The concept of owning a game has evolved in the past with the concept of “games as a service” becoming an industry standard. This includes subscriptions introduced with massively multiplayer online games or MMOs like World of Warcraft to the seasonal battle passes of present online shooters, it has been proved that companies are looking to create a gaming community with games for updates over years.
But that does not mean that single-player narrative adventure games have become obsolete. While Sony has grown big by funding studios that make games focusing on single-player campaigns, Microsoft has focused more on cross-platform, connected games. And now Xbox boss Phil Spencer, in an interview with The Guardian, has commented on the future of Xbox and the more traditional modes of storytelling in games.
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He feels that an influx of new stories and unique ideas can help video games increase their reach to a new audience. Hence there could be a massive demand for regional game developers and studios in regions like India, Africa or South America, where Xbox doesn’t have a significant penetration.
Spencer also feels that since there is a vast pool of talent available in these regions and with the tools available, a lot of new studios could come up in these territories in the next few years. He also stated that the company is open to acquiring one of these new studios.
Max Booty, head of Microsoft Studios, echoed his thoughts and said “There should be a several-hundred-person studio [in one of these territories],”. He felt that acquiring one of these studios would be a great idea “not for outsourcing or support, but a team building whatever the version of the best blockbuster game may be for that market. That is very much the vision.”
Green Signal for Indian game developers
While there are a lot of developers in India, however, the lack of a supportive ecosystem has meant that there’s hardly any AAA title apart from Raji that was recently made. Apart from Nodding Head Games – the makers of Raji, Ogre Head Studio, QYJO, Singular Scheme, Xigma Games, Quicktequila and Frostwood Interactive etc are a few studios that are actively involved in creating games for PCs, Mobiles as well as consoles.
While most of these studios agree that there is no dearth of talent in the country, it’s the lack of support both from the government and community that isn’t helping the industry grow.
An appreciation coming directly from the top executives from Xbox puts the entire industry on the global radar and could offer the impetus required to catapult their growth.
