Rajesh Rao Dhruva Blog

1. After being the gaming industry for 6 years, where is Dhruva Interactive placed today?

Dhruva is today among the top 5 game development services providers in the world for console and PC games. Over the last 6 years, Dhruva has followed a simple but successful strategy of building relationships with the global industry by initially catering to their outsourced development needs. This has given us tremendous exposure and experience, made our teams highly competent and given us an excellent understanding of the market. This has also resulted in strong industry relationships; our clients include Microsoft Game Studios, many studios of Atari (formerly Infogrames) and Codemasters. Right now we are the only Indian company to have such significant international partnerships and exposure; today we are working on some very significant AAA game titles and this is testimony of our level of maturity and development competence. A noteworthy fact is the presence of Mr. Eric Mottet, one of the co-founders of Infogrames (now Atari) as Dhruva’s investor and advisor. Eric is a highly respected icon of this industry and his involvement in Dhruva is a validation of our efforts, it carries a lot of weight and has enhanced our credibility and standing in the international gaming community. For the emerging Indian market, the many years of international experience gives us an edge, in terms of our ability to deliver compelling, local content with international quality and sophistication.

2. What has Dhruva done different that others have not?

A few things… One: Right from the beginning we set ourselves the best international quality benchmarks to achieve and beat. Two: Maintained very critical and realistic estimation of our capabilities, we never marketed ourselves to be capable of doing anything more than we actually could from that international benchmark perspective. Three: Worked with best of breed international game development houses, offering our services of value to them while constantly learning everything worth picking up in return.  The three of these has resulted in Dhruva being regarded as a highly competent game developer by major international players, and the relationships built will be very valuable in the future.

3. How was Dhruva Born? What were the problems faced by Dhruva initially?

Dhruva actually started out in March 1995. At that time we were known as Srishti Interactive and we were an early leader of multimedia in India, developing multimedia products for education and manufacturing industry sectors.

By 1997, we had a fairly successful multimedia business in place, but the company was searching for bigger goals, a niche that would give it technology IP as well as the excitement and challenge of building something totally new out of India. At an Intel Developer conference in early 1997, after seeing a compelling demo of Shiny Entertainment’s game MDK, the team got sold on the idea of getting into game development. Intel was looking for companies who were willing to create software technology that was optimized for their upcoming Pentium2/AGP platform, and so Srishti signed up with Intel for their Technology Access program. ‘Project Dhruva’ as it was named, aimed at developing a Direct3D based game demo that was optimized for the Pentium2/AGP. ‘Dhruva’ is the name of the Pole Star, the star that leads the way – and we knew that we were about to lead the way for gaming in India. To make this demo, a 3D engine (which was named ‘Thunderdrome’) had to be designed and built from scratch.

We spent one and a half years in R&D, during which time the multimedia business sustained the company. We also researched the business and traveled to expos like E3 to get a good understanding of the industry we were getting into, and we quickly realized that game publishers and major studios would not entertain any pitches without first seeing a portfolio of compelling, high quality demos. By April 1998, the first cut of the Thunderdrome 3D engine was ready and the first technology demo was made, called Arclite. This demo was shown to many international game companies. At the Infogrames headquarters in Lyon, France, we showed this demo to Eric Mottet, who was at that time heading worldwide development for Infogrames. The demo was a hit, and soon Infogrames Lyon studio was discussing potential projects that Dhruva could work on. Infogrames wanted to port their successful N64 game Mission: Impossible to the PC. They found that Dhruva’s Direct 3D based game engine was better suited for this game than their own PC engines which were either software only or supporting 3dfx with Glide. So in Dec 1998, we finally got our big break. Infogrames signed us to develop the PC version of Mission: Impossible. This signaled the successful commercialization of Dhruva’s gaming initiative, and Dhruva became the first ever games developer from India to be signed on for developing a title by a major international games publisher.

The team worked through all of 1999 on the Mission: Impossible project. Though it was supposed to be a port, a majority of the code base and art assets from the N64 title was not re-usable for the PC version, and we ended up doing much of it from scratch. The experience was fantastic and the pressures immense, but we worked really hard and hit all our milestones. By December 1999 the game was in Beta stage, ready to go into testing and then onto production for release in March of 2000. But there were issues with the franchise (The game was based on a popular Hollywood franchise) and the March release date, and Infogrames decided against releasing the PC version. It was a huge blow to Dhruva, and at the time it looked like the end of the company’s existence in the tough and competitive gaming industry, where failed titles are akin to flop movies. We went to the Game Developers conference in March 2000 at San Jose with the beta build of the game and with crossed fingers, and showed it to many publishers and key people in the industry. It was a huge relief to us that Dhruva’s work on the Mission: Impossible title was received very well by everybody, and most companies were quite amazed that an Indian company had done such fine work. The fact that there was a complete game to show, even though it was not published, made all the difference. We did not get the gratification of seeing a published game, it really hurt, but we survived.

4. Since then which are the prestigious projects you have undertaken?

After Mission: Impossible, we realized a few things. We were a small company on the fringes of the global game scene, and if we wanted to become a respected player with strong credentials we had to have a strategy which allowed us to engage as many companies as possible while giving us exposure to different types of games and project challenges. This would also help de-risk the business, as we would have multiple projects a year and not depend on the one big game that may or may not get released. We updated our technology and skills over the course of 2000, and started with some small outsourced work. By March 2001, we had our new demo, Saloon, ready. The demo was a big hit, and since then we have been really hands full with projects, limited only by our team size. In the last 3 years alone, Dhruva has contributed to the development of 7 blockbuster games, including Mission: Impossible 2, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Geoff Grammond’s Grand Prix 4, and the critically acclaimed title TOCA Pro Race Driver. More recently Dhruva became the first Indian company to be selected by Microsoft Game Studios for providing game development services for an upcoming blockbuster game slated for worldwide release in 2004. This was a big success for us, especially as Microsoft conducted a 6 month long evaluation of over 10 companies worldwide before awarding the contract to us.

5. Why has Dhruva never ventured into making its own game and get it published? Does Dhruva fear that the “Made in India” label will create a negative publicity as games coming out of India in the past have not been very successful or if I would be a bit critical, I would say, not been very good either?

Dhruva has not ventured into making a game for the international market for several reasons. One: The main markets, i.e. USA, Europe and Japan are extremely competitive, with well entrenched players. The industry today is very large and publishers need high quality, big blockbusters to beat competition, make profits and stay in business. Game budgets are huge, teams need to be large and the overall risks are enormous. This means that developers without a solid track record of having delivered many hits will find it very difficult to sign up a publisher for their games.

In India…Dhruva has a stated and committed intent to becoming a respected and liked developer of games for the Indian market. If we have not made one so far, it is a reflection of market conditions. Every year in the last 6 years we have done our market study and considered the viability of making a game for India, and we have not been able to justify the investment. On one hand the market is too small. Piracy, poor per-capita installed base of gaming hardware and most important…lack of social acceptance has been the main issues that have deterred the growth of gaming in India until very recently. On the other hand, the investment needed to make a world class game is quite high. The Indian audience, though at a nascent stage is very aware of quality and international standards for content, so if the product is not high quality it will not succeed. Today however, the market potential is improving rapidly due to the telecom revolution, growing middle class prosperity and its changing mindset towards indulging in entertainment. Seeing this trend, we are launching our first game for India in 2004, a multiplayer pool/snooker game called Pool on the Net. This will really be a product to test our market and alternative business models such as subscription and pay-per-play. Another important point is that Dhruva’s target is the mass market and not the ‘hardcore’ gamer. The hardcore gamer will always have the Quakes, UT’s and the Counterstrikes to play, covet and dream about. Any Indian developer making similar games, always run the risk of non-acceptance as they will have to compete with these global heavyweights, and of course matching the quality and sophistication levels is not easy. Games targeting the mass market however will create gamers out of a much larger cross section of people, and therein lies the potential.

6. Where do you see the Indian gaming industry going in the next 5 years?

There are many opportunities. Locally, the immediate opportunity is in Mobile games. The mobile promises to introduce gaming to the mass market, by end 2004 we will have around 20 million gaming enabled mobile handsets in India, the opportunity is huge. As people take to gaming, it will spur the demand for PC and video gaming as well. Another opportunity is in using the popularity of cyber cafes and the increasing Internet penetration to introduce multiplayer gaming in India. We believe there will be an accelerated adoption of gaming in India over the next 3 years and there will emerge, very quickly, a viable market for PC and probably console games in India within the 5 year timeframe. Another opportunity is in providing outsourced development services to the major studios and publishers in USA and Japan. Many top tier studios are now increasingly choosing outsourcing over the daunting task of building huge teams. This also gives them the ability to choose teams who can provide the best quality and most suited for the role. Moving forward, the next console cycle will see tripling of budgets and team size requirements, there is a big opportunity for developers who can demonstrate world class capabilities.

7. Who/What is going to provide the impetus for the industry to go that extra mile?

The industry globally is maturing very rapidly, and big budget game development today needs highly qualified people with good education, training and experience. In India today the small pool of people in game development for most part have taken the leap fuelled by passion, starting raw and learning on the job – this is a time consuming process. In the short term, there is no alternative for companies but to continue their internal self styled efforts are grooming and creating talent for their teams. However, if we have to take this nascent industry to more mainstream levels, if we have to make it a multi-billion dollar industry… we will need to have a well planned, orchestrated initiative backed by the industry, government, universities and professional schools aimed at the creation of a sizeable pool of game ready talent.

8. What are the future plans? Development of a full-fledged game and the hunt to publishers?

Our console and PC development services business for the global markets is doing very well; we will continue this strategy to grow teams, build expertise and create new relationships. This also provides the company with a solid foundation with which we can take on new challenges. In the coming years, we anticipate that we will be signed up to develop complete games by studios with whom we have built deep relationships. We will be investing in making games for the Indian market. We expect our mobile games business to grow exponentially. To sustain growth and the vision, we may also consider making investments in overseas companies who can add value and complement our strengths.

9. What would you like to advise the budding game developers in the country?

This is a serious business, be in it only if you are very sure and only if you are able to cope with the tech or creative challenges. The days of doing games out of a garage is history, enthusiasm and passion need to be backed with proper education, training and above all: hard work leading to experience. Many aspiring developers get attracted initially by the sheer romanticism of the game developer career, and get overconfident too early… we see a lot of half baked talent with too much of attitude and misplaced self assessment of capability. Today there are plenty of resources available thanks to the Internet, sites such as Gamasutra, dperry.com and sloperama will give you plenty of information, perspective, education and advice.  It will take time, but if you set your heart and mind to it, game development is a fantastic career, the gratification of seeing your name in the credits of a hit title makes all the hard work worth it.