Maya Academy of advanced Cinematic (MAAC) have officially unveiled the Diploma in Game Design and Integration (DGDI) course the ‘Game On’ event which was held in Delhi on 27^th August 2010 and in Mumbai on 28^th August 2010. Speakers from EA and Gameshashtra were present at the occasion to guide the students and show them the correct path to make a successful career in the game development industry.

Vijay Raghvan a Senior Game Artist from Gameshashtra was present on Gameshashtra’s behalf as he gave the students a brief insight about the Indian game development industry including a list of the big players in India. Gameshashtra are the developers of the recently launched ‘Desi Adda’ which was launched on the PS2 and PSP. It is the first game made for the PSP in India. Vijay explained the challenges he faced during the development and how the team overcame them. “Game development is not an easy job at all. It’s not just about playing games, you need to understand the games and how they are build and how you can make them better. There are some crazy work timings and sometimes you have to meet impossible deadlines and hence you need to work extra shifts at times.” Vijay said.

He encouraged game artists to share their work on popular forums as your work gets criticized and it helps you to grow as an artist. It helps you to understand your mistakes so that you do not repeat them again. He advised game artists to visit the ‘Polycount’ - Game art community. He also encouraged developers who are Counter Strike fans to try and make their own game levels and ask their friends to test the levels, get feedback and see how gripping and enjoyable your game level is to play. This is a good was to build your showreel. The team strength at Gameshashtra is about 200 people and the company is planning to scale up to more than double its current strength in a year’s time. Developers who are interested in joining Gameshashtra can send their show reels to hr@gameshashtra.com.

Matthew Jeffry was present on behalf of EA. Matthew’s presentation started with a showcase video of EA’s releases this year and upcoming releases. The video was greeted with loud screams and whistles by the students. The screams and whistles doubled for Matthew’s second video as it was the trailer of the upcoming NFS: Hot Persuit game and NFS is a popular game amongst most students and gamers in India. EA’s other popular upcoming games include Crysis 2(March 2011) and Medal of Honor (October 2010).

Matthew was extremely happy at the progress of the Indian gaming industry. He said “The launch of 3G in India has opened a new path for gaming in India. The mobile is one of the biggest platforms for gaming in India and the launch of 3G is a huge thing for EA mobile. It is good to see so many students aspiring to become game developers and that’s definitely a good thing for the industry.”

He further added by saying, “Students who are interested in applying at EA should keep a few things in mind. If you are applying for the post of an artist you need to present a really strong showreel. It needs to highlight all your strengths. Similarly if you are applying as game designers you should present levels that you have designed. Think out of the box and make your levels as unique as possible. Game programmers should have a good command over programming languages like C++ and C#.”

Anurag Yadav from MAAC gave some further details about the course at MAAC. The Diploma in Game Design and Integration is a 12 month course which spans over 2 semesters of 6 months. On the completion first 6 months students get certificates in Game designing. The first 6 months teach you the basics in game designing whereas on completion of the entire course you get an advanced certificate in Game Design and Integration. This advanced course will give students complete industry knowledge related to end to end game development. For further details of the course visit the MAAC website.

Lastly there was a short quiz hosted by the CG Tantra team. The winners of the quiz played a Crysis death match which was organized by Maximum Gaming. Matthew from EA also played the death match along with the students. The winner of the 10 minute deathmatch got prizes from EA and Nvidia. The winners of the online contest by GamingXpress received EA original titles.

The event was had a good response and was attended by MAAC students and quite a lot of non MAAC students as well. The launch of this course has given students a good option to choose a career focused towards game development.