WoW plagued by mystery disease

Check this out.

These are the kind of things that get me all excited about the future of gaming - especially persistent MMOGs.

But it also begs the question - just HOW much reality do gamers want in their games?

The mind boggles.

We're too sexy! Muhahahahahaha!

Try typing 'chennai sex men cell number' into the search field on msn.com and see what happens!!

We turn up at number four. Brilliant!!!

This is what happens when you get Vinay Nilakantan involved in a project. The human Viagra.

Indian Gaming Industry - Lessons from Bollywood?

by Anand Ramachandran

With the game development industry in India seemingly in a growth phase (albeit in fits and starts), it is time for developers to think ahead and look for ways to achieve global acceptance for their products. With a reasonable Indian market still years away, most developers seem to be focused on making games that western ( and perhaps Japanese and other Asian) audiences will buy, and they’re quite justified in this outlook.

The question is, just what kind of games from India will global audiences like? Perhaps there are important clues in the route taken by the Indian Film and Music industries.

Of late, we have seen several instances of Indian films making their presence felt in UK and US movie charts. Indian music also seems to be slowly but surely gaining a following in global markets. Importantly, though the growth was initially driven by the expatriates or diaspora, this is a market that increasingly comprises honest-to-goodness locals. The John and Jane Does.

“It is surprising and encouraging that other audiences are showing some interest. Mainstream newspapers are showing interest in reviewing films.”, said Tanuj Garg of UTV Motion Pictures, in an article in Screen International a leading trade publication abroad.

What seems to be common among products that do well abroad is that they are without exception extremely Indian in character – offering audiences glimpses into Indian Culture, Aesthetics and Value Systems. We’re talking those family and romantic dramas with Indian morals and song-and-dance routines. Horror, action or thriller titles don’t work. Karan Johar or Yash Chopra will outsell Ram Gopal Verma.

Even the Japanese are, unbelievably, tripping on Rajni films. You can do a double take now.

Consider the top grossing Bollywood films in the UK :

Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham	4.5 million USD
Veer Zara	3.6 million
Kuch Kuch Hota Hai	3.17 million
Devdas	3.16 million
Kal Ho Na Ho	3.12 million

Among the films currently doing great business are ‘Bunty Aur Babli’, ‘Parineeta’ and ‘Paheli’, which have all crossed 2 million.

From even a cursory glance at this list, it becomes clear that overtly, unabashedly Indian films do far better business than Bollywood films which try to be more ‘western’ in garb and content. No ‘James’. No ‘Dhoom’. No ‘Kaante’.

Even if you consider the music industry, it’s not the early ‘Rock Machine’ type bands that are getting western feet tapping, it’s Bhangra Pop, which manages to bridge the east-west divide better than most other art forms I’ve seen.

These are all products that are undisputably Indian, not just in appearance, but in soul. They offer the global movie-goer or music fan something that is at once unique, distinctive and interesting beyond mere novelty value. Of course, they all have production values on par with world standards.

It certainly looks like Bollywood has made world audiences sit up and take notice by being true to its roots, making quality ‘Indian’ products, and using global Indian audiences as a channel to reach out to the international mainstream. It didn’t happen overnight, but it’s happening now.

A message there for game developers?

I would like to see an industry that has the vision and confidence to take the route of making original, Indian content as opposed to churning out job work or me-too products that are Indian purely by virtue of being made here. I am convinced that the talent and ability abound – it’s only a question of taking the leap of faith.

Yes, it’s risky. Job work certainly pays off much better in the short run – and I’m certainly not suggesting that companies drop lucrative contracts to chase vague ideals. What I’m trying to say is that companies who manage to find the resources and will to make high quality products free of preconceived and rigid notions of what will work internationally and what won’t, will be rewarded with much larger long-term profits and respect from the global industry.

Must . . . Play . . . Nethack

by Anand Ramachandran

Let’s get the gist out of the way – Nethack is one mean mother of a game. It grabbed me – conqueror of Morrowind, Lord of Baldur’s Gate, Jedi Master of KOTOR – and turned me into a frustrated, weeping, sniveling level 3 wimp. What could be better?

I have attacked this game about thrice a day over the past two weeks. I have, among other things :

• picked a lock with a credit card


• accidentally killed my own dog


• eaten carrion


• had sex with a succubus who seemed not to enjoy it very much


• bought tinned food


• had my ass saved when my God answered a prayer


• broken a camera


• had the most enjoyable hallucination trip since . . well . . . a while


• stripped naked to squeeze through a narrow gap

God! And I haven’t even scratched the surface of this wretchedly deep hack and slashfest RPG. Curses.

Oh – sorry. I’m talking about Nethack, of course. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, Nethack is a modern day variant of the RPG classic Rogue, in which you explore a devious dungeon filled with, naturally, traps, monsters and treasure.

However, Nethack, like Rogue, does not resort to frighteningly realistic graphics or sudden loud noises to frighten the gamer ( as far too many slasher movie type games tend to do these days. Good on you, Valve.) In fact, these games are characterized by their use of ASCII characters to create their worlds – your character is an ‘@’ symbol, and orc is an ‘o’, a bat is a ‘B’, and so on. So nVidia and ATI – you know where you can put your processing power. All commands are input by simple keystrokes or combinations of them. It sounds simple, but it’s an ingenious, devilishly complex system that is unmatched in richness. Look at some of the screenshots below to see what I mean.

ASCII based graphics. No clipping problems. Hooray.

Falcon's Eye provides a graphical interface for Nethack. Great for newbies.

All the classic RPG elements are included. Races and Character classes (including esoteric ones like Samurai, Archaeologist, Valkyrie and Tourist) – check. Shops – check. Magical traps – check. Cool equipment and artefacts – check. Scary monsters – check. Cute, fuzzy pet – check.

What sets Nethack apart, for me, though, is its sheer unpredictability. I’ve played about fifty times, and each game has been tellingly, dramatically different. I’m not talking mild, cosmetic, Diablo difference here – I’m talking seriously different experiences. Don’t believe me? Try it.

This, people, is imaginative, joyful game design. A game that can scare the pants off you one minute, and make you double up with laughter the very next. This is the spontaneous magic that often eludes big-name releases. This is what the open source movement is capable of – high quality content that can only be achieved by love of the craft, king-sized budgets be damned.

Of course, did I mention that Nethack is free? Yep – you pay Nada for one of the best gaming experiences on the planet. Long live open source. Eat this, EA.

A warning – Nethack is a difficult game. Most beginners keep dying, as I quickly found out. But with patience, and a bucketful of good advice available on the Net, you’ll soon start descending into the deeper levels, and discovering the endless delights therein. Stay with it. Trust me.

For beginners, I strongly recommend Falcon’s eye, a version of the game that uses some elementary, but serviceable graphics, and a friendlier point and click interface. Makes it easier to get into Nethack.

And get into it you should. Forget the ethics and morals of the open source movement. Forget everything. This is a game every RPG fan has just got to play. At least to put all other hack ‘n slash RPGs in perspective.

You can download Nethack and its variants, including Falcon’s Eye, from www.nethack.org

India and the Online Gaming Juggernaut

by Vinay Nilakantan



Will subscription driven Online MMO games succeed in India?



It’s a known and established fact that subscription driven MMO online games around the world are fairly large money spinners. Right from Everquest to Star Wars Galaxies to World of Warcraft have all been able to establish very strong revenue models which have allowed continuous development and expansion of the industry.



In India, gaming is big. How big is it? That’s important to know. The highest selling game within India has been ‘Brian Lara’s Cricket’.



No. of copies sold: Over 25,000



While those are not great numbers by a long shot, they are sufficient for a certain amount of ‘earned value’ within an organization. Of course, those are the official numbers.



The reason I say this is we are now at a stage where the Indian gaming industry and the various companies that are involved in it are making moves on whether the ever successful MMO subscription module can be adopted in India. I urge them all to read this.



Let’s look at a couple of factors:



India and computers: It’s important that we define statistics of the potential target audience.

PC Base	11 Mn
PC Penetration	1.1%
Internet Subscribers	4.93 Mn (QE June' 04)
Internet Penetration	0.5%
Broadband Users	0.23 Mn (QE June' 04)
Broadband Penetration	0.02% (Dec' 04)

Source: http://www.convergenceindia.org/ci2k6-conver-india.html






A commonly forgotten factor that most corporate organizations within the gaming space in India fail to pay attention to is the actual configurations of the computer within these statistics. There are computers still running on Win 95, operating with 32MB Ram and depend on the software to render its graphics. Organizations should look a little beyond the above statistics as what they’re doing is allowing a great gaming experience for a potential gamer to be ruined by ignorance and lack of knowledge due to the almost insignificant notification on game software packaging and branding. What does the potential gamer do? Blame the game for the bad experience and never buy a game again. Pay particular attention to this, if you’re concerned about the longevity of this industry in India.



Now – let’s look at the most popular genres of online gaming around the world :

Source:http://www.mmogchart.com/




Why the focus on RPGs? It quite simply is the only reason that subscription based PC gaming exists (let’s not go near the web based subscriptions). The genre is oriented towards ensuring a greater game experience as you put in more time into the game.



RPGs as such are a genre which has not been able to take off in India. Whether the reason has been of maturity or whether the reason has been of bad branding, when was the last time you saw a high selling RPG in India? Sure, you have your Diablos and your Neverwinter Nights. The sales from those are so incredibly low compared to sports and action titles, it’s not even funny. “But we sell a lot of Quake and a lot of Unreal games!” Nice try buddy. How does an organization bring in consistent subscription revenue through something like that? Monthly payments: No way. Not going to happen. The average fee is between 7 to 15 dollars per month worldwide. Even with region sensitive pricing – India as such has not been exposed to or nurtured with a model like this. A monthly payment for a game? The same game? Try explaining that to your parents. The only people who would do this are working executives who have been playing games for years and have the maturity to understand why online games have that kind of pricing model. Those kind of people are *extremely* few in number. In fact. I may personally know who they all are. That’s a joke, by the way.



Conclusion: I can keep writing about this but this is what I think we need to do.



Wait a few years. Don’t jump the gun or onto the bandwagon. There is a logical growth that will happen. Sell more regular games. Sell good games. Let broadband penetration increase. Let it become true broadband with 128kbps or more to ensure a smooth and enjoyable experience for the user. Let PC prices drop further. Allow graphics cards to enter households through smart and cost effective pc bundling. Promote effective branding. Dispel myths.



If you build it, they will come…

Sid Meier's Pirates! Revenge of the Remake.

I love pirate games. Arrrrr.

The original Sid Meier’s Pirates! (installed off a 5 ½ inch floppy disk – anyone remember THOSE?), ate up hours of my time back in the late 80s. You sailed the high seas, bore down on treasure-laden ships, bombarded them, then swashbucklingly swung on board and engaged rival captains in dashing duels. You looted, played politics, flirted with lissome lasses, double-crossed greedy Government scum, and made a tidy profit. It was marvelous.

When Pirates! faded away, the Monkey Island games took over. Guybrush Threepwood, my Man! Laugh-out loud humour being the cornerstone, the games featured interesting plots, unforgettable characters (Murray, the talking skull has to be one of the funniest game characters ever.), lovely graphics and interesting puzzles. And of course, lots of Pirate action. Insult Sword Fighting. Unbearable coolness.

Now, it’s back to Sid Meier’s Pirates! Again, and in Technicolor.

The geniuses at Firaxis have, almost unbelievably, retained the EXACT same flavour and fun factor of the original, while adding just a wee bit to the gameplay and generally giving the game a this-century facelift. Does it work? Hoo, boy!

I’ve been playing for hours. Every day. Arrrrrr.

Some of the things you'll do in Pirates! These screens are all from the SAME game.

Simple, addictive gameplay that makes this one of the most accessible games in years. Newbies, this one’s for you. Lovely, colourful graphics and joyful music that makes the Caribbean come alive. It’s so much fun, there ought to be a law.

Ship to ship combat. Sword fighting (non-insult, for Monkey Island faithfuls – this one’s the real thing). Town raids. Treasure Hunting. Ballroom Dancing. Clever trading. All these activities are introduced as deceptively simple mini-games that exist together in a delightfully charming package.

This is a game I can cheerfully recommend to any kind of gamer – casual or hardcore, soldier or strategist, embryo or fossil. You’ll all dig it. God promise.

Available for PC, and shortly for Xbox.

The Coming of SPORE

SPORE is generating the most exciting gaming news in a long time. With all the bla about lack of innovation in games, this is poised to mark an evolutionary leap – from both a development and gameplay standpoint.

Visit spore.ea.com and follow the links for more information on what’s getting me all excited.

However, gaming history is rife with games that promised big but failed to deliver on their ambitious bluster. Black and White. Fable. Ultima Online. Neverwinter Nights. Impossible Creatures. Some of these were great games in the end, but the pre-release hype promised a level of innovation that they never reached.

Here’s hoping Will Wright doesn’t fall prey to his own vision. I want a jaw-dropping SPORE, not a lukewarm one.

Gamers Must Experiment.

I don’t play flight simulators.

I just spent three hours playing a flight simulator. What a blast!

Admittedly, the game was Star Wars : Rogue Squadron, not the most complicated or hardcore of flight sims. However, this fun, action oriented title has got me interested in the genre. I now want to check out other titles, potentially unlocking many hours of fun-filled gaming I would previously never have accessed. I’ve already begun enjoying the peerless Wing Commander, and have my eyes set firmly on Crimson Skies. Hours of blissful gaming entertainment I’d have missed out on if I didn’t give the genre a try.

My point is this – there are too many gamers who are locked on to a particular genre, who will say things like “I don’t play action games, they’re too violent”, or “That medieval role-playing stuff is just too slow for me.”, or “Mario? That’s for Kids. I’m more of a Doom 3 kind of guy.”

More’s the pity.

We’re fortunate enough to have available to us hundreds of amazingly compelling games from various genres and time periods. They’re all worth a try, at the very least.

So here’s my suggestion : this month, apart from your regular gaming schedule, resolve to play a few hours of one game from a genre or time period you don’t normally play. Hey, if you don’t dig, then you can always go back to your staples.

Indian Gaming Magazines - a lowdown

As a reader of computer gaming magazines since the mid-80s, I can testify to the pleasure of getting your gaming fix from the printed page.

Sure, there are web sites that carry far more comprehensive and customizable gaming content, but there's just something about a good old fashioned magazine ( I can't browse gamespot.com lying on my hammock or sitting on the throne, for instance) that has always found favour with loyal readers. It also helped that the contributing writers to the top magazines were experienced, knowledgeable people who had a knack for putting their wisdom into words that spoke volumes, read easy and sounded witty.

With CGW India sadly out of print, (and many gamers in India lacking the kind of Internet access needed for dedicated gaming news gathering) the role played by print magazines in keeping gamers plugged in to the global scenario is crucial to the growth of the industry itself. At present, there are three that I know of – SKOAR, GameForce and R.A.G.E.

SKOAR – the brash young thing.

SKOAR is the best produced and designed product among the three. Bright, imaginative and user-friendly layouts. Lots of artwork, screenshots, pictures. Nice.

And the writing? A witty, youthful style that has a lot going for it – some of the gags are genuinely laugh-out-loud. Most of the reviews and features are reasonably informative and well-researched.

However, I can't help get the feeling that this is a publication run primarily by 23 year old action gamers. Sections titled Nooze, Pheechers, Reevus. Writers with middle names like ‘Zoom', ‘BadJag' and ‘Shifty Shellshock'. A layout that tries far too hard to be cool. Please. (Note – this is a personal opinion, not a comment on the magazine's quality. I am a wizened old gamer who bought his first ATARI 2600 25 years ago. Perhaps the younger crowd digs this kind of style. Ugh.)

Besides, not all the reviewers seem to truly understand the products they're writing about. The review of the Sims 2 in the latest issue, for instance, missed the point completely. The reviewer scored the game low because it didn't have an ‘objective' and ‘structured missions' (an ignorant insult to the genius of Will Wright and his seminal ‘sandbox' gaming approach). To top it off, he, quite ridiculously, compared the game unfavourably to Splinter Cell! (a game which, sensibly for its genre, had these features.) That's like saying a particular model of car isn't a good product because it isn't chocolate flavoured. Stupid.

However, these cribs are merely to draw attention to specific issues which may not be of concern to the widest cross-section of gamers. If you're primarily interested in Action, Sports and RTS gaming, you'll find few complaints.

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GAMEFORCE – new and improved.

GameForce used to be the magazine I ignored every month – crappy writing, blatant plagiarism and eyeball-hurting design. But not anymore.

This is India 's most improved gaming magazine. This month's pleasantly surprising issue had well written reviews set in an easy, user-friendly layout. This is what I like to see – functional, crisp design without overdone graphics or needless chaos. Lovely.

What's more, the writing and design have none of the wannabe-cool factor that seems to prevent SKOAR from being what it can be. The new avatar of GameForce has a mature, earnest quality to it that is at once both endearing and heartwarming.

Though the magazine comes with just two CDs (as opposed to a whopping two DVDs with SKOAR – good on you, guys), the content was again a pleasant surprise : I was delighted to see a gaming comic strip, several PDF issues of an online adventure gaming magazine called Inventory, and additional reviews and content in addition to the game demos. That's the way to do it folks : even if you have limited resources, use them well. Applause, everyone.

From the evidence at hand, it appears that the folks at GameForce are making a laudable effort to bring out a quality publication. If they continue to show the kind of improvement they have with this issue, they can easily be India 's best (but for now, SKOAR just manages to hold on to the title).

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And R.A.G.E.? I don't know. The design is horrendous. The reviews are passable, but curiously patchy – as if different writers worked on different paragraphs within the same article. It's not an awful magazine, but there's no compelling reason to recommend anything about it. It will have to show great improvements if it is to compete with the other two publications in the fray. I wish them well – I'd love to have another good mag to read, you know.

In conclusion

It's great that there are three magazines catering to what is still an essentially niche (but fast growing) market. As the people behind the magazines try and get better with every issue, it's important that gamers support their efforts by buying, reading and interacting with them. I still remember how long it took for MTV to shed their hopelessly uncool wannabe image when they launched in India , before they finally settled down to honest-original-desi-hip. So here's to SKOAR, GameForce and R.A.G.E. Godspeed.

Game Buying 101

Couple of major updates coming up shortly. But for now, a link to an old article I wrote to help newbies get value for money when they buy games.

Here it is.