PLAYING GAMES: INDIA’S FAVOURITE NEW PASTIME
Roopak Nair, VP-Product & Marketing, JetSynthesys Pvt. Ltd, talks about India’s love for games and how each game teaches us many lessons about life VP-Product & Marketing, JetSynthesys Pvt. Ltd. My first interaction with a game was when I was a sixyear-old, when my Dad got me a duck-shooting game. I was in a dreamland of sorts for a few days, until Mom put a stop to too many duck shots in a day, and put the gaming box in the cupboard. Games are all about human desires around collection, exploration, achievements and mastery. What differentiates great games from passing fads are those same ingredients that make them a hobby that everyone loves to indulge over and over again. In 2004, on my maiden trip to Switzerland as a 22-year-old, the only thing on my mind was scaling the peak at Jungfraujoch, the top of Europe. As I braved the cold winds and temperatures of up to -7 degrees Celsius to reach the top at 3,500 metres above sea level, there was a tremendous sense of achievement that engulfed me. Never did I realize that these same human values matter a lot in the exciting but challenging games industry. As human beings, we all love the sense of exploration and excitement of discovering the unknown. My curiosity about cultures got me travelling to 15 more countries over the decade, from the Far-east in Tokyo, the oceans in Australia, the grottos of Italy, to the Pacific coast of the United States. I believe it’s the same curiosity to learn and the passion to challenge yourself that enables you to build games that are the most fun. The games industry also teaches you many lessons - it’s as unpredictable as you can imagine. Each new game is an adventure, all the ideation, creativity and thousands of hours of work that go into making one, is only the first step. Milestones come and go, with the realization that the journey to making a good game is always more important than the destination. Today, India has more than 10 billion game downloads in a year, making it as pervasive an industry as any other form of mobile entertainment. The most exciting trend is that millennials, and even men and women, have adopted mobile games like none other. In the West, around 55% of mobile players are women, and in India those numbers are increasing at a rapid pace from about 25% today. With super low attention spans of millennials, the fun is in creating games that can be played for a few minutes every time. It, therefore, gives game designers a wide canvas to develop games for all age groups and genders and express their individuality. I won’t be surprised if gaming gives rise to new careers for millennials, as broadcasters and game commentators over the next few years. Young creators are already taking YouTube by storm, and this is just at its inflection point in gaming. More and more women too are already pursuing careers in game design, development or marketing, and applying their natural creative skills to engage players in their genre. At the end, what really matters in the games industry is one’s natural grit, art of patience and applying all cognitive psychology and creative instincts to develop the best form of interactive entertainment. That’s where all the exploration, travel and understanding of cultures really helps. It is super easy to miss that Red is so much admired as a colour in Japan, but is viewed very differently in the West. So, whether you play games to have fun, kill time or you are creating a game, I do believe life is all a game, so don’t be too serious about it! @ FEEDBACK
BY ROOPAK NAIR
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