NASSCOM Animation & Gaming India 2007: Session Wise Coverage
Chaired by Dhruva CEO Rajesh Rao, the panel session “Console Gaming “Yes or No” for India” was an Interesting one. Panelists included EA India head Ajay Khanna, FX Labs CEO Tony Garcia, Milestone Interactive CEO Jayant Sharma, Microsoft product manager for XBox 360 Vivek Kulkarni and R2Z Games President Chris Waley.
The fact that gaming Giants like Electronic Arts and Microsoft are into the Indian market clearly means a lot of action to be anticipated in the near future. “No” for the console was therefore ruled out. Add to that the fact that both as a development centre and as a market with the youngest population in the world, most gaming companies wether currently having an India presence or not, definitely have an India strategy.
Also for the cult of true blue gamers who want the complete gaming experience, the console is definitely a Yes.
What the expert and experienced panel at NASSCOM Animation & Gaming India 2007 discussed and debated was wether Console Gaming in India would ever reach mass market proportions?
Many issues to be resolved before the �Yes� can be said with conviction. The issue to be discussed at hand was if Yes, then how and when?
Each of the experts offered their perspectives, and everyone unanimously agreed that quite a few issues like Pricing, Content, Availability and Awareness needed to be cracked before console gaming became Mass market. Session Chair Rajesh Rao also made a strong case for the online feature integrated into consoles which adds the social element to gaming, it also makes Piracy a difficult task.
PRICING
EA India head Ajay Khanna shared “EAâ€?s products have been in the Indian market since 1995, in 2005, the management took a concious decision that India was a strategic market and created a separate business unit for India. We have a three year plan in place, the first year the focus was on distribution, and the nexty year is going to be focused on Marketing and Brand Building”
He also pointed out that,”Today 50% of a game product price is taxes, customs and channel margins. There has to be price reduction for both hardware and software by addressing these price components, only then can the volumes rise. Piracy and Pricing are big issues”
Rajesh Rao suggested that that in order to have a really sizeable hardware penetration in the market, the console prices may have to be brought down to match that of DVD players.
“Bring down the duties by 50% and then see how the prices drop and the sales go up” retorted Microsoftâ€?s Vivek Kulkarni.
Milestoneâ€?s Jayant Sharma added, “As Sony distributors, we have tried to bring the hardware price down to sub 10k levels, post this years budget when the customs further come down, we are expecting to price the product at sub 7k levels. The software price points for PS2 games have come down to a floor price of Rs 999/- which I feel is great”
CONTENT
The panelists opined that to grow the market, localisation of content as well as locally relevant content was necesary. “FX Labsâ€? is developing a game that will have a lot of relevance locally” highlighted CEO Tony Garcia, “Its all about selling, however trying to get local content seeded will be a challenge”
Session Chair Rajesh Rao also added that another factor was the nature of the game play as well as additional features like the online element which gave another dimension to the content experience.
Talking about arcade and online games, some of which could be integrated and/ or created specially for the console, Rao opined, “The current crop of console games are somewhat restrictive in nature due to the level of expertise required to play them, I believe that simple arcade games that offer a rich game play experience will be needed to open up the mass market gamer”
Jayant Sharma remarked, “As Sony distributors we have brought in a lot of social games, Eye2Eye which uses webcams, games like Singstar which is a karoake based game and very akin to the Indian culture of Antakshri. I think with this kind of content there is a lot of opportunity, we might just see Singstar localised with some Bollywood music on it and it will definitely bring in a lot of sales”
“R2Zâ€?s Chris Waley spoke about the completely localised cricket game with Sachin Tendulkar” (need more info on this)
“Local content for us is of great importance” shared Microsoftâ€?s Kulkarni “and we are looking at ways to make that happen”
AVAILABILITY & AWARENESS
Parents in India are much more in favor of buying a PC for their children obviously due to its educative, knowledge as well as multi functional funcationality and positioning. This makes a case for PC and online games.
The mobile phone is ubiquitious in the country with over 125 million handsets in the country and more than 5 million new users added every month. In terms of hardware penetration this makes a case for Mobile Gaming
Making a case for consoles, Jayant Sharma shared that,”There is a huge installed base of PS from the grey market which is close to around 300,000 units”
Agreeing with his co panelists, We also believe that experience of the product is necessary for the consumer to realise the VFM in buying a console. For that we have set up around a 100 kiosks across Cities in India where consumers can go play and experience the game. This sampling activity goes a long way in making the consumer aware of the quality and experience he/she can have with the console”
“We are also involving Bollywood stars in our promotions and brand building excercise in order to bridge the gap between niche and mainstream” he added.
OPPORTUNITIES
As the discussion came to a close, FX Labs Tony Garcia pointed out “The market for console games is going to grow and this needs patience, perseverance and determination from the stakeholders in the ecosystem and it is also a fact that the players that make the investments early on and innovate are going to benefit hugely in the long run”
Jayant Sharma added, “Even though Nex Gen and PS3 is what gets the most attention, lets not forget that the PS2 still has more than 5 years of longevity and the volumes of hardware that have already been seeded are only going to grow. there is a big opportunity for developers to create content for the PS2″
Rajesh Rao concluded, ” I see a big opportunity in making neat simple online games for the online platform integrated with console and this would also bring in a wider consumer group into the TG”
