How India Became The Gaming Factory Of The World

In the recently released Creative Economy Outlook report by UNCTAD, India’s animation and visual effects industry (VFX) found a special mention. Among all the creative goods exported by India, gaming has remained one of the best performing segments for the past few decades.

Though the overarching design and gameplay of a game or a movie are decided by directors and designers, based out of developed nations, the task of giving effect to these creative directives is undertaken in Indian offices manned by Indian VFX experts.

This should not come as a surprise though. This back-end development is very much like coding and mostly involves logical decision making. Though it might appear counter-intuitive that a creative programme which involves shapes and colors have something in common with the banal task of coding.

But with the advent of software applications like 3DX Max and Houdini, the two distinct aspects of any creative enterprise, the conceptual and technical parts could be bifurcated easily and the technical jobs could be outsourced to developing nations like India.

Under the technical side, engineers mostly have to use a set of tools available in the apps to arrive at a finished product. The task is mainly to decide which tools are to be used and in which order to bring to life what the designer was ordained. For example, the designer would ask the Indian team to develop a 15-second clip of Tom and Jerry chasing each other.

This clip in fact, already exists in the software. In the sense, all the tools necessary to bring this clip to life on the screen are present in the programme. All an engineer has to look for the fastest way to use the tools available in the most logical manner. Very similar to coding.

One of the probable reasons for such sharp logical thinking prowess among Indians could be found in the book, India Unbound. The author Guracharas Das postulates that India’s success in IT software products (and by extension in game development) was probably due to Brahmanical obsession with abstract philosophical concepts. Even software requires precise conceptual thinking abilities.

In recent times, advertisements for animations schools that promise to make anyone an expert in complex animation tools like Maya 3D within months can be easily located in metro cities like Bengaluru.

“India is becoming a popular outsourcing destination for gaming companies, on the back of high availability of skilled game developers and rapid upsurge in the country’s gaming market,” said the UNCTAD report.

The Indian animation and visual effects industry (VFX) grew at 16.4 per cent in 2016 to reach a size of $8.2 billion (INR59.5 billion), driven majorly by a 31 per cent growth in VFX, with animation remaining steady at a growth rate of 9 per cent.

This market in only going to explode in the near term with the proactive role played by the government in promoting the industry which generated significant employment opportunities for the Indian population.

“Furthermore, Governments are implementing favourable policies. Various states, such as Maharashtra (allocation of land for setting up National Centre of Excellence for Animation, VFX, Gaming and Comics), Karnataka (Policy design to include digital art education in curricula of certain fine arts schools), Telangana (planning to set up an incubation centre in Hyderabad) have announced, or are coming up with, policies in support of the animation and VFX industry,” added the report.

However Canada still remains the world leader in digital animation and visual effects. In Vancouver, over 60 studios make up the VFX (visual effects) and Animation industry, the world’s largest cluster of domestic and foreign-owned studios. Over 170 video game development studios are located in Canada.

Also, India will have to compete with developing nations like the Philippines which has become one the preferred outsourcing partner of big international production outfits worldwide, according to the Animation Council AVP.

Till then, Game On India.