This is the concluding part of the interview with Ravi Kumar, country manager of Gameloft India:
GG: Is Gameloft collaborating with Indian companies in distributing and publishing of games?
RK: We are not collaborating with Indian companies for publishing of games and we don’t intend to in near future also. Your first question was mergers and activations, we don’t plan to acquire any companies in India and nor are we interested in merging ourselves with any other company. We have always believed in organic growth means, we want to produce the entire game in our studio, even the testing, design, of course everything right from design phase to the testing phase.
And we do everything, the publishing and the development and it’s very routed in our Gameloft strategy that we don’t want to have inorganic growth which means buying another company and in India also we will not collaborate with any third party. Yes, if this question means will we be signing probably a license for an interesting TV show or an interesting movie in India, that’s ok ,that’s a license.
For example, a movie is being produced by Percept Pictures Company in Bombay in collaboration with an American producer. It will star Catherine Zeta Jones and Angelina Jolie and the movie will be shot in Udaipur, Bombay and Calcutta next year and it involves robbery of an Indian diamond that can be an interesting game.
We can probably ask for a license for that game which means we will have exclusive rights to develop a game based on that movie or those characters. But that does not mean we are collaborating, that does not mean that we are partnering with a game development company. It’s a different function, they are producing a movie, and we are producing games.
GG: Gameloft venture into making games for the PC. Are there any future plans?
RK: Yes we can do so
GG: There is a possibility…
RK: But just a word, our core business remains very much mobile gaming. All that we are doing on the PC space or the console space is not really very big, it’s very small, very basic. And mostly its to support our own mobile games in a way for example we have a couple of PC games which we give to the operators to sell at a price or maybe give free to the subscribers who have downloaded many games from Gameloft but that’s more of a promotional tool.
First I should not make a comment on whether we will develop a game on a console or a PC. We already have some games on PCs and some for consoles so I can’t rule the entire thing out. It’s Gameloft top management that decides if we want to venture into gaming for console gaming for PC.
So yes why not if they think it is very right time to make few games or lots of games for console because then its a company that makes games, that makes video games and that has been making more than 90 percent of its revenues through mobile phone games. So if they want to venture into a new area, a new territory then why not. It’s the top management’s decision and I will respect that.
GG: According to you how mature is the Indian market for video games?
RK: How mature? Tough one. How mature means I don’t think its mature market from a video game market perspective. If you look at Japan, Korea, US, Germany, any market like this, I think Indian market is very basic There is a lot of ground that would be covered but I have heard that some video game companies are making video games specific for the Indian market and Insha Allah, they do well because if they do well its good for the gaming industry in general.
GG: What are Gameloft future plans five years from now and are you going to make more development centers in Hyderabad? Any plans for making it in other cities or in India?
RK: If we keep growing in the world, we will probably have another centre in India, that’s a very fair guess and it can’t be rolled out. When we see of Gameloft five years from now I think we will be there and we will be profitable. We will have more revenues per year and our games hopefully by that time, one of our games will be an India-specific game. And probably we would have a game which is localized to Hindi or Tamil.
Probably we will have more independence in distribution. We will not be dependent completely on operators. We would try to find an independent distribution channel either through manufacturers. When you talk five years from now, I think this is possible.
We will be in the same space I think. You might have heard that the number of GPRS enabled handsets is expected to be about 2 billion units by 2010. So 2 billion units GPRS enabled handsets, it’s not GPRS enabled but let’s say handsets which can support GPRS. So 2 billion is a large number across the world.
But let’s focus on India and in India the GPRS connectivity today is very low. Ok, that also deals with the challenges of Gameloft business in India. It is a big challenge and it is the operators’ responsibility to go on a GPRS number and not our responsibility. But a game cannot be downloaded unless you have a GPRS connection. The GPRS connectivity in India is very poor which means very few people have GPRS enabled handsets.
Even if you need to make a call to a customer care, saying please activate my GPRS, they send the settings then you save it on your cell phone, very few people do that. Now many operators have realized it, have found that and now they are giving a handset which is GPRS activated you know from day one.
You simply need to click on Airtel or that web service and you will have Airtel live. But still that’s a minority. I think the GPRS connectivity in India is less than 4 percent in fact, when I’m say less than 4 percent it could be much less than that.
This is not interesting at all because that means that we have very few people to cater to even with the best content. So you can imagine 270 million people out of that only 4 percent probably have GPRS and so even if you are the best content it’s not going through all the people. We are missing out on 96 percent.
What do you have to say about the next generation of technology? 3G or 2G? How excited is Gameloft for India as well as abroad, you know with the international market.
We were excited about one is the touch screen handset. I think that can be very good for the gamers because first you don’t have the keyboards and it’s more intuitive, you play the game with touch We bet big on this technology, the touch screen thing. 3G is of course better for the download purpose but once they have downloaded the game, then 3G is not important from a game development company’s perspective.
And 3G, I don’t know when they will roll out in India, 2009 they say. If it rolls out in 2009 I think the transfer time for a game from the operator’s part to you handset will get reduced by half or one third, something like that. On the technology side, one is the touch screen thing, other is we think multiplayer gaming will happen in like not immediately, let’s say one year afterwards.
GG: Gameloft is planning to come out with multiplayer games for the cell phones, the mobile phones.
RK: Currently we don’t have a massive multiplayer online game or whatever. We don’t have that game yet.
GG: Specifically for the cell phones?
RK: Yes we don’t have it. In fact we have made some. Yes, there is one game which we have developed but it’s not like in the market today. It’s sold in very limited markets. But personally I think when lots of people play a game, it’s a very interesting past time.
Lots of friends can get connected you know like in different parts of a city and they can play a game it’s a very good experience for the group to bond together to share some time together and also it keeps the game experience more happening more lively.
So we definitely are optimistic about this form of game, this form of experience for the gamer and we will do something about it. But we have not yet launched a game like this as of now. Wi Fi enabled handsets. So if we will launch games specific for these kind of handsets.
3D games are passive because 3D games you understand now, so it’s not really new. 3D games are something everybody does now. So I don’t want to make a comment on 3D games but 3D games will keep coming. Like any other game publisher does 3D games.
GG: What kind of games can Indian gamers expect in near future?
RK: We will be launching game called Mummy, the Tomb of the Creek, the Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. It’s a movie that’s going to release in August, I think on the first of August, so we have a game to be launched on July 15 in India. And we have a game called Death Race that’s coming; we have a game called Ferrari World Championship that’s live now. We have a game called Wimbledon 2008 that’s live now, we have a game called Rolland Garros and we will keep producing good games.
There are 3 projections for Gameloft, one is the business side that can be very strong because we offer something new, different. The lifestyle means there is a need of a change in lifestyle in India and at Gameloft we help it, or if not help it but there is a need. There is a need means there is a demand and we are supplying that.
So people for example if you are taking an exam and the exam preparation is very long, if you play a game between your exam preparations, it definitely helps. This is everybody’s experience. Example if you have a strenuous exam, you need to prepare for three days, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, whatever and you get tired of course, so you need to play game in between I think your mind really gets diverted from that subject for at least some hours or some minutes.
GG: Any new version of Asphalt?
RK: Asphalt is ok. Asphalt 3 Street Rules, Asphalt Urban GT2, Asphalt High Definition, so we have constantly revised on this game because its like our own brand. Its our own franchise in a way. We update that, we make a small changes you know. We make it 3D, we make it high definition. There’s new game Asphalt 3 Street Rules if you have heard, and then there is Asphalt Urban GT2 with high definition, that’s one.
Asphalt is a constant verse. We will keep doing something in Asphalt as long as we are there. Because racing games do good business. They are the perennial favorite of every gamer. Its one of the first games that a gamer downloads. I mean if you look at, there are two categories of game that people start with.
Either it’s a casual game like Sticks or like a Block Maker Deluxe or simple game. I don’t know to throw something like a bowling game. People start here or people start there. You know either you start with racing or with casual games. In the mobile games press in India whatever I have seen either of these two.
We have just launched two motion sensor games. I have not seen the game. And I don’t want to make a comment. But we are very big on this motion sensor games and in fact we are in partnership with Sony Ericcson to give them games which we will produce for their handsets and they will be motion sensored. Yes it’s very much there.
That’s also part of the technological discussion. We think that it can be very good technology for the gamers to have a better experience, a more interesting experience, more wow effect. We have a wrestling game which features Hulk Hogan, the wrestler. So that will I don’t know when it will be launched, somewhere in 2-3 months time. We will keep coming, you will see more and more.
GG: What kind of a gamer are you?
RK: I play casual games and movie games. The racing games and the action games I am not so keen on but the movie games and casual games. I think the casual games are growing across the world because as female gamers start accepting or buying this concept or trying their hand at mobile gaming we see more demand for puzzles and quiz.
GG: Thank you!
RK: Thank you.