Stay tuned to this board for updates as to the August topic. And feel free to post to the forums requests and suggestions. Thanks

See you there!

See you at the June meeting!

The talk centered around the 'Producer as God' philosophy that apparently has taken shape in some Indian game developers and how this differs from the perceptions in the US and the UK. It became apparent that there is the need for some research in areas outside of Hyderabad to see if there is any truth to this becoming an epidemic here.

The meeting closed with a discussion of if the July meeting should be art related or design related, so we are putting it to vote in the forums! Thanks to all for attending and see you in July.

AAG presents AnimationXpress.com Industry Academia Interface, Mumbai, 21 & 22 May 2008. ISKCON Auditorium, Juhu.

ENTRY: Free Of Cost

To Register, please send a mail to connect@animationexpress.com

Prabhu Rajaesekaran talked about not only the successes of the development of this US television show here in Hyderabad but also the difficulties of dealing with a title where the producer switches midway through development.

This led to a discussion in the group which was the springboard for the May meeting; that of the difficulties of not only dealing with multiple producers on a title, but also the differences in technique between US/EU producers and Indian development producers.

The community decided:

A- To move meetings to either Tuesday or Thursday nights (May will be a trial of Tuesdays)
B- To spread word-of-mouth that meetings have returned to Hyderabad
C- To perform outreach to the local game art community for potential topics for the June meeting

Late in the Fall of 2007 due to several circumstances I had an opportunity to evaluate my life and the world around me. To make a long story short I realized that I needed a radical change of environment and applied for (and was granted) an extended leave from my position as an instructor in the US and moved here to Hyderabad.

Insane? Yep...Oh yeah: big time. When I first landed it became apparent that I was now in a place where I could see the air I was breathing and, well, commute with my neighbors.

But as the cultural shock occurred I began to remember one of the pivotal reasons why I had decided to do all of this: to be involved in a cultural revolution. You see right now I have noticed that the youth of India are beginning to evolve from a rote-based left-brain learning system into something more inquisitive. Couple this with an amazing passion for video games (basically PC due to console cost issues, but changing) makes for an interesting nexus. And, of course, the cows.

So we packed up and (with a wife that likes adventure as much as I do) decided to do some product development out here. Within 72 hours I knew I was in trouble. Game development is in it’s infancy here and as with any embryonic entity this means that development is…really…slow compared to what I am used to. So I guess the first step (after I get done registering with the local governments) will be to determine what my studio teams know,and what they don’t know.

More later…

Topic: Panel Discussion on Opportunities in the Casual Gaming Industry. Sponsored by Microsoft.

Moderator: Amol Gurwara, Head of Operations (India), EA Mobile

Panelists:
Chris Early (Studio Manager, Microsoft Casual Games)
Vishal Gondal (Founder & CEO, Indiagames Ltd.)
Rajesh Rao (CEO, Dhruva Interactive)
Ravi Gupta (Executive Director, Whistling Woods)
Deepak Abbot (Zapak Digital Entertainment Limited)

The guest speaker for the evening was David Tolley, Lead Artist at Kuju Entertainment’s Sheffield Studios in the UK. David has been in Hyderabad for two weeks, working along with the game artists at Aurona Technologies.

Members in attendance comprised predominantly, of game artists and programmers from game development companies in Hyderabad. David began by speaking about the evolution of the game development industry in UK as he has seen, right from the early days of the Sinclair computers which allowed 16 colour displays, down to the development of games for next generation game consoles like the PS3 that is poised for an end 2006 launch, which have completely realistic graphic quality.

He was of the opinion that with the extended capabilities of the PS3, we could see significant amounts of art outsourcing in order for publishers to reduce the development cycles of next generation games. In terms of his feedback on the quality of game artists in India, David felt that from what he has seen, there seems to be enormous amount of talent but lacking in terms of exposure and western-culture familiarity, which tends to manifest itself sometime in the art that is developed here (an aspect that outsourcing companies should factor in which providing reference material). His advice to game artists was to spend a lot of time on research and to increase the level of interaction with clients when one is unsure of a particular reference.

Venue: The Country Club Lawns, Begumpet

Special Guest: David Tolley, Lead Game Artist at Kuju Entertainment’s Sheffield Studios.

To confirm your attendance please call Shobha on 040 5584 3809 / 98490 05229.