‘Small is big’ in games development
Is there room for solo developers and small teams to make great games? “If the game has the ingredients to attract users, there is definitely a possibility. For a corporation, getting users is easier because it can spend a lot on promoting its games, by giving freebies, etc, whereas an indie developer cannot afford that. So in most of the cases, indie games result in few downloads when compared to games made by corporate houses. So there is always a possibility that individuals or small teams can create great games. Whether people get to know about them, or whether they can persuade people to install and play the game is a different story,” opines Swagata.
Indian developers should have a long-term vision and the patience to design, develop and then market an idea rather than just try to work on outsourced projects from clients/companies. “We have great, proactive programming strength in India, better than anywhere else in the world. People should combine entertainment industry skills and programming skills to develop revolutionary and fresh games. Investments and forecasts should be based on ground-level realities, and not just on the company’s turnover or on market-based analysis. There needs to be support for developing such great games in terms of a creative environment, sustainable business strategies with low/medium costs of production using HTML5 kind of technologies and strong marketing skills. Of course, government support for the industry would be great, if possible. Even without all these, a powerful game can be developed by Indian programmers but a lot of self-discipline, financial freedom, a great amount of market analysis and experience are needed,” says Pradeep.
According to Pradeep, any kind of failure could land the developer in trouble, preventing one from concentrating on any level of creative development. So, entrepreneurs should study the ground realities well before taking any adventurous steps in games development on their own; but if the proper precautions are taken—yes, great games can be developed by solo developers from India.
Even small and brain- teasing games are widely