Government of India has been planning to start an Animation, Visual Effects and Gaming centre of excellence in the North to tap into the talent pool of the region, but to house that talent in the industry, jobs in the region are very scarce.
One of the pioneers in the gaming industry, Dhruva Interactive, has set up shop at the foothills of Himalayas in the beautiful town of Dehradun. Dhruva has been in the industry for past 18 years, working on games like Halo 5, Alien: Isolation, Pay Day 2, Forza Motorsport franchise and more which have been best-sellers globally.
“We have a lot of people at Dhruva from the North, and then there are many who want to work with Dhruva, and work on awesome projects, but they just don’t have that escape velocity to come down to Bangalore. So, the new studio in Doon will enable these people to work with Dhruva.“ says Dhruva Interactive, founder and CEO, Rajesh Rao.
On the choice of location, Rajesh expounds; “We did not want to open something in Delhi, and looked for a Tier 2 city with good connectivity and infrastructure. Dehradun being the capital city of Uttarakhand, a fast developing place at the foothills of the Himalayas with great weather, clean air, short commute times and surrounded by National Parks and great weekend getaways was an ideal choice. It is also one of the major hubs for education in the North with so many universities and institutes”
Dhruva has been known for its game art and development prowess also being a globally recognized brand working with major clients like Microsoft Games Studios, Sony, Remedy, Electronic Arts, Capcom among many others. The new studio, which was an old bulb factory and has now been converted to a cool setup, will focus more on the console content creation with some of the current team members from Bangalore relocating to start with. Dhurva is looking to hire talented artists and expects a slow but steady ramp up. The new studio currently has capacity to fill 120 seats but Dhruva has additional space to expand further, when the time is right.
This certainly seems to be a positive move to encourage more North Indian talent to enter this multi-billion dollar industry and will also steadfast the progress that has been made over the past few years.