Where is the next hit game for mobiles coming from ?

Where is the next hit game for mobile phones coming from ? or are we destined to spend the rest of the lives passing the pillow in the grand Bollywood tradition of the Barjatyas or just shoot people aimlessly to take your body count to 56……….a la Ab Tak Chappan.

Contrary to what some of the popular Indian mobile game studios claim about the success of these games, the final word rests with the consumers/ subscribers. And trust me, I have spoken with a lot of gaming enthusiasts spread across a cross section of demographics and the unanimous opinion is, the latest crop of mobile games made by Indian mobile game studios suck! And suck real BAD!

Not to take away the hard work put in by all the concerned departments like Game Designers/ Pre Production artists/ Art Designers/ Programmers/ Coders/ Quality Assurance/ Porting team etc the quality of the final product leaves a lot to be desired. This is due to the simple fact that Bollywood products generically do not lend themselves well to gaming even on a casual gaming platform like the mobile phone. Forget the dedicated gaming devices like X Box 360/ Playstation/ Wii etc. Our so called games are a zillion light years away; to be ported for these magnificent platforms. We had been simply making a mockery of the gullible paying public but the janta cannot be taken for granted for long. They have begun rejecting these games outright which explains that though the wireless subscriber base has more than doubled in the last 12 months, GPRS/ Data Services have been made FREE by most of the operators/ carriers – the VAS revenues especially mobile gaming have not climbed up, the way they should have been.

But why does the game studio make a mobile game on a mundane Bollywood title? The economics of making a mobile game lend themselves very well to the wireless ecosystem currently prevailing in the sub continent. A burgeoning wireless population (approx 150 million) which is currently adding about 5 ½ to 6 million subscribers every month/ the generous dollops of monies spent on marketing a typical Bollywood movie/ title which gets the curiosity factor rolling (eyeballs and thumb-clicks assured) and the tight timelines set by the studio bosses ensure that you have a rather run of the mill product ready within a fortnight which backed by the publicity which the movie rides on and the deck placement which the operator/ carrier offers and voila you have the game out to coincide with the theatrical release and cash on to the minimum guarantee already paid for by the gaming studio to the producers to recover their investments.

For most of the readers not so inclined towards mobile gaming – most of the games are a straight lift from one of the older titles; in gaming parlance called re-skinned. Which effectively translated for the media people would mean a 30 second commercial being chopped to make a 15 second edit version. Which means in Game A if the protagonist was Garfield coming down the skies collecting food for himself, in Game B it is Hanuman who is evading the numerous obstacles in the sky to collect the herb for Lakshman. Effectively replace the characters/ graphics but keep the same game engine running in the background which means that if Garfield can be replaced with Hanuman even Hanuman can be replaced with a kite flying in the skies to make a game for Makar Sankranti or the kite being replaced by a Kingfisher jet to make a branded game for the brand. This ensures practically zero turnaround times and large volumes to fill the operator/ carrier game deck. I know of one game studio which had set a target of 8 game deliveries every month for a large CDMA operator simply because the management had an overwhelming desire to flood the game deck with their products and have the largest share of the revenue pie.

Which in turn explains the mass exodus of people from the big game studios. In fact one of the biggest in the country recently acquired by a huge media house is facing an identity crises (They know Bollywood games does not contribute to their revenue kitty but would now end up making a lot more Bollywood games simply because the media company they have been acquired by produces a lot of movies every year) and with most of its talent pool drained away to better opportunities to competition or total exit from the industry altogether and more lining up to leave across functions like Accounts and HR too.

With such mundane re-skinning work happening and where challenging tasks are shown the back door, and ideas not being appreciated at all, it was bound to happen sooner than later. This might just be the precursor for the mobile gaming industry to wake up from it’s slumber and get it’s act together. Bollywood hardly contributes towards mobile gaming though it is an accepted fact that the non gaming products especially the tones do the most amount of business but we just cannot be churning out products which just do not complement the storyline (Munnabhai climbing up the walls of Dr Asthana’s hospital to collect the certificates) or take the consumer for a ride with a memory game for a movie like Musafir.

Wake upto it guys! The consumer is not a moron, she is your wife and you better behave yourself or get ready to be shown the door.