My First Trip to India
Hyderabad, India
At the Game Developers' conference earlier this year, I was passing through my hotel lobby on my way to the Dutch game developers' party with some friends (unlimited free Heineken!), when I was stopped by a handsome young Indian fellow. "Hello," he said. "I'm Rajesh Rao, the CEO of Dhruva Interactive. I've been hoping I would run into you. We want to ask you to come to India and speak at a conference."
I don't know whether he had actually tracked me to my hotel, or it was a chance meeting, but I was delighted. I have wanted to visit India for years, and I've written about how I think game developers should make more use of its culture and heritage in video games. I felt obliged to stay with my Dutch friends, so I expressed strong interest to Rajesh and hurried off, hoping that he wasn't offended that I left so quickly.
I needn't have worried. Later in the summer Rajesh got back in touch and we started to make arrangements. I was to deliver a keynote address on the second day of the NASSCOM Animation and Gaming Summit. This event started off a few years ago as a pure animation event, and in fact my colleague Chris Bateman had already given a keynote there before, but this would be the first time they had ever devoted a whole day just to games. We talked on the phone about the content of the keynote, and now that I have delivered it, it's available online for you to read.
Because this was our big chance to see India, my wife and I decided to go together and to visit some more of the country after the conference was over, but that's a separate story. We flew from London to Hyderabad via Munich, arrived very late at night, and were met by a car from our hotel. Fortunately it's November, and so not too hot in India -- neither of us likes the heat much. We went from Hyderabad's brand-new glittering airport to its brand-new glittering convention center in Hitec city, and put up in the fancy Novotel hotel, which is certainly the equal of any in the West.
We actually arrived two days early because of flight scheduling issues, but I had been in touch with another Indian developer, Prakash Ahuja, the CEO of Gameshastra. They're primarily a service company doing outsource work for the West, but recently they have started to develop their own games, and Prakash asked me to visit on one of my free days before the conference. I had expected this to be a simple meet-and-greet, but they sent a car and one of their senior people to pick us both up and take us to their offices in Banjara Hills, a prosperous district of Hyderabad. Upon our arrival we lit an oil lamp with several wicks -- a traditional gesture of welcome and greeting -- and were each give enormous garlands of fragrant flowers.
We took a good look at Gameshastra's new games, including a number that are specific to the region -- Kabaddi, bullock-cart racing, one about a mythical Indian hero whose name I have, alas, forgotten, and a casual Wii game of village cricket. Indians are mad for cricket; it's even more popular than soccer, which surprises me as it requires more equipment. There was also a meeting with the design teams and a tour of the facilities. It looked like any Western company's offices but for a few things. India has so much wonderful stone that the floors in the stairwell were all of dark-green marble. I don't have any pictures of Gameshastra, unfortunately -- they took a lot of pictures of me, but not I of them.
The next day Gameshastra loaned us one of their employees, Jayadev Yalavarti, their VP of IT services, as a tour guide while we went to visit one of the local sights, Golconda Fort. It's not just a fort, but a huge walled city, now ruinous. We only saw a fraction of it all. Golconda was once the capital of the local Qutb kingdom, constructed to defend against the Mughal empire to the north. Golconda was also the source of so many precious stones -- diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and so on, found in nearby rivers -- that the name itself was synonymous with wealth for several centuries. Jayadev was very knowledgeable and graciously tolerated several hundred questions about Indian history and Hinduism. We bought him lunch by way of thanks.
The next day was the first day of the conference, and while Mary Ellen went into Hyderabad to shop for clothing, I stayed and learned about the Indian animation industry. That evening there was a big buffet dinner for all the attendees -- Indian food, mostly, but a few dishes suited to the Western palate as well. I'm very fond of Indian food as long as it's not too hot, and I think they must have toned it down for our sakes.
My keynote was the following morning, and it seemed to be very well-received. Rajesh had asked me to keep it practical, so my theme was making the transition from outsource work, which many Indian companies do, to developing intellectual property for themselves. Afterwards large numbers of people wanted to talk to me, and I collected up about fifty business cards.
India's game industry is small but has huge potential. As I noted in my talk, the richest 25% of 1.2 billion people -- the population of India -- is equivalent to the entire population of the United States. Nobody in the West is making games for the Indian market, so it's clear they're going to have to make them for themselves... as indeed they should. Their biggest problem is not money but attitudes. Indians are a very studious people, anxious to better themselves, and video games are seen by many as a frivolous waste of time.
We left well before dawn the next morning, on the next leg of a journey that took us to the great Mughal palaces and fortifications of Udaipur, Jaipur, and Agra, and ended with (of course) the fabulous Taj Mahal itself, all pearly-grey in the morning mist.
I'm more grateful than I can express to Rajesh Rao of Dhruva Interactive, and the good folks at NASSCOM who organized the conference, especially Shruti Verma who handled our travel arrangements; and to Prakash Ahuja, Sonia Nair, Rama Krishna Raju, and Jayadev Yalavarti of Gameshastra for their wonderful hospitality and the gift of so much time and help on our first couple of days in India.
At the Game Developers' conference earlier this year, I was passing through my hotel lobby on my way to the Dutch game developers' party with some friends (unlimited free Heineken!), when I was stopped by a handsome young Indian fellow. "Hello," he said. "I'm Rajesh Rao, the CEO of Dhruva Interactive. I've been hoping I would run into you. We want to ask you to come to India and speak at a conference."I don't know whether he had actually tracked me to my hotel, or it was a chance meeting, but I was delighted. I have wanted to visit India for years, and I've written about how I think game developers should make more use of its culture and heritage in video games. I felt obliged to stay with my Dutch friends, so I expressed strong interest to Rajesh and hurried off, hoping that he wasn't offended that I left so quickly.I needn't have worried. Later in the summer Rajesh got back in touch and we started to make arrangements. I was to deliver a keynote address on the second day of the NASSCOM Animation and Gaming Summit. This event started off a few years ago as a pure animation event, and in fact my colleague Chris Bateman had already given a keynote there before, but this would be the first time they had ever devoted a whole day just to games. We talked on the phone about the content of the keynote, and now that I have delivered it, it's available online for you to read.
Because this was our big chance to see India, my wife and I decided to go together and to visit some more of the country after the conference was over, but that's a separate story. We flew from London to Hyderabad via Munich, arrived very late at night, and were met by a car from our hotel. Fortunately it's November, and so not too hot in India -- neither of us likes the heat much. We went from Hyderabad's brand-new glittering airport to its brand-new glittering convention center in Hitec city, and put up in the fancy Novotel hotel, which is certainly the equal of any in the West.
We actually arrived two days early because of flight scheduling issues, but I had been in touch with another Indian developer, Prakash Ahuja, the CEO of Gameshastra. They're primarily a service company doing outsource work for the West, but recently they have started to develop their own games, and Prakash asked me to visit on one of my free days before the conference. I had expected this to be a simple meet-and-greet, but they sent a car and one of their senior people to pick us both up and take us to their offices in Banjara Hills, a prosperous district of Hyderabad. Upon our arrival we lit an oil lamp with several wicks -- a traditional gesture of welcome and greeting -- and were each give enormous garlands of fragrant flowers.We took a good look at Gameshastra's new games, including a number that are specific to the region -- Kabaddi, bullock-cart racing, one about a mythical Indian hero whose name I have, alas, forgotten, and a casual Wii game of village cricket. Indians are mad for cricket; it's even more popular than soccer, which surprises me as it requires more equipment. There was also a meeting with the design teams and a tour of the facilities. It looked like any Western company's offices but for a few things. India has so much wonderful stone that the floors in the stairwell were all of dark-green marble. I don't have any pictures of Gameshastra, unfortunately -- they took a lot of pictures of me, but not I of them.
The next day Gameshastra loaned us one of their employees, Jayadev Yalavarti, their VP of IT services, as a tour guide while we went to visit one of the local sights, Golconda Fort. It's not just a fort, but a huge walled city, now ruinous. We only saw a fraction of it all. Golconda was once the capital of the local Qutb kingdom, constructed to defend against the Mughal empire to the north. Golconda was also the source of so many precious stones -- diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and so on, found in nearby rivers -- that the name itself was synonymous with wealth for several centuries. Jayadev was very knowledgeable and graciously tolerated several hundred questions about Indian history and Hinduism. We bought him lunch by way of thanks.The next day was the first day of the conference, and while Mary Ellen went into Hyderabad to shop for clothing, I stayed and learned about the Indian animation industry. That evening there was a big buffet dinner for all the attendees -- Indian food, mostly, but a few dishes suited to the Western palate as well. I'm very fond of Indian food as long as it's not too hot, and I think they must have toned it down for our sakes.
My keynote was the following morning, and it seemed to be very well-received. Rajesh had asked me to keep it practical, so my theme was making the transition from outsource work, which many Indian companies do, to developing intellectual property for themselves. Afterwards large numbers of people wanted to talk to me, and I collected up about fifty business cards.
India's game industry is small but has huge potential. As I noted in my talk, the richest 25% of 1.2 billion people -- the population of India -- is equivalent to the entire population of the United States. Nobody in the West is making games for the Indian market, so it's clear they're going to have to make them for themselves... as indeed they should. Their biggest problem is not money but attitudes. Indians are a very studious people, anxious to better themselves, and video games are seen by many as a frivolous waste of time.
We left well before dawn the next morning, on the next leg of a journey that took us to the great Mughal palaces and fortifications of Udaipur, Jaipur, and Agra, and ended with (of course) the fabulous Taj Mahal itself, all pearly-grey in the morning mist.
I'm more grateful than I can express to Rajesh Rao of Dhruva Interactive, and the good folks at NASSCOM who organized the conference, especially Shruti Verma who handled our travel arrangements; and to Prakash Ahuja, Sonia Nair, Rama Krishna Raju, and Jayadev Yalavarti of Gameshastra for their wonderful hospitality and the gift of so much time and help on our first couple of days in India.
This year I again attended the 
Ameland has a lot of seals. One of the students drew this picture of me in the course of the week. They like me, but I'm not sure they respect me!
Yesterday I finished work on the next edition of my game design textbook, Fundamentals of Game Design, Second Edition. It has been a long march, but I got it done in time for a September 15th publication date -- which means that at least some professors will be able to use it in the fall semester.
So about two weeks before Develop, Susan Marshall, the organizer, wrote and asked me if I would come and speak, because one of her speakers had cancelled on her. I wasn't planning on going because I'm so busy revising Fundamentals of Game Design at the moment, but I said I'd do it and off I went. It gave me a chance to meet some old friends and make some new ones.
When there are too many teams in my workshop to do a detailed presentation, I have each team make a sales poster instead, and show it to the group along with a short pitch. Here one of the teams is working on a game about saving whales. The approach they took was to let the player be a mermaid -- more of a siren, really -- who lures the whaling ships to their doom. I had in mind something more like Greenpeace and their zodiacs, but you can never tell what novice game designers are going to do.
I went back to the Noordelijke Hogeschool Leeuwarden for more meetings with the students there and to talk about how I can help the program. Along the way I learned something I didn't know about the Dutch trains. The one I was riding in split into two, and one half went to Leeuwarden, and the other half went to Groningen -- which isn't even in the same province. Guess which one I was in.
I went back again this year to the International Forum on Animation Technologies, which in French has the acronym FITA. It was their tenth year, so they were justifiably proud of all that they have accomplished. I don't have a single picture, unfortunately -- like last year, I only stayed one day, and spent almost all the time giving my own workshop on interactive storytelling.
For the second time, I had the privilege of delivering the opening keynote at the Swansea ANimation Days festival -- at least, the Game Days part of it, which comes first. The last time I was there was in 2006, and the festival just seems to keep getting bigger and better. In addition there was dinner at the house of the Lord Mayor of Swansea, complete with the Lord Mayor himself, and his wife, in attendance, wearing their gold chains of office.
Gold chains of office are something we don't do much in the United States. Just as the Queen is a constitutional monarch, so the Lord Mayor is a constitutional mayor -- the job only lasts for a year and I think his duties are strictly ceremonial. Still, he gets to live in a pretty nice house with some amazing silver dishes. I didn't ask what he thought about having a bunch of animation geeks and game developers to dinner, but he seemed gracious about it.
