From Doom 2 to Dhoom 2: Computer Games in India

Souvik Wednesday, April 30, 2008 5 comments
Move over Doom 3 , here comes Dhoom 2


I've been away for almost three years now from the dingy and half-hidden cybercafes of North Calcutta where the teenage Counterstrike players spend their evenings battling each other. When I started playing computer games, it was the age of Road Rash, the terribly violent motor-racing game - I'm sure in some of the more remote parts, it still is. Games came relatively late to India. Even now the average Indian gamer has not managed to have a go on the Wii. The first gaming magazine Skoar! came out in 2003 and it has had a fair few hiccups in trying to bring out issues. The other gaming magazines which followed did not last beyond a few issues. Gaming forums like Kawabonka.com which were popular for a while have also seemed to have vanished into ether. I've just spotted a blog called http://www.gamersindia.com - pretty basic but at least it's aware of the launch of GTA IV.

I know I paint a bleak picture but i speak the truth. How is it that a country that supplies millions of software engineers to companies all over the world, has not produced a single noteworthy game or a game-designer? Speaking to one of India's promising game-designing talents, I was disheartened to hear that 'not much is really happening'. Skoar! often does a feature on Indian developers : the sad thing is, however, that we do not manage to graduate beyond 2-D games or at best very basic Wolf 3D or Doom style FPSs (remember the Bhagat Singh game - India's first attempt at a postcolonial game, though i wonder whether anyone else has thought about it in this way :-) ).

It's time for Bollywood to cash in on this market, i think. Not much of a moviegoer, i wouldn't be able to point out many Bollywood films that have a gaming potential. As I've always said, however, stories are the key to making a good game ... what the games made by the developers in India lack are good narratives! A pretty basic game made in Flash or some relatively less complex game-making software can be really interesting if it has a good story behind it. And add the expertise of technology, the production power of Bollywood and of course, draw on the existing storylines of an Abhishek Bacchan and Hrithik Roshan blockbuster like Dhoom 2 and you have your first popular Indian gaming blockbuster!

With no serious thinking about gaming beyond the odd cybercafe, India is missing out on a big piece of the action in the world of entertainment. Needless to say, that there is no sign of activity on the Game Studies front either. Or am I the sole representative - that too working in a university abroad ? Feel free to call this a rant or what you will but for me this is just a call to develop on a major potential area of investment, both culturally and economically. We have always been a ludic people , so why not now?

Oh yes, and just think about the market before you close this window.

5 comments :

  1. manishfusion31 July 2009 at 23:20

    manishfusion
    ____________
    hey this is my favorite movie and wao there is an game for us of this movie thanks for it i really wanna thanks to you for this information i really need it
    and i wanna share something about wow gold Yes that is a nice idea but have you ever thought of going up to the biggest guy on the subway and telling him your thoughts on this. I wonder what he might do, or would you even do it.
    wow gold--wow gold

    ReplyDelete
  2. manishfusion15 August 2009 at 20:06

    hello very nice blog good to see such a informative stuff here thanks
    _____________
    manishfusion
    seo jaipur---seo jaipur

    ReplyDelete
  3. Unknown24 June 2010 at 12:29

    I was wondering if you ever considered changing the layout of your blog? Its very well written; I love what you’ve got to say. But maybe you could a little more in the way of content so people could connect with it better.
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    ReplyDelete
  4. Souvik27 June 2010 at 09:03

    Thanks coolkamal. I shall definitely change the layout. Nice to get some feedback.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Souvik28 February 2011 at 16:02

    Thanks. What sort of info are you after?

    ReplyDelete

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