There’s been an exponential rise in the Indian online gaming ecosystem and the ongoing pandemic has amplified it. According to the KPMG report, the online gaming segment registered an impressive 45 per cent growth in revenues in FY20. While the industry is witnessing an upward trend, many aspiring game developers are trying to make their mark. Students and indie game developers are figuring out the best practices to get their game published while earning revenue out of it.
A game publishing platform that sees itself as a Gaming incubation centre for talented game designers, developers and indie game companies, CapeTitans Games, has come to their rescue. It recently published three game titles under its banner: Trip, Conform and Chakras. Trip and Conform comes from students of Backstage Pass Institute of Technology and Gaming whereas Chakras is by an indie game studio, Resurzence Solutions.
To know more about these games, the philosophy of CapeTitans Games and how one can get themselves associated with them, AnimationXpress interacted with its co-founder and CEO, Debasis Kayal.
A seasoned game designer, innovator and mentor, Kayal, hatched up the venture for empowering the indie developer, designer and game development studios to autopilot their launch to the world arena with infra, technical and funding support and handholding. He says, “At CapeTitans Games we share our experience in the education sector, working on game production and marketing with the indie developers in all the stages of a Game Creation Cycle (ID3R: Idea, Development, Release, Revenue, and Relax).
CapeTitans Games is for phase-based technical and business mentoring, store promotion, and even funding support. Therefore you can say that it is a launchpad for those who need to make it happen not just till the store, but the revenue to happen from strategic promotion.”
Having his back is the platform’s co-founder, director and investing partner Surya Prakash. He comes with a decade of experience in successfully running Backstage Pass Institute of Gaming and Technology, a leading premium institute for game education in Hyderabad, Pune and Bengaluru.
Philosophy of CapeTitans Games
Kayal says, “Our real USP lies in the fact that we don’t just invest in promising games but our approach is ‘human-centric’ as we want to partner with real talents who can prove given the adequate support and hand-holding.”
CapeTitans Games’ core philosophy revolves around the ID3R stages of game development:
The levels of Idea (conceiving the game logic and prototype)
Development (creating the game design, architecture, coding, and testing)
Release (store release licensing, optimizing content, digital marketing plan and strategy)
Revenue (paid games, IAP and ad network deployment plan and strategy, store-specific download, install and player retention policy)
Relax (to auto-pilot game revenue through recurring digital and ad network marketing, A/B testing, monitoring and analytics, publishing, collaboration, merchandising and branding strategy)
Role of CapeTitans in the Development of games
CapeTitans Games has recently published three game titles under its banner; two are by students of Backstage Pass Institute of Technology and Gaming, and one by an indie gaming company.
“Once we have selected and partnered with the game developers, we have treated the games as our child by hand holding every step of the gaming cycle (ID3R).”
He elaborates, “We have offered to suggest effective changes (based on technical and gameplay testing), provided content strategy for social media marketing and ad monetization support. We have had several brainstorming sessions to study the niche gamer persona and making subtle enhancements (after the Beta version). We have employed all media and channel support for game downloads and installs not only on generic paid campaigns but through organic contests, campaigns, influencer, and community promotion.”
Here are the game details:
Akshat Puri (Crabshat Games)
Game: Trip | Endless Runner
About the Game: Trip is a game about the trip of a creature into two different worlds where he has to dodge the enemies and choose every move, the enemies in Trip are sometimes not visible. The player has to check for the enemies lane every time and accordingly make his move.
Getem Ratan and Surya Narendran (Running Nose Games)
Game: Conform | A Puzzle Platformer
About the Game: Conform is a relaxing yet challenging puzzle game. Help your character navigate through a world full of other blocks, and find a place to fit in.
Resurzence Solutions
Game: Chakras | Path to Nirvana
About the Game: The Chakras symbolize the cosmic circles in astral anatomy according to the rich Buddhist zen (Dhyana) and Hindu spiritual tradition of mastering the Yantras through meditative processes to break the cycle of life and death. The game is designed to pacify your fidgety mind by testing your concentration skills at every level representing the figurative chakras.
Criteria to associate with CapeTitans
CapeTitans Games have kept it very simple for both non-published testing phase games as well as already published games by indie developers.
Stage 1: Game Audit and Evaluation Phase
Send them playable games or gameplay videos (if not published) or game store link (if published). They will perform their optimal audit (based on game logic, game design and architecture, game play, UI & UX, game monetization build, scan the store content and marketing ploy employed, gamer test rating)
Approximately it will take seven days minimum depending on the game levels and complicacy. This stage is FREE for the developer.
Stage 2: CapeTitans Games Partnership Agreement and NDA Compliance
Once the first phase is cleared, the team will furnish their ‘Game Publishing Agreement & NDA Compliance’ documents for mutual understanding and solicit any proposal from the developer to be amicably negotiated on a win-win scenario. However, they offer a standardized policy for all in the neutrality of their stance and thereby seeking to consider the release time phase or testing guideline to expedite the process.
The indie company is free to decide on retaining the content creative ownership. They are open to subscribe to their mentoring, testing and technical support, digital marketing support, ad monetization support in all stages of a game creation cycle (ID3R).
Stage 3: Game Release with Pre and Post Campaign
Finally, on the successful accomplishment of the agreement sign and launch financial formality, the deadline for the game release will be fixed (a schedule to be maintained to rework on game design, UI/UX or any build issues if required, game play beta testing, digital branding and social media marketing with ad monetization mediation channel set up and third party tie-ups).
CapeTitans will publish the game on their stores in Android/iOS/Steam (coming up) platforms and based on contract terms and conditions work on the optimum downloads, installs, and game branding in all their affiliate and partner media and channels.
So far, they have been approached by several student and indie game enterprises and their promising projects are in the pipeline.
“We are conducting the evaluation phase with several gaming entities, and also mentoring the innovative games that are coming up for our technical sanction, agreement procedure and thereby we believe in devoting pre-launch quality time for every game before publishing them,” expounds Kayal.
The Road Ahead
“Our dream is to evolve a repeatable gaming incubation model for Indian game creators to groom eligible projects after an easy evaluation process. Our mission is to create game creators of the future by providing a conducive environment for them to blossom in the game arena as our slogan goes, ‘From India for the World’,” a positive Kayal mentions.
CapeTitans is also working on a new game development contest for student and indie developers to showcase their games and bag exciting prizes. The details about the same shall be revealed soon.
Kayal concludes by advising all the budding game developers, “Focus on your game not just from the point of view of unique ideas or trending logic but by willing to show the grit of passion and perseverance. One should treat a game as a startup franchise and build on it, and not to blindly ape the market leaders.”