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Gaming
ain't no frivolous business, it's as serious as can get.
Sample
this -
Some
of the big game providers in China and Korea are looking at becoming
Telcos, because they have bigger subscription numbers, they have
the back end, the CRM, the billing systems etc. Already into the
business of supplying interactive content, they now want to add
voice too!
Recently
IBM Global services, business practice leader for digital media
Asia Pacific Quentin Staes Poet was in Mumbai. At a special gaming
round table with select media, Quentin discussed the potential that
Gaming held in India. His presentation which was packed with charts
and global statistics was impressive. An interactive session, the
round table dwelled on trends and topics related to Gaming both
globally and in India.
Amongst
them were,
Trends
- Consumer Preferences
The console rules in the North American market, sales are though
retail stores. Online gaming is the name of the game for Korea and
China. India, its too early to say but Mobile is tops. Lan games
too are popular.
Bandwidth
Issues? Will online gaming suffer in India due to boofy bandwidth?
Or will MP (MULTI PLAYER) make way for MMP (Massively Multi Player)?
Look at it the other way round! Probably bandwidth might get a shot
in the arm due to gaming. PC prices in India are dropping, economy
is booming. Middle Class salaries growing substantially. Within
1-3 years time Online Gaming could drive growth of internet. Broadband
usually takes off when it is 1.5 times the price of narrowband.
The Internet backbone in India is as well laid out and as good as
any other place in the world. The last mile is still a problem.
What's
lacking?
Cyber Café chains that aggressively market their services.
India doesn't have aggressive Cyber Café chains that are
bullish on gaming.
Gaming
Portal's - China's got em, Korea's got em bigger. India's not got
any so far.
Who
plays games?
Besides hardcore gamers, there is a growing number of females and
elders who are joining the Gaming brigade. Their preference are
however different and casual games are getting big Online. This
is a global trend and has relevance in India too. Another exciting
genre are e-learning games.
Serious
Games! Are you Joking?
That's another evolving genre in gaming. Non entertainment games
used by sectors like Military, Defense, Education, Science, Government
and Health. For further proof check out the GDC WEBSITE and look
out for the serious games summit link.
What
else to watch out for in Indian gaming?
Interactive TV. Gaming can emerge as the killer app for interactive
TV. iTV has been lurking in the shadows for quite a while now and
threatens to disappear. A growing number of people believe that
iTV will never take off in India. But there is an equal number that
believes it will. With new Mpeg 4(H264) video compression around
the corner, you never know what might happen.
Following
is an Animation 'xpress quick Q&A with IBM's Quentin.
1.
Please elaborate on IBM's strategy towards digital media, globally
and in India?
The
move from analog to digital in all media industries is primarily
responsible for our interest. Our business is to manage that transition.
Looking at all the solutions that we can offer in Software, in hardware
or services.
In
the early stages we started out with the publishing people. We provided
them with the technological backend to help digitize their content.
We created content management solutions and also the middleware.
Around
4-5 years ago video got digitized. Things like tapeless environment
and search capabilities came into existence. We started with BBC,
CNN etc and now we do that with customers across the world.
When
you look at the media content producer, we are now looking at delivery.
We are also looking at gaming and at telcos. If content companies
don't get tech savvy and work business models around emerging technology,
they run the danger of getting napsterised a la music industry.
Besides the commercial entertainment content, there is a voluminous
amount of personal content too that's being circulated nowadays
and needs to be managed.
In
fact p2p content is huge representing 50% of internet traffic. Digital
media is the core of data transfer.
World
over which Gaming organizations has IBM been involved with and for
which projects?
NHN in Korea. Japanese game giant Koei. - Infrastructure for online
gaming and associated services. We do a lot of work on grid computing.
Which is very useful for gaming getting into a seamless environment
with high scalability.
We
also work with the 3 console companies (Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft),
we've done micro electronics and developed processors for them.
IBM
is also involved with companies like Warner Bros Online, the MMORPG
for Matrix, the backend for that is managed by us. We do the blade
servers and database for Arenanet on Guild Wars.
We
also do a lot of Linux Computing. We are looking at service deals
where we take over the backend.
In
animation there is lot of work around server farms, linux clustering
and gridding. We have worked with Weta. In India we work closely
with Crest Animation.
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