Apr 17

Gaming institute ensures complete online guidance to students during covid-19 lockdown

Posted in: Animation

Backstage Pass has always been proficient at crisis management. Our beginning few years were a struggle due to the lack of awareness about the games industry and the lucrative opportunities within it in the society, but we managed to come out of the crisis shining bright as we went from a batch of mere ten students to more than 300 students. In the same manner, we plan to come out of this unfortunate covid-19 time, stronger than ever before.

The entire team of Backstage Pass is working full-time to tend to any educational needs of each and every student. The classes are conducted online by our mentors so that the students keep up with the pace of their course study. During these online classes, students are given work assignments to keep them mentally active and improve their skillset during this lockdown period. Our mentors are in constant touch with students to  address their doubts or questions, anytime of the day.

Keeping in mind the working professionals and students who are pursuing engineering or any other degree, we have been working on an interesting course set. We are just about ready with our six-month diploma course in 3D Game Art and Concept Art. During the lockdown period, we are prepared to offer it as an online course for enthusiasts looking to improve their skills or for an easy entry into the gaming industry after the course completion; we provide job opportunities at top game developing companies. But, after the lockdown period, it will be conducted as a traditional course on our premises.

We have found it very fulfilling to focus on our students’ needs as well as work on something completely fresh and new, that we can offer the  game enthusiasts who are looking for a time-efficient course to launch their career in this industry.

(This article has been contributed by  Backstage Pass Institute of Gaming and Technology founder Surya P., and AnimationXpress does not necessarily subscribe to these views.)

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Apr 17

One Take Media Co. (OTMC) launches new OTT app, Playflix

Posted in: Animation

One Take Media Co (OTMC), a global content production and distribution hub, is all set to foray into the Indian OTT space with newly launched app, Playflix.

With a content library of more than 10,000 hours of content OTMC’s Playflix will include content across a whopping 28 genres ranging from Hollywood Movies in nine languages, Regional language Movies, Kids, Cooking, Korean TV dramas in Hindi and many more.

Being the first ever mover in the Korean content space, OTMC boasts of a Korean library of popular Korean drama series dubbed in Hindi and K-Pop Music. Playflix will highly appeal to all kinds of audience in urban as well as regional audience as it has a varied selection of movies in nine Indian regional languages like Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi, Gujarati, Bhojpuri and Bengali.

As per KPMG report, “The online video consumption in India has evolved in a significant way in the last couple of years. With consumption now going mass and viewers spending close to 8.5 hours a week on online video, we see a homogenous pattern of consumption emerging cutting across age groups, income levels and professions.”

India is one of the fastest-growing entertainment and media markets globally and is expected to keep that momentum. As data and digital infrastructure has become exceedingly accessible even in small cities of India, the market for OTT has widened enormously. With easy and affordable availability of internet, the internet users have escalated to 500 millions. By 2023 estimation, the internet users are likely to touch $5 billion. Also the penetration of smartphones has surpassed 600 millions.

Anil Khera

OTMC founder and CEO Anil Khera shares, “We are very excited to enter the fast moving OTT space with our newest launched app ‘Playflix’. This is the best of time for both consumers and content creators. We are hopeful for an excellent consumer response and we are confident to create our own space in the crowded OTT Market”.

In 2018, the global pay OTT subscription was $14.5 billion and by 2025, it is estimated to be around $179.9 billion dollars. According to a report by Ernst & Young, the number of OTT users in the country will reach 500 million by 2020, making India the second–biggest market after the US. In fiscal year 2018, the OTT market in India was worth Rs. 2,150 crore (Rs. 21.5 billion, US$303 million as of 2018), and its value grew to RS. 35 billion in 2019. The Indian OTT market is expected to grow 45 per cent to reach ₹138 billion by the end of fiscal 2023.

OTMC has been successfully partnered with leading OTT Apps, Broadcasters, Telecom Operators and DTH platforms in India and international networks.

OTMC is also known to produce, acquire and distribute content in various genres like Hollywood Movies, Regional Movies, Kids Animation Contents,  Korean Drama series, K Pop, Cooking and many more.

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Apr 17

POGO inks deal with DD National to simulcast ‘Chhota Bheem’

Posted in: Animation

Homegrown kids’ entertainment channel, POGO has partnered with public service broadcaster Doordarshan to simulcast Chhota Bheem, on DD National. 

Being a popular animation show, Chhota Bheem has a huge fan following across and beyond the country. Now superhero Bheem will come all the way from Dholakpur to entertain kids every afternoon on DD National from 17 April to 3 May 2020.

WarnerMedia Entertainment Networks in South Asia managing director Siddharth Jain said, “These are challenging times and we believe that POGO’s fun-filled, relatable content will keep kids engaged and entertained. We are very pleased to collaborate with a platform as distinguished and popular as Doordarshan. The agreement ensures that an even larger number of young viewers across the country will be able to enjoy Chhota Bheem, one of our most prominent shows.”

With the extension of lockdown, DD National has been re-telecasting its iconic shows to entertain viewers across age groups while they stay home. With this collaboration, DD National will be able to broadcast immensely popular and iconic kids’ entertainment content from POGO, captivating audiences across the country.

Prasar Bharati CEO Shashi Shekhar Vempati added, “Doordarshan is pleased to partner with POGO to simulcast Chhota Bheem on DD National. Chhota Bheem is one of children’s most favourite cartoon characters, and we are delighted to bring him on our channel to entertain our young viewers.”

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Apr 17

‘VFX Pros: Home Edition’ aims to discuss cutting-edge VFX technology

Posted in: Animation

Are you a VFX enthusiast? Or a student who wants to learn the arts and science of visual effects? You’re in luck as VES society’s webcast series that will be hosted by industry professionals on zoom is set to unleash an insightful set of sessions for the community.Recently Visual Effects society launched a VFX-centric web session amid the lockdown to educate the VFX community about various aspects of technology and craft through stories ranging from behind the scenes, live conversations about new-age techniques, discussions around VES 70 most influential visual effects films and more.

VES

The Visual Effects Society is a professional global honorary society dedicated to advancing the arts, sciences and applications of visual effects and to upholding the highest standards and procedures for the visual effects profession. It is the entertainment industry’s only official organization representing the extended global community of visual effects practitioners, including supervisors, artists, producers, technology developers, educators and studio executives. VES’ more than 4,000 members in 40 countries worldwide contribute to all areas of entertainment – film, television, commercials, animation, music videos, games, new media and special venues.

Visual Effects Society (VES), the industry’s professional global honorary society’s VFX Pros: Home edition, is a dynamic new initiative that will shine a light on a range of issues and developments in the visual effects sphere with a hot lineup of talks with successful visual effects professionals from different backgrounds – and a new platform for inspired storytelling. The live-casts will entail interactive forums with top pros offering career insights, words of wisdom and tales of triumph and adversity from their VFX journeys.

— Get their insights on tools and techniques and more!

  • The evolution of compositing
  • Photo-real vs. photo-believable: what does the audience see
  • Fix it in Comp: benefits vs. over/misuses
  • Good vs. sloppy compositing
  • The ins & outs of being a generalist vs specialist
  • Overuse of fake camera and lens tricks
  • Our favorite film comp sequences: how we did it and how would we do it today!

VES shared, “Join us this Friday, April 17 at 3:00PM (PDT) for an interactive webcast on Compositing with digital compositing pros VES Board member Colin Campbell & VES Board 2nd Vice Chair Emma Clifton Perry. You’ll get their insights on tools and techniques as they discuss the evolution of compositing, photo-real vs. photo-believable, the benefits and over-/mis-use of fixing it in comp, good vs. sloppy compositing, generalist vs. specialist, overuse of fake camera & lens tricks and their favorite film comp sequences: how they did it and how they would do it today! *Colin Campbell has worked in animation and visual effectsvat major facilities including Industrial Light & Magic, Sony Imageworks, Rhythm & Hues, Digital Domain, and Tippett Studios, using Nuke, NukeX, Shake, Wavefront Composer, Matador, Elastic Reality, and in-house proprietary packages. *Emma Clifton Perry is a freelance Senior Compositor and has worked in-house for FOX and VFX vendor side for Weta Digital, Rising Sun Pictures, DRD, Framestore CFC and MPC and a number of commercial facilities, using software including Shake, Commotion, Curious GFX and Nuke.”

This live webcast series is certainly going to help VFX artists from around the world to gain knowledge about the field.

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Apr 17

ZEE5 announces launch of ZEE5 KIDS

Posted in: Animation

ZEE5, from Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEEL), has announced the launch of ZEE5 KIDS. 

To provide a good quality content for the younger viewers, ZEE5 Kids will house 4000+ hours of entertainment content, across genres, languages, formats and age-group based curations for kids. The service is free for consumption.

Commenting on the launch, ZEE5 India programming head Aparna Acharekar said, “We are very excited to share our new offering, ZEE5 KIDS, a unique and smart confluence of entertainment that is designed to meet the learning needs in a child-safe environment. The product is deliberated to augment the intellectual abilities of children in a FUN learning way by providing bespoke content ranging from shows, movies, reality and DIY (do-it-yourself) shows to nursery rhymes in 9 languages and across genres. The framework has been securely curated keeping in perspective the use of devices and exposure to unlimited information that kids have these days with digital platforms. We are certain that through ZEE5 KIDS we will be able to inculcate the habit of #NonStopBachFUN amongst audiences across demographics.”

ZEE5 KIDS’ content is a mix of acquired and exclusives by on-boarding the leading production house like Lionsgate and Cosmos Maya. It will launch exclusive digitals like Gadget Guru Ganesha, Guddu and Bapu, produced by Cosmos-Maya in the coming weeks. 

The service will offer a varied library spread across multiple languages like Hindi, English, Marathi, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Bengali, Malayalam and Bhojpuri.

‘Gadget Guru Ganesha’

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Apr 17

Showcasing the Animation Trailblazers

Posted in: Animation

Animation films and the techniques that are used to create these films first burst onto the scene at the turn of the 20th century. Animated films, cartoons and TV shows are now amongst the most popular forms of entertainment in the world whilst the animators themselves have become famous in their own rights. As a tribute to the great animators of the past 100 years, we have decided to showcase to you the pioneers of animation. But first, a bit of history before we begin our list of animation trailblazers.

The French artist Emile Cohl is credited as the first person to create an animated film in 1908 with Fantasmagorie. Fantasmagorie, a hand drawn animation, is considered to be the oldest cartoon in the world. The short film has a running time of just 80 seconds and consists of a stick man moving around and encountering other objects. 

Following Cohn, between 1896 and 1914, French filmmaker Georges Melies directed over 500 films and in 1902, using special effects and animation, Melies created the film The Prolific Egg. This film was an exploration of scale, multiplication and transitions which established Melies as the first cinemagician. In fact, it wasn’t until 1937 when the most famous animator of them all released its first fully animated feature film and it is with this animator where our list of animation trailblazers begins.

Walt Disney

Walt Disney, along with his studio (which you can read more about later in this article) is certainly the most famous animator to have ever existed. The American animator was the pioneer that ensured the worldwide success of animation techniques, from feature films and cartoons to animation for propaganda purposes.

In 1937, Walt Disney Studios released Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, its first ever fully animated feature film. This film paved the way for a new form of family entertainment which continues to this day. Although this film of course contributed to Disney’s success as a family orientated company, it was in 1928 when brand Disney became known for what it is today through a certain popular mouse. In 1928, Mickey Mouse made his official debut in the film Steamboat Willie. Fast forward 90 years and Walt Disney’s mouse is perhaps the most successful actor to have ever appeared in film.

‘Steamboat Willie’

Walt Disney gave birth to an animation studio that continues to have a huge effect on the world today, whilst Disney himself directly inspired all of the animators who have succeeded him.

Matt Groening 

Probably the most successful cartoon animator and writer of all time, Matt Groening created his most successful work – The Simpsons – in 1989, Futurama in 1999 and Disenchantment in 2018. The Simpsons is the longest running US primetime television series in history as well as the longest running US animated series. Groening has won numerous awards for his animations series to date including the British Comedy Award for “outstanding contribution to comedy.”

Groening first became interested in cartoons and animation after watching the Disney film One Hundred and One Dalmatians. The animation required in Groening’s works consists of storyboard and character drawings which become animatics before being sent to a studio which then draw the inbetweens and renders the animation to tape. The Simpsons production consists of several different studios.

Groening is more known for his cartoon world creations and their characters rather than the actual animation techniques involved, but his creations continue to inspire animators from all over the world.

Seth MacFarlane 

Seth MacFarlane is arguably the most successful sole animator since the turn of the 21st century. McFarlane is the creator and voice actor of the animated TV shows Family Guy and American Dad. MacFarlane quickly developed a passion for animation during his childhood, drawing cartoon characters from the age of two and creating his own flip book by the age of five. By the age of nine, he was creating comic book strips for his local newspaper in Kent, Connecticut, which paid him $5 per week. As a student, MacFarlane studied film, video and animation with the intention of working for Disney after he had graduated.

‘FamilyGuy’

MacFarlane is now famous for being the creator of Family Guy, an animated sitcom centred around the Griffin Family. Family Guy is famous for its edgy adult humour style of comedy and was actually cancelled twice by its home channel Fox. It was only strong fan support and DVD sales which caused the network to reconsider.

MacFarlane voices several of the characters including Stewie and Brian Griffin. For the character of Brian Griffin, MacFarlane uses his own accent.

Nick Park

Nick Park is famous for being the creator of the British stop motion clay animation Wallace and Gromit. The Wallace and Gromit series consists of one feature-length film (The Curse of the Were-Rabbit) and four short films, the most famous of these probably being The Wrong Trousers. Park grew up with a keen interest in drawing cartoons and created his first short film with his mother at the age of 13. 

‘Wallace and Gromit’

Wallace and Gromit films are shot using stop motion animation. The ‘actors’ of Wallace and Gromit are made using plasticine whilst the film itself is shot one frame at a time, the models are moved slightly to give the impression of movement in the final film piece. These films take a long time to animate, the feature film reportedly took 15 months to make.

Park also created the animated film Chicken Run as well as the television series Shaun the Sheep and Creature Comforts.

Tim Burton – Fantasy horror films

Tim Burton is known primarily for his Gothic horror and fantasy films, typically starring Johnny Deep. Burton worked with Walt Disney studios in order to create several of his animated films including Alice in Wonderland. When he was directing Alice in Wonderland, Burton used Disney Digital 3D – a term used to describe three-dimensional films which are made and produced by Disney Studios.

Another film directed by Tim Burton was Corpse Bride which is a stop-motion animated film although Corpse Bride is completely different to the aforementioned Wallace and Gromit films.

Ed Atkins

Ed Atkins is a British contemporary artist known for his video art. Atkins’ video works feature a computer-generated (CGI) avatar as a protagonist. Atkins focuses on the technological possibilities of new media and has been described as “one of the greatest artists of our time.”

One of his works, Safe Conduct, is an animated video inspired by airport security videos, which sees a computer-generated avatar repeatedly tear his face off showcasing how people can ‘melt’, almost without noticing, into new moods or forms. Atkins’ art often discusses the way in which labour is hidden behind new technology, using animation techniques in order to showcase self-pity, death and decay.

Atkins uses the juxtaposition of a fake computer-generated avatar to bring out real human feelings that humans can often not express themselves.

Animation Companies

‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’

Disney 

Since the release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937, Walt Disney studios have not let up. Disney has produced over 200 feature films with no deviation in popularity. The Walt Disney Company remains one of the biggest film companies in the world and with its acquisition of LucasFilm, (the rights to Star Wars) Marvel and Pixar, the company continues to produce box office film hits.

In 2019, Disney launched Disney+, a subscription video on-demand streaming service which has 50 million users as of April 2020. Although Disney at its core is still an animation film studio, it has been able to branch out into various different directions. 

Barcrest 

Barcrest own the rights to some of the most famous and popular casino games in the world. Casino gaming has become one of the most popular forms of gaming whereby state of the art video animation is key in order to produce popular casino games. Slot games use increasingly advanced technology – these slot games now rival conventional video games for gameplay and aesthetics. 

One of the most popular and well-known of Barcrests’ creations is the animated slot game Rainbow Riches, a game which has produced numerous spin-offs due to its popularity. Rainbow Riches was originally created for land-based casinos, but its large following meant that Barcrest were quick to create an online version of the game. Slot game technology requires a team of developers and simply uses digital technology. 

Warner Bros

Warners Bros. Entertainment is an American mass media conglomerate that owes much of its success to its animation studio. Warner Bros’  series which was produced between 1930 and 1969 became a worldwide media franchise spawning numerous TV series, comic books and feature films. Warner Bros Animation started off as Warner Bros Cartoons which produced cartoon shorts which are still popular to this day. 

 

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Apr 17

‘Destiny 2’ to launch Guardian Games Event

Posted in: Animation

Destiny 2 is launching a new limited-time event on 21 April, titled Guardian Games. The event is based on Destiny 2’s perspective on the Olympics, and it will run through 12 May. Guardian Games will put every group against each other to determine the best player of the lot

Destiny 2 is a free-to-play online-only multiplayer first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie. It was released for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on September 6, 2017, followed by a Microsoft Windows version the following month

Guardian Games will entail a set of daily takes and challenges to complete. Completing each of these will earn Guardians a point for their class. The winning class will be added to the Tower for the rest of the year. The event will come with new metallic class items that will switch between bronze, silver, and gold based on a class’ standing. After Guardian Games comes to an end, the metallic appearance will be locked for the rest of the year.The event will also play host to a new Exotic heavy machine gun christened as the Heir Apparent. Along with these, other cosmetics, new ships, and Sparrows will be available at the Eververse store.

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Apr 17

Kids sector grew by 46 per cent last week; surpasses Hindi GEC in West Bengal: BARC

Posted in: Animation

Lockdown across the country has stalled work in various sectors, the broadcasting industry has however continued to experience a boom with many firsts in the COVID disruption period. 

In the fourth edition of Crisis Consumption on TV and Smartphones released jointly by BARC India and Nielsen Media, total TV consumption grew by 38 per cent than the pre-COVID period (11 to 31 January 2020) to now standing at 1.2 Trillion minutes (from 4 April to 10 April).

With growth registered among all demographics and sectors, the kids sector has seen a steady increase keeping a stable position. Viewership of young audiences aged between two to 14 years, grew by 46 per cent in the last week.

This comes as no surprise since parents who are working from home and also managing their family at the same time across the country, don’t mind their kids to be glued to screens so that they can have their work done smoothly.

Since animation as a medium does not require outdoor shooting and productions, studios across the country are trying to provide fresh episodes to the kids broadcasters remotely working from home. For instance Cosmos-Maya whose three new productions are now  being aired on Disney. Nickelodeon and Sony YAY! too have brought new episodes and TV movies to keep younger ones hooked.

Thus, viewership in the kids sector has grown by 43 per cent in week 14 of COVID disruption period, In West Bengal, kids sector surpassed Hindi GEC with 9 per cent growth in comparison with the pre-COVID period.

According to BARC data, between 4 to 10 April, Nick holds its top position in ‘Top Five Channels’ followed by POGO, Sonic, Cartoon Network and Sony YAY! Motu Patlu, Rudra and Chhota Bheem reigns in the list of ‘Top Five Programmes’.

Apart from content targeted to them, kids aged two to 14 years have co-viewed DD National’s rerun of the epic Ramayan with 100 per cent viewership. Mythologies have always fascinated kids who are mostly acquainted with the genre through their grandparents and senior family members. 

Mahabharata retelecast on DD Bharti too has been no exception in attracting a humongous audience across different age groups, of whom 25 per cent were kids who co-viewed the classic along with older family members at home.

The numbers indicate that these habits are only going to increase, as India gets ready for Lockdown 2.0 till 3 May.

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Apr 17

‘Borderlands 3’ launches New Limited Time Events

Posted in: Animation

Gearbox is coming up with a new hotfix for Borderlands 3, which features new limited-time events, Mr. Torgue’s Slaughter Onslaught and Making it Rain. These events are set to offer increased loot drops from Slaughter bosses along with additional in-game cash drops from all rivals. Mr. Torgue’s Slaughter Onslaught and Making it Rain events will be available until 23 April 2020.

Borderlands 3 is an action role-playing first-person shooter video game developed by Gearbox Software and published by 2K Games. It is the sequel to 2012’s Borderlands 2, and the fourth main entry in the Borderlands series

Borderlands 3 is also rolling out a Co-Op Loot Drop event through 30 April 2020. The new hotfix no new balance changes to the game. It fixes a bug and prepares Borderlands 3 for the upcoming Mayhem 2.0.

Mr. Torgue’s Slaughter Onslaught – This will now increase the number of dedicated drops from Slaughter bosses.

Making It Rain – This is a relatively simple cash and Eridium increase from normal and Anointed enemies (not bosses, apparently). At this point most players probably don’t need any more cash and Eridium.

 Gearbox’ increasing of the level cap for Vault Hunter to 57 recently gave players players an option to choose two capstone skills instead of one.  Apparently Borderlands 3 will also get Revenge of the Cartels event this month.

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Apr 17

Where will the gaming businesses be after the lockdown is over?

Posted in: Animation

India comes among the top five mobile gaming markets in the world and is said to have 300 million gamers in FY 19 according to a report by Google-KPMG on online gaming. With coronavirus pandemic, the online gaming business has been skyrocketing as everyone is spending time one or the other way too by playing games with DAU (daily active users) rates surpassing but will it continue to do so even after the lockdown is over? Let’s dive into this to figure out exactly where the gaming businesses are right now and what experts are predicting where it will be after lockdown:
Current Scene of the gaming business:

  • A lot of gaming traffic has been noticed throughout the lockdown period from new users approaching in gaming to hours spent by users.> Next Wave Multimedia co-founder and CEO Rajendran PR  said in their cricket time spent have gone up average user session time has gone up by 25 per cent number of new users have increased with 30 per cent more
  • Daily active users have increased including the number of downloaded installs’ have increased.
    > For example Individual mobile game like LUDO king has recently crossed 50mn DAU with the daily installation of 20 to 25 mn during lockdown according to Gametion founder Vikash Jaiswal.>Even Platforms like Paytm First Games has witnessed 200 percent growth in the last one month, with over 75,000 new users joining the platform every day according to Paytm First Games COO, Sudhanshu Gupta.
  • Gaming platforms which have social activity integrated like chatting video call integration have witnessed a skyrocketing growth in gaming business.> For example on Winzo gaming platform activity on the social features of the app such as video and audio usage during gameplay has doubled. And thus games with Vs-Mode on the app has observed a 35 per cent spike considering people are playing with their friends online amid the lockdown according to WINZO spokesperson
  • . In terms of actual content consumption globally we have seen 20 per cent  to 30 per cent increase in terms of downloads as well as monetisation and as well as in India it is much more xtimes according to 99 games CEO Rohith Bhat.
  • Active investors’ interest has been witnessed with a close stare towards the business and are communicating more to check the updates which did not happen earlier. The similar thing has been faced by  Bhat and Next Wave Multimedia co-founder and CEO Rajendran PR and others.
  • According to Yozoo Games India CEO Anuj Tandon believes casual games have 50 per cent drop in CPI (cost per install) and correspondingly even eCPM (effective cost per mille) for ad dependent businesses. We are definitely seeing approximately 60 per cent drop on eCPM as well, so there is a good time to acquire may not so good time to monetise.
  • Leaders like Tandon, Bhat and others believe it is a good time to explore and experiment with innovation as the market is hungry for new fresher content to spend the time during lockdown.>According to Rajendran if a developer’s game is nicely placed and if you know it can do better it is the right time to experiment and invest small budgets to check how receptive the market is for products.
  • It is the right time to know the market well as most of the digital gaming is running in demonetisation, therefore there is lack of noise so one gets a chance to talk to the customers and the customers can use the product which actually opens the opportunity to interact with the customers and do the research which might help post lockdown according to MPL co-founder and CEO Sai Srinivas.
  • Tandon also noticed “if we look at all the YouTubers right now they have all become game streamers suddenly in India.All YouTubers have started playing and streaming games that is the cultural change that is happening”

Experts prediction: Where the gaming market will be post lockdown?

It is very unpredictable to get into conclusion that the market will be in favour to the businesses or not, in fact, it is very early. But while accounting the recent numbers the business marketers  have made assumptions, this is what they have to say:

  • Ranjendran believes people are now showing interest and it is on top of their mind and they are picking up on habits they are spending more time playing games. Therefore the habit formation will stay with the audience even after lockdown as it has become their crucial mode of entertainment.
  • Bhat believes that it is a great moment for gaming a company like ‘Apna time aya hai’ (our time has come) and there are a lot of reasons to be optimistic for both in the long term and short term. Therefore investment is happening and this will result in rush of new games coming on the way to feed the audience who have already discovered gaming is the new form of entertainment and consuming that has become a habit.
  • Tandon believes platforms will have high user retention rates. For example platforms like MPL  will benefit more after the lockdown eases off because more mid-core games which has higher  d3t (design, develop and deliver technology) in their games. Once they have high users from them they will tend to monetise better and will have long term retention. Even in casual games because of the splurge in downloads will become global brands. Therefore there automatic ASO Ads (App Store optimisation) and search rank will constantly be high not just in India but globally.
  • Sai describes that “ I think this whole point about the economy getting impacted, I think this is a little far fledged, to be honest right now. This quarter the economical results will be poor no doubt about it. But it doesn’t mean that economy going to be really badly impacted. There are two kinds of businesses in gaming, one – which monetise through ads one which monetises through people who are paying money. You will see a temporary dip, that not gonna sustain for a long long time, now different equation altogether is that if this is going on for like six months or a year, then we have all different things to worry about I guess right. So if this is going on for a month or two, which I think it is then in that case I honestly think that how the economy will be impacted is been overstretched leading to this problem and that problem.”He further emphasised that game development is a wonderful business where fixed cause are next to nothing, businesses that have the variable fixed cause is the one that needs to be really worried about. “If you don’t have a business model then you need to really worry about and figure out the business model but for good games which have already a business model in place, I think they wouldn’t see any drastic impact, of course, there are industries like fantasy or others some other specific industries which might see a little much of impact but conventional gaming I don’t see a lot of issues,” he added.
  • At the same time, Tandon being pessimistic shares that they don’t think it’s going just a quarterly event, of course, this quarter was bad. This spill over to the next quarter in the Indian economy for sure. “We don’t know how deep it goes in terms of how long the pandemic lasts, we have something like atleast a treatment available, that will give a lot of confidence back. Globally we have seen a fall in artpools it’s slight and the guidance that we are saying for the next quarter is largely very positive, the fall in art pools for midcore  games basically more players are playing  midcore games from that habit formation is a good thing but that will lead to fall in art pools and slightly less optimistic bench side I feel that two to three more quarter this thing will last and that’s when I feel by after Diwali we could see some sort of economic revival happening .”Lastly he highlighted that  there is also a chance of larger problem that which indicates that if at all we go into a deeper in recession or something like that, then the first thing people will cut down on will be on entertainment budgets and that also includes gaming.

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