Sun Microsystems, Paradox Studios Hook Up

[Arun 795]

CyberMedia News, May 06, 2004

Sun Microsystems has announced that it is teaming up with Paradox Studios Pvt. Ltd, a Reliance group company to boost the market for gaming in India and further propagate the adoption of J2ME amongst the Indian gaming developer community.

The mutually beneficial tie-up will see Sun partnering with Paradox Studios, a game development company on technology innovations for the gaming industry as well as opening up global markets for Paradox to further propagate their J2ME based games.

Sun Microsystems India, Director for Telecom, Kapil Sood said, "Using Java technology for game development means faster time to market, instant cross-platform portability, fewer bugs to contend with and the promise to open new revenue streams with networked games built for Java technology-enabled mobile phones, consoles and PDAs. Through these industry alliances Sun is helping to create a world of connectivity where people can play whenever and wherever they wish, through a network computing infrastructure that scales to support millions of simultaneous users across a variety of devices."

"This tie-up with Sun will help us to leverage Sun's vast technical expertise in helping gaming developers across the world as well as opening up new markets for Paradox across the world," said Paradox Studios, CEO, Anurag Khurana.

"The Java environment is brilliant for providing stability and enabling people to have access from a multitude of devices, enabling developers to reach much larger audiences than ever before without having to port applications. There is an industry-wide movement towards Java technology-based game development and we believe that our partnership with Sun would immensely benefit this fast growing industry in India" Khurana added.

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http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20030210/focus1.shtml

Even though the game development industry in India is small, it is interesting to note the efforts made by companies trying to make a mark. One of the earliest players was Dhruva, established in 1997. The company has two divisions, one for 3D games and the other for mobile games. The former division develops games for gaming consoles and for the PC, while the latter develops games for mobile devices. While this looks like an effort similar to any other game development company, the reason Dhruva’s case is laudable is due to the efficient use of the limited resources at its disposal, and its constant climb up the value chain. For instance, during 1997-98, the company mainly invested in R&D, which included building its own 3D engine technology and developing core competencies in various disciplines like Art, Technology and Design. The company also spent a lot of time and effort in understanding business dynamics and building contacts and relationships with international players in publishing and development. The R&D phase culminated in the company’s first game demo, which was displayed to many key international players. At the Infogrames headquarters, the company ran the demo for Eric Mottet, one of the co-founders of Infogrames, who was then the head of worldwide development. He was impressed with the demo, and Dhruva’s initiative of trying to create a world-class game development studio in India. Subsequent discussions with Infogrames resulted in Dhruva being signed on for developing the PC version of Mission:Impossible, a title which had earlier proved hugely successful for Infogrames on the Nintendo 64 platform. Dhruva, thus became the first Indian game developer to be hired by a major international publisher to develop a game title, signalling its entry on the international stage.

Over the last three years, the company has built a strong reputation in the global game development community and is highly respected for its capabilities. This can be seen from the game titles that Dhruva has worked on. Says Rao, “This year, two of the games that Dhruva worked on were released in international markets. These are Geoff Grammond’s Grand Prix 4 (PC) published by Infogrames, and TOCA Pro Race Driver (PS2) published by Codemasters.

Both games are highly successful. We are currently working on four big titles. Two of these games are racing games (one for Xbox, the other for the PS2/Xbox), one is an action game based on a very popular Hollywood franchise (PS2, Xbox, PC), and one is a simulation game for the PC.” Another feather was added to Dhruva’s cap when Mottet’s investment company made an equity investment in it.

The other important player in the Indian game development space is Delhi-based Escosoft. While software makers are talking about developing games for international game majors, this company is looking at building its own game engine (the software on which games are developed). Currently, game development companies are required to pay huge royalties to game engine companies. By developing India’s own game engine, Escosoft can offer game developers a much more cost-effective option.

Players like Paradox are also rapidly making their mark in game development. Though the company is involved in the development of games for various platforms, Paradox’s core expertise lies in multi-player gaming. The company has also built a large game portfolio with more than 100 games developed. Besides, Paradox is also actively looking at the wireless segment, which is believed to be the next big segment in the game development space after video games. Says Khurana, “Indian companies can make a mark in the wireless domain since the market is vast, and the cost of development and time required for the same is considerably less compared to other domains. Since wireless device specifications are changing at a very rapid pace, the possibilities of making games for the same keep on changing. Indian companies can provide these games at a lower cost without compromising on quality. Also, since there is a large pool of qualified developers, it is possible for us to make a mark in this space quickly.” Paradox is also working on developing a action-based 3D game title called BattleDust: The Championship.

One player whose strategies look strikingly similar to those of other Indian software product companies is Mumbai-based Indiagames. Says Vishal Gondal, its chief executive officer, “We have two revenue models: services and products. Though we derive around 80 percent of our revenues from developing and licensing our products, we realised that if products are the jam of our business, then services are our bread and butter. We have tried to implement a combination of both, so that while products allow us to innovate, services provide us the required stability.” On the products side, the company has created India’s first 3D game, Yoddha. On the services side, the company’s focus is on three main segments, advergames, console gaming and wireless gaming. Advergames refers to a segment where companies look at enhancing their brand image by employing games to hook the user to a particular brand. These games are not restricted to the Net and can be deployed offline, on media like kiosks.

In addition, there are players like Milestone Interactive Software developing games for the international market on the PS2, PC and Xbox platform.