On April 22, 2016, the Dutch Ambassador to India, Mr. Alphonsus Stoelinga announced the launch of LUDOWISE, a joint venture between Ijsfontein (a leader in gamification in Netherlands) and Dhruva Interactive (the oldest game dev studio in India).
The announcement was made during the last NASSCOM Gaming Roadshow which took place in Delhi past week (the first 3 shows took place in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune). This series of roadshow had been organised by NASSCOM in collaboration with the Dutch government, who is looking to push gamification and serious gaming avenues in India.
Apart from commercial gaming, and mobile gaming, India have various studios looking to invest in Serious and applied gaming. Gamification, Applied Gaming or serious gaming as it was referred to is the use of interactive game design techniques and simulations to create learning scenarios which are more effective. Think of it as a video game every Bank PO will have to play instead of watching a boring induction video, or reading some literature.
At the start of the event, Mr. Alphonsus Stoelinga, the Dutch Ambassador was quoted as,
The Dutch are known for their pioneering work and market leadership in the gamification and serious gaming and have a lot to offer to India in this space. we are very happy to see this relationship between 2 leading companies from the Netherlands and India bear fruit with this joint venture, to bring Dutch expertise to India.
This was followed by various Dutch studios who have successfully created Applied gaming applications before presenting their own works before the audience. The session included presentations by studios and how they have proved to be successful in different fields such as Medicines, Banks, and even Old-age homes.
As the show-stopper to the event, Rajesh Rao, the founder of Dhruva Interactive with the help of ambassador unveiled Ludowise. When asked about the vision of Ludowise he said.
With Ludowise, Dhruva Interactive and Ijsontein are bringing together 18+years of experience in our respective areas of expertise and the best of both worlds: gamification, high-end game design and modelling, contextualization to the Indian market, innovative models of learning and user expereince along with effective pricing that works for everyone.
The event was attended by the representatives of a few gaming studios based in the NCR and North India region. A few people from NASSCOM were also in attendance, along with the Dutch delegation. There were also a few people who had not made commercial games but were looking to get into applied gaming.
During my time at the event, I talked to various representatives from different studios and companies whose entire focus was on the reach of applied games. I assume it was a similar scenario in Hyderabad, Pune and Bangalore too. I was a little worried by the lack of knowledge that a lot of people showed in the gaming domain, but then these were businessmen more than gamers, and they were here to test the waters.
While the roadshow in itself wasn’t related to the kind of games we like to cover at IndianNoob. I believe it was an important step in making game design more relevant in India. If applied gaming can bring stable profits to studios, they can bring in more people who want to work in the gaming domain; which would in turn will result in better games coming from India, serious and otherwise.
I also believe partnering with western studios is also a step in the right direction as it will help in moving the focus from **what makes us the most money in the lowest investment** to **let’s makes something awesome which sells like crazy**.
What do you think of the recent focus on serious or applied gaming. Have you ever tried a gamification app? Any questions you would like to ask us. Let us know all this and more in the comments.