uh that added so much of emotional heft to

solving those puzzles and it will have a role now is it just natal is it just changing the Sprites to Indian sweets or if you have a character who's talking to you in Hindi in vacular I believe it will make a difference some difference to the emotional connect experience so that's my question is exactly the same game maybe King himself will they make a significant difference in that question because that's what we talking about right imagination of the player what is significant now now you have talk numbers chras 10x no no 10x what 10x downloads in R I don't know these are things you have to try it's difficult for me to just say yes or no here right will it make a 10x difference that's just like cheting in the dark but what your opinion yeah in my opinion in our Market if I put a game you know seeing some n sweet thing in my Bon and seon Market it will make a significant difference to the number of downloads I get from that icon there has been some I can't remember the source I'll dig it out which just show the the just a

simple localization does have a significant effect but it's probably more like one a half X than it is 10 so I don't know about how many X but it will make I believe it will make a strong difference I also agree um and I agree with you H that all things being equal the game play being exactly equal King themselves create the Indian version of it then it will make a difference the point is King has to whoever is doing the development has to create that game play of exactly the same quality as everything else and then all the other execution factors and the Matic fa factors can come on top of that and then it will make a difference for retention but for installs even the icon T sweet will it yes yes it will yeah okay guys guys guys questions please hello yeah yeah yep y cool um and it does I I do localization it makes a massive difference even just the language we found pass it depends on you know how important obviously story is important for our game or whatever um so my question is um

you're talking a lot about uh Indian culture in games and kind of putting that content in it's something that's happening in the UK as well what I'm interested about though is we're starting to see games in the west that are using the cultural relevance of the country they're from so an example be never alone is an in developed game it's had massive success in in Europe and America because of that that cultural identity all with with this stuff is a potential for a KnockOn effect of a game that is very specifically Indian breaking out uh worldwide I I I I was while you were talking I was trying to think of an Indian indie game in the in that I've heard of and they're not crossing over I'm interested in whether you think there's things you can do to to to take advantage of that situation I think that's what I'm most interested in actually uh we sadly don't have the budgets to pursue some of the ideas we have which probably do that but uh that I I believe that's the best chance we have like use what's unique to us and like present it in a way that's

appealing to not just the not just here but also to the West so I I agree and that's what we hope to do someday it's it's it's yeah and and we obviously we also have a a large uh Indian population in the UK so Hollywood films do very well within a niche in in the UK so it seems like there's definitely cultural potential there last question guys so all of you hey guys this is from so all of you guys talked about team as well as game play uh in my opinion one of the biggest problems that any developers still face especially who are making games for India is also visibility right like the Western audience has a very different way of getting to content they explore content through YouTube they explore content through a lot of channels on the internet itself whereas Indian audience has a very different tastes in terms of how they access that content so

especially this is for Tiny mobile guys as that how what do you guys do to reach out to audience like this which have a different way of discovering content on it's very simple for us our focus is uh just doing with hike what other Messengers have done in other parts of the world so we are using hike as our Discovery and as our distribution uh platform for for games uh how we do that is like a longer thing and I can about that question is about 3D animation films which quite a part also uh my basic question is I want to ask about why Indian animation film industry had failed to produce a blockbuster but still we are waiting for Blockbuster 3D animation movie after K I think you're you're in a wrong panel wrong Forum I will correct you with the right person there will be gentlemen Ashish Kar I'll personally take you and please ask him as much as you want absolutely

WR for on that happy note thank you guys I thoroughly enjoyed guys uh I write for Forbes Mashable Tech crunch whatever all these Ty places so I know a little bit about m games but I also used to live in India 2008 to 2010 uh before that I worked for a mobile game to aggregator called player x uh and we had the fortunate um experience of failing 51 games by a company that produced really rubbish games and we failed every single one of them because of the bugs and the QA and we failed the 52nd game unfortunately for us and my family that game was Angry Birds so that's that's my lack of authority so um so we did some stuff in India 2007 um there wasn't much going on in the smartphone market or the iPhone Market it was skewed uh unfair to develop Market as I'm sure you remember lived here from 2008 to

2010 I became a Bollywood film star in the second year so uh I was hanging out on all these Bollywood guys was just black Brees uh TOA pone never go out for a drink her she's absolutely appalling person um but no one pass absolute sweetheart lovely girl sh man good guy um but we used we I did about 50 days filming and we used to talk late late into the night when there was a snake on set or something like that um about content and whether they could move into a different Market where they could go to Hollywood and they said there's no chance of us to go to Hollywood we're always going to be cast as Italians or really really in you know what I mean their words not mine uh and at that time I was consultant for Paramount in LA and noia and all types of stuff so I know a lot about the market 5 years ago not so much now just been judging uh 20 different developers amazing amazing stuff so tapping into

India for a great opportunity we did that7 we were a bit early to the market we done a lot of video um so that's my alleged Authority in this area the three gentlemen I'm with obviously got more brains than I have so if you introduce yourself from left to right then we'll start some questions and maybe make it a bit spicy before we go to the par hi guys I'm from Ruby Studios so I I've been in the gaming industry in in India from 2006 uh in the previous alar we watch i games uh we used to do Outsource content in 2011 we started doing our own IP and you know we used to publish to third party Publishers 2012 we of you know pivoted again and we started publishing our own games and it's Ru Studios and we we concentrate on Social Casino space uh as far as India is concerned you know we we've been tapping India for only for Tal and for the so many years we haven't really tried to cater to the customers

here you know we used to have a game called Cricket Master Blaster a lot of players never monetized uh you know I might want to go back and look at it now now that there is some monetization coming in and the whole ecosystem is falling in place but as of now we concentrate on the social casinos space the AUD uh um we license contents from L know make them release it mostly the um the monetization comes from us Europe and Australia thank you stud uh till about March 2014 we were bashed B India but we were taken over by GSN TVN games so we are a group of uh about six Studios now globally and we've got games uh out of India which is uh Bingo Bash and SL bash and then we have other casual games from our other different Studios globally uh right now Bingo Bash is one of the successful product which um is brought up born and

brought up in India obviously the market is not Indian but the concept everything is Indian uh we right now have 5 million muu and a daily revenue of more than half a million dollars and uh right now we have got a lot of pipeline because being a part of GSN there's a lot of growth opportunity which is why we are over here to talk about you know what GSM is looking at what bingo looking at and what B looking at so hopefully I'll be able to answer any questions uh my name is Oliver Jones uh co-founder director of moonfrog labs which is I believe the the youngest company on the panel uh having started 20134 uh we make games specifically for the IND Market uh We've made a game called team party gold which is like a three for India uh my background I originally came from Zinga I been in India years I think uh the indiia kind of accepted me as one of the uh as for snake stories I can't

think I can top Monty but there was was once once a uh snake in the moonfog office uh when we first started out but thankfully our office manager used to be a snake ccher so yeah it ended well thank so tapping into India for growing opportunities seems to me almost what the previous panel yeah were kind of you know wonderfully disgusting like we're going to have a fight fun state so tapping into for for for opportunity to me seem this great opportunity has lasted got a long time you know what I mean and the maturation of the m g industry whe whatever know sector is seems to be finally happening you know so I would take that question tapping into India for very opportunity I would look at that as non companies moving into the space so sir what do you think that I think this is a great time for the Indian industry and uh if we talk about 2 years before

there's not much visibility of what India can do and can produce and now we have companies like Zing Rio entering over here we have GSN who has just entered they really want to expand they really want to tap the right talent and I've been in the industry for the last 15 years I know there's a lot of talent out there but it's not explored yet and is it that because um we were competing directly with Market that are hardcore console games nobody thought that casual Market is huge and then India has that Talent we have got great companies like vro uh right now sorry sitting sitting next to me with a lot of potential so I'm sure uh this huge chall out there which you want to tap into lot of great ideas downstairs that we saw and it is the right time to and and the right place to be in I ask you a question what do you think it's held India back you think it's been held back by operators or

distribution or marketing or so you know if you if you really look back you know uh I've been a part of tasom forums for the past you know from 2005 6 and we we been hearing that India will start monetizing the next year the whole ecosystem will take you know all in place The Operators will uh you know will start giving us better Revenue sh and everything and we all tried you know and somebody was saying at the right place at the right time I think you know they are at the right place at the right time uh so now you know I was talking to somebody and they said know already The Operators uh you know the carer building as is is coming to much better rates and you know things like that so the whole ecosystem is slowly falling in place of course the development ecosystem was there of course we used to CER to Western audience with West Western sensibilities were lacking a little bit so now we have a whole bunch of kids if you want to get to Western audience also have grown playing up games you know so you know so so the whole thing you know

now now if you go to a campus and recruit uh people also you know you you don't have to teach them what about gaming they have done that you know but when we were there some maybe five five or seven or eight years back you know we have to you know we used to even get them into a room and make them play games and then make make them So eventually we had to we were dependent on Western designers and stuff like that so those kind of things are no more needed so that yeah came here for her maybe you to understand an Indian audience is a bigger challenge than you know we understanding abely opportunity is 1.1 billion peoplea that's a local market opportunity yeah well Ur Market um joke um but but but the whole I think that the movement from Western in tury has been and I think it's been that 1.1

billion that's given the you know to do it but I don't see any companies that have done that particular well you mean Western companies trying to localize cont localization is I think probably saw on the other panel question okay well I haven't seen too many like recently what big companies have really come to India like the last year Disney whatney Disney we have e we have did they come in the last year not last year they been they've been but what I'm seeing is a lot more new company actually starting out at least in Bangalore I been they off the off my had like four or five companies yeah we have an office in paa which is a great City with great talent great people I mean I like ask a question I known much about over the last five or six years why has Android I mean it comes down to what is the

lowest bar te price point point and uh Apple I think has been more uh forthcoming where Google has step back a bit and then maybe today today's morning session we had a good discussion where they want to step up and they want to make sure that they have their presence for so that flash point will will make so I go back to the point of growing opportunity you're saying it's an exploding opportunity it is tell me why I still don't know why opportun taket tal opportun there's the local indry opportun there's the creative opportunity the investment opportunity it's just all of these things together creating an overall and you think it's the investors that pushing them companies that come NPCs ecosystem two years back we did not have the eem now we have the costs are obviously lower which is a very uh crucial point for success of the game so

the costs are lowering down people are getting more mature they've got uh you know 3 four years back with there were a handful of developers people want from I wanted to get into software now they see a new realm that they can explore into so you know a typical Indian fellow someone like me from Old School my dad would say why do you want to get into gaming what is gaming but now people want to get into gaming so that ecosystem has been built a lot of companies they are they want new Talent they don't want to you know maybe they don't want to hire a deal they want to hire people who are passion to play games so if you want to make games and you you're passionate about it play games and come and join us you don't have to have a degree for it and that's what western C was uh and it's still now so games are because they're entertaining it does not matter who you are or what you are and then what I've seen is that games is the only medium that gets everyone together and that is what social gaming has done so with with console yeah I might not get a PS4 available in India very easily but I do have my smartphone and I can talk to

anybody across glob and say okay would you want to playay with me and and that's I'd answer question for my person I did a series of Articles of Mashable about tech hubs in the world and this silly Silicon Valley emulation which is completely ridiculous um and I did it in Nairobi and I did it in Batar and I did which kind of city in India becoming a of develop those is it go down is it Bangalore is itad Pune Bangalore G to some extent yes but again it's it's where the talent is and right now we are in a space where Talent is good to move so so it doesn't matter so you don't think you need a Civic no we if you ask me we been in for yeah so so so we we uh 3 4 years back we almost fished an entire office in back decided against it maybe because

you know we we thought that we were we were able to find cheaper and better talent and less atation in kin kind of and even today you know I'm pretty confident that I can feel an entire office the people from there so so the ecosystem is being built up for an education okay what do you think about any new mobile games companies you think they're trying to exit you think what do you think they're they're trying to exit they're happy to sell I want to just build prop some of them would want to stay and and and grow and make that ecosystem lucrative for everyone some of them is just there for the business side of thing where they want to build get a good IP and then maybe sell it so it it it depends and it's on the longivity all depends on the ecosystem how well the big players play we talk about Roo we talk about Zinga I'm very sure with you know the kind of when that has come in in Moon FR they will soon start looking for talent so it should be you know if there is a small IND group with good

talent they will go out and definitely pick up we are def that's the way look at it it's not just it's not just technology it's anything that is there out there good ideas we want to take that we Pi that up we want to work with you guys we want to make sure that the ecosystem is build in that that way that everybody grows and so we grow well all of will be point have come to India toiv at the opportunities Oliver what are your first thoughts this first year yeah uh what What's your opinion of the whole ecosystem um so as I discussed before um lots of gaming companies in right now and I think a lot of people who are forming those companies are people to left the larger multinationals and we' decided to sort of make things from start to finish inside and for me that's the most exciting opportunity in Curr so uh and it's also

a creative uh sort of enabling like designers can now really start getting into the ear process I like to think of India actually is a what's the square kilometer it's like 3 3.6 million square km I like to think of that entire space is a FL C the the players kind of saying for how Games should behave so for a creative person so many opportunities there to R Define how games will be played inut so that's the creative opportunity so they tapping into India for growing opportunity I mean I've I've Just Seen 20 developers show me their games you know brettly broad Church of the stuff that they showed me from someone that didn't have a business card to someone that didn't have any idea of money to a pretty reasonably you know mature company with a track that called Roso failed games

and all that stuff so a lot of the stuff I've seen have been physics based mathematical based as opposed to puzzle B which all you sir which areas do you think that the the Indian came in using what are they interested in sh them up yeah so you know what I have traditionally seen as uh you know traditionally we all used to play picket games you know so uh India games used to make it you know Disney went on to make that you know we used to have cricket games after that if you really look at it uh you know people used to sell Ramy as a game of skill and you know they used to really monetize Ramy you know real money ramy's on 2 three Ry Circle and all those people now I think OCT and non frogs has again played on to the team which is again the camping J kind of so Indians traditionally you know have a gamling tendency to that you know I know you know absolutely yeah even though we we all make casual casino games they believe that casual casino is the only opportunity

exact as I said Jon as well though we are in Casino space but we want to explore different genres and different typ of games and in India the best part is that people play all type of games is we have got people who are hardcore NFS fans we got people I am a God of War fan I still want to play God of any day and I still want to go back to console but the point is that uh do we have the infrastructure to get into console gaming maybe not in India right now but do we have the gaming Niche or gaming Market it definitely have absolutely so there's no just there's no one play there are various kind of I think India is a very typers place and there are especially what we found up in a lot of people love gambling but you know there it's a larger population you have one of the questions for conversations that was having earlier was our India is just like the West Was 10 or 15 years ago which I find a little bit offensive um and and well you can tell me I spent a

lot of time in Africa over the last three or four years and the whole nature of the philosophy of piggy back piggybacking on the mistakes of the West and then you know going straight to mobile without leaving it into L cable and going straight into a you know feature phone Plus Market and all that stuff what do you think what do you think India is creating what's coming out of India are they are they literally behind or are you behind I think there is an influence definitely I will not say no but again I've been a part of games that are for India and have been made in India like Hanuman I was I produced Hanuman I've done a lot of games that are Indian content for the IND Market the market is as I said was not ready then but I'm sure if the content is there the quality is there we are ready and uh we have and even in my the previous discussion that we had they've got a lot of St to tell we are we are storytellers we are bluffers we Bluff to any any any given stuff we

Bluff yeah that's fine we can Bluff on or we can Bluff on and and and I Wasing the last question was these are the traditionally this is what we have seen at the world but that's not the limit and people have experimented on different games but maybe the mar we were too early for the market but now that the whole ecosystem and the bus is there might be relaunching the whole thing used to lot of new players in the market who want to explore who want to exploit which is a good thing we were never explored and exploited tell me about The Operators how they get they being supportive or they being a hindrance what are they what are they doing um again bear in mind that operators never come to shows yeah they don't yeah they don't again it's hard for business for them so they for them it's app or game it doesn't matter for them for us as we call it ourselves as Gamers we would

want more game support like today also marketing support uh visibility uh if we are not making Indi G we don't get relig that is where we want them to help the IND G that is where people downstairs that are you know burning their hands off they want to be they want to be known they want to be heard they want to be showcase so these guys can showcas them okay and and get those on board men there got a few developers out there so we're going to take couple questions because we're really late any advice from you so on the left coming inwards for Indian game developers what should they be doing I would say that this the right time at the right place kind of so if anybody wants to start up and you know maybe you should Target the Indian market and forget about maybe monetization show some traction H the investors they will put it m pretty sure it's going to be a h mentality with lot of investors also so they would want to see some downloads not real revenues but

you know then you hit the market you should get real cont so what I think the more you play the more you learn and best it's defitely Market games us is a lot like how Taxi aggreg they're trying to find they're trying to find as many users as possible and that's the so I think we're you're still talking you were on the panel before you should have stopped talking any questions give us a question you just you you like so um just uh a question for um you know OE and jugal and stuff you said you wanted to read visit some uh stuff that you're going back to games that we we kind of gave up on and we're going back to and with you I mean despite the

success of uh you know the tee py and Bingo and stuff can you uh what are the like a couple of bets that you're taking on what kind of stuff that you think will work I mean you don't have to really be specific but more in terms of broadly what kind of uh stuff that you're looking at um so I think you can take uh mechanics things that uh India is familiar with and then you can bring new genres into it uh to put as vaguely as I and I think there's a lot of potential there I don't think T is going to fire you if you say something a little more specific in thate more questions before we get to the pub well me and you were coming to the for sure Oscar you tell me what we're doing we need to unfortunately call it so say thank you very much

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