How I started my game studio (the first one)

As long time computer enthusiast and an avid Gamer I always hoped to work in the Computer Gaming Industry.

With my background being mostly of Advertising and Television; my mother ran an Ad Agency and my father though a finance man established a TV Studio and Channel, I was one of the fortunate few who got an exposure to Computers very early on in life (At the time it was quite a unique position. Nowadays kids learn computers as soon as they leave the cradle).

I got my First 286 back in 1987 and have always had PCs at home since, which I have been upgrading and maintaining myself. Even though initially most of the time on them was spent in either playing games or making documents for my mom or dad I did get to experiment a lot with all kinds of graphics and multimedia software, programming languages and various system utilities.



After schooling I worked mostly as a Television executive I dabbled in Computer graphics whenever the opportunity arose doing Transitions or Frames whenever required. Due to my inclination towards computers as the years progressed I got more and more opportunities to interact with advanced Multimedia software and hardware such as Non Linear Editors, 3D Graphics tools etc.

Though I have been associated with IT almost all my life, my first shot at Development came recently in ‘98 when I had to do a concept Long Distance Interactive Training Course for a Client. The project involved about 25 Hours of Instruction via television, Interactivity via Phone-ins and the Net and back up material available both as printed matter and on the web. It was a successful project earning kudos from all sectors it was displayed at from Financers to Govt and Institutional persons.

I guess here’s where I started really thinking about realizing my dream of developing a computer game. With a small loan from my dad I dropped out of the TV industry and started working on it as a project.

The vision was to create an RTS Game that was pure fun and killer on the tactics piled on with all the ‘game play possibilities‘ I always wanted from games I both played and loved (Games like C&C, Warcraft and AOE which still make my head swoon).

The first Indication of the rigors of the road I had gotten into were the difficulties in finding the appropriate people for or literature about the process of game development.

Where there was a lot of information available on how to go about 3D Game development or Industry tips for Independent Game developers there was and still is a serious dearth of info for people entering the RTS genre.

I put together a small team and started with the process of training and orientation. Starting with what I knew about Gaming from basic information about the different genres and their peculiarities right up to the tools available for development such as DirectX and their tutorials.

The grand RTS never made it. The main reason I'm still developing games and have a company is that we started doing smaller more reasonable titles such as budget and casual games which allowed us to build both our skills and portfolio.

There were a lot of other lessons learnt before we finally got to the point where the company makes money and those will be put forth in another article.