With more Indians buying touch and internet-enabled mobile phones, the device has slowly changed from being a mere calling device to a gaming platform. This opens an avenue for students across India who want to enter the field of game development, but might not have much money to invest in it.
Two youngsters from Delhi realised that their iPhone was much more than a phone when they found that their phones could do much more than make calls and browse the web. They immediately developed an application,iMO, which converted their simple phone into a wireless controller to play PC games. The app even won the best presentation award at techcruch50, an event in the US attended my major venture capitalists.
According to Ratish Babu, CEO of Access Atlantic Edutainment, it’s definitely good for people who’re looking for a start: “If students want to get into game development professionally, they can surely start with mobile devices and later on graduate to console games and PC gaming. If they want to develop games for mobile devices like theiPhone they need to be quite professional about it. Some game developers have teams churning out three to four games a month for mobile platforms for only then will it be profitable,” he says.
Indiagames has been developing games for mobile platforms since 2002 and recently announced that their cricket-based games have been downloaded around 10-million times.
According to Samir Bangara, COO, Indiagames, they started off developing games as a service and shifted to the job of a publisher later on. “A mobile platform is definitely a good place to start for students. To develop a game for iPhone one doesn’t need deep pockets, there are lots of moms and pops who have made great apps on that platform,” he says.
“Indiagames develops games for mobile devices based on Bollywood movies like Quick Gun Murugan, Kaminey, etc and they provide better return to investment than PC and console gaming in India. For high quality games, we take from six to 14 months with a six member team. Also, the cost of development ranges from 10-20 lakh on an average,” he adds.
Varun Shabari, a freelance designer, likes playing games while on the move and spends around two hours a day gaming on his phone. “I like racing games a lot and my favourite is Fast n Furious on my iPhone. Of the many I have played, only FnF has actually adapted to the perfect iPhone UI, even in terms of accelerometer,” he says.
“On iPhone, even the ported versions of popular PC and console games look and feel great. Even the best games take the path of minimalist controls, yet giving the same user experience with an awesome accelerometer. And though I have not brought any game, they’re very reasonably priced,” he adds.
Comments