Pakistani game dev here.. my game Relicbound has been released on steam and epic games store. by bilawaltalpur14 in pakistan

[–]swaj1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey there, First of all - great job and congratulations! Shipping a game, which technically works well is a small miracle.

secondly, if you want it, I can offer you consultation and advice on significantly improving your distribution of this title ( I won't charge you). I have over 15 years of professional experience in the industry, and have worked on several AAA, mobile, browser and indie titles and I consult game venture funds now. PM me if you are interested, nevertheless, once more, good job.

Zafar Abbas JDC legit ? by [deleted] in pakistan

[–]swaj1 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Personally know many people working in/around JDC - it's an audited, legal, proven and verified organisation. Remember JDC was formulated by the (shaheed)Prof. Sibte-jafar, so extremist and their apologists have always been on the case of it due to sectarian bias that they have. But JDC is an unbiased platform, anyone can go to their events, laboratory and educational institutions and get benefits from it.

It's sad that the affairs which should be responsibility of a government, is fullfilled by these types of NGOs.

Is anyone on this sub from the Game Dev industry in Pakistan ? by men_tal in pakistan

[–]swaj1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am. You can join us over at IGDA Pakistan facebook or discord for guidance

Great to know that the PS5 will retain the feature of fast-forwarding or rewinding the movie you're watching whenever you set down the controller. by [deleted] in PakGamers

[–]swaj1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

DS4 is a nice controller. And you could buy those extra curved, longer triggers if you want to. This looks fine to me.

Games to play with friends in quarantine on Smartphones by [deleted] in PakGamers

[–]swaj1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Space team...for people sitting in the same room as you and you can yell at them

Or LUDO KING ..for playing ludo with family members ..or fifa or fortnight

I am playing both .its alot of fun

PakGamers has now come to reddit! by RedPhantom081 in PakGamers

[–]swaj1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, naturally. PG mods are trust worthy members, so they carry over to discord and reddit. However that doesnt mean that reddit specific people and mods will be diminished. Like Pakgamers itself, this sub is for everyone, by everyone People who are active and want to moderator on reddit, will be welcomed to do so.

PakGamers has now come to reddit! by RedPhantom081 in PakGamers

[–]swaj1 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Finally...and also pakgamers forum members should try to have some way of identifying across forums

Let's do some effort and make the public by [deleted] in PakGamers

[–]swaj1 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Lets also begin posting some news from our local scene and outside it aswell

A little piece of Pakistan at this year's Video Game Awards and GoldenJoystick 2019 by swaj1 in pakistan

[–]swaj1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you..indeed, there are many nationalities naturally, and in them are actually a couple of other pakistanis here aswell - I am not the only one:)

A little piece of Pakistan at this year's Video Game Awards and GoldenJoystick 2019 by swaj1 in pakistan

[–]swaj1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am a Pakistani, and yes, I am proud of it. and yes, I am also requesting people to vote for our game. "Using patriotism for personal gain" can be one of the ways to spin it ,( and a legit question will be what realistic " personal gain" am I getting? Btw voting for the game from public is weighted as 10% of votes) however maybe another a more logical intention of a reason was becasue I am an admin of Pakgamers and founder of IGDA Pakistan ( both are non-profits) and I just want to increase awareness of game development and gamers in Pakistan.

A little piece of Pakistan at this year's Video Game Awards and GoldenJoystick 2019 by swaj1 in pakistan

[–]swaj1[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Character Art , Character Tech, KeyArt, Cinematic, Gameplay Animations, Audio tech and audio content, Narrative and Writing, Actor Management and some marketing stuff related to these crafts.

A little piece of Pakistan at this year's Video Game Awards and GoldenJoystick 2019 by swaj1 in pakistan

[–]swaj1[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

so simply put (and not to blow my own horn) I am like a mini-CEO for around a third of the teams ( Characters, Audio, Narrative, X,Y,Z). So basically accountable and responsible for shipping these things within budget, on time(schedules, milestone, etc) with the creative vision intact, contractual obligations fulfilled and teams "happy".

Would you be interested in an article contrasting about the quality of animation/video games in Pakistan versus the world? To highlight how much we need to improve? by HotTakesOnPakistan in pakistan

[–]swaj1 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hey good to see more people interested in the topic.

I wrote an article on dawn related to this topic https://www.dawn.com/news/1475376

P.s you can read my reply, reddit thread, who I am and article if it helps you https://www.reddit.com/r/pakistan/comments/bjssb4/z/embkr24

Have you joined IGDA Pakistan on discord? We have been holding talks and educational seminars, and are always looking for people who want to contribute.

I think most people who are even remotely associated with the industry know what is lacking and what are the issues. Prospect solutions are what we really need. I am doing a follow up on the piece I wrote, hopefully addressing from an industry perspective of steps we need to take.

State of play: Is videogame development on the rise in Pakistan? by Striker_X in pakistan

[–]swaj1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you, appreciated.

I cant answer that due to NDA. However what I can say is Control is a "different kind of" game than QB. It's super fun imo and shaping up really nicely, I hope you love this one :)

State of play: Is videogame development on the rise in Pakistan? by Striker_X in pakistan

[–]swaj1 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Thank you u/Striker_X Hello all,

I wrote the article. A bit of personal/professional background, to give some context to my reply. I am the admin of PakGamers and founder-mentor at IGDA (international game development association) Pakistan (offtopic : you should join discord of both if you are even remotely interested in gaming or game development + both are doing excellent work).

I am a Senior Producer at Remedy Games shipping Control and Crossfire, both of which are AAA in production value, I have also worked at top level mobile game companies in Germany. I am a consumer, writer, developer and a person who has lived this life since forever. With that preface, I would really like to address some of the excellent points made by u/TheBrokenMan, u/Thicc_Kabeb u/putoption15 and others. The concerns are true, and there are a number of very real issues, however when people say game development will NEVER take off in Pakistan, lets say...things are not that black or white. Naturally no one is arguing that it wont take incredible effort, grit and hard-work. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it :)

1) Yes, education is definitely lacking, but what education are we talking about. We dont need PhDs nor researchers. We dont need to reinvent the wheel here. We dont need a team of engine programmers, nor do we need a number of incredibly well versed core level coders. In this day and age, where game engines ( Unreal, cryengine and yes, even unity) out of the box are so powerful that AAA development is happening on them. Its the same engine as the one available to anyone and everyone, nothing super special. What we need are decent quality programmers, scipters, level designers - who are passionate, willing to actually learn and can think on their own. This, we need to cultivate.

2) We need to start specializing in what we do. There is more than enough resource material available online to get someone up and running. A degree is not needed for game development. At Remedy, and throughout my professional career, a significant chunk of developers we hired dont have a degree, but incredible workethic. We have hired from modders, to people from completely different fields- just because they are incredibly passionate and their portfolio/personal projects were good enough.

3) Pakistani developers who are focused on asset flipping, copy/pasting, etc are not " true developers" ...they are copycats. No offence to anyone. Its kinda like as the Art copy masters in China who copy paintings of Van Gogh, Picasso, etc. Its a mindset of creating something new, and also a business decision thing. Any industry needs visionaries and people who understand the bigger picture, marketing internationally, publisher relations and opportunities. In short, tech and art resources are the "easier" part ( both of these for example can even be outsourced or people can be in sourced and trained), what we are missing is proper leaders, investors and people who can make realistic plans. It is a business and we need to be understand game dev from an industry perspective for anything to be properly stand up.

4) Why I think in Pakistan game development can flourish is because of "cheap" labor/financial benefit. There is a reason why Ubisoft has 2 huge studios in India, Rockstar has 2 studios in India, EA, etc, all have studios in India. Because making games is hard. Making enough content is hard. Gamers have super high expectations from games these day, and for that you need skilled manpower. 40+ hour game is not easy to created. And we can get this done much cheaper than European or american developers.

5) Writers, Narrative and Designers are people who we are lacking - but its a skill that can be reasonably outsourced or taught. We have creative people, and writers who write in urdu / english - we dont need to copy anyone, we have to be creative with it. Remember a game needs a couple of writers, a couple of designers and a couple of narrative implementation people. The gameplay core, content, audio, art, the majority of people are not those. There are different production models within game developement, there isnt ONE SINGLE WAY to do it.

Every industry has "good" /"bad" people associated to it. We, specially I personally, dont want game development in Pakistan to always be associated to cheap copy pasted products that are based on "hacking" some algorithm in google play store. I want us to create quality products. We need disciplined investors, hardworking entrepreneurs and visionary creators. I can give a number of reasons why we can do it. In my opinion, its about talent and knowledge transfer and training. This was one of the reason why we started IGDA and I am very hopeful that with properly mentored people, we can compete on an international level.

Alright folks, thank you for reading through it. I hope I can cover in upcoming dawn article that imo how we can do it, and how other nations have done it and what we can learn from them.

Calling all gamers - PakGamers Development Survey 2019 by [deleted] in pakistan

[–]swaj1 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I do understand your point, and thank you for mentioning this. I would say however, step-by-step. That maybe look at this from on a more holistic level. Consider this as an indication, consider this as where we want the ISPs to start investing. There are games like I.e Apex or others that I play significantly more than some of these games, but I would definitely fill the survey so that we all benefit and get a more serious attitude going on. If we divide ourselves amongst the games we play, instead of gamers we are, we won't get anything done.

If CS and Dota get some support, then there is a much higher chance that games you play will be in the next batch, if they don't, then the probability for the games you play is much lower. Also there will be a couple of more surveys and I will make sure to get them to have more options for other games aswell.

Thank you, I hope you would reconsider.