The game of life

The pace of regional development in the content creation field has been relentless over the last couple of years. Digital Studio visited the latest addition to the growing Abu Dhabi stable when we headed to the new studios of games developer, Karkadann Games.

Karkadann Games, part of the Abu Dhabi Media Company and currently, if temporarily, based at ADMC’s Al-Ittihad Building HQ, may have only been officially live since the turn of the year, but this came following an ‘incubation period’ of some months, as a result of which, its first title, ICC Cricket Power, was launched on February 1st. Not bad for a company that had only existed for three weeks.

This first game was actually developed by Mindstorm, an experienced Pakistani developer, with Karkadann publishing and distributing the finished product.

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Moving forwards, however, Karkadann will both licence games from external developers in the role of publisher, and develop its own content from its Abu Dhabi studio.

Karkadann general manager David Ortiz explains further: “This a total start up from scratch. Currently, we have specialists in all the major disciplines on board, from technical experts to creative and artistic direction. As time goes on, we will increase the staffing levels and begin in-house development.

“We’ve chosen to licence our first release because, quite simply, it’s the quickest way of getting initial content out there. We don’t feel compelled to produce everything in house, and as we’re currently working from a temporary office publishing was the best start.

We had a good licencing deal with the ICC, Mindstorm is an experienced developer that was working on a cricket game, and the two came together nicely.

In fact, we feel that part of our remit should be to publish other people’s games from the region, whether or not the creators were hired by us for that specific purpose. We want to bring regional talent to the market regardless of whether that’s done in house or through publishing deals.”

Hardware-wise, Karkadann’s is a fairly simple set up. PCs are the main tool, although Ortiz concedes that if, for example, motion capture is needed, Karkadann’s links with ADMC, as well as its close relationship with twofour54, do not leave it short of options in terms of facilities or specialists.

Karkaddan has certainly hit the ground running. With one release already on the market, it plans at least one more this year, a still-under -development game based on the exploits of Filipino boxing legend Manny Pacquiao.

With major licencing deals in place with the world’s major cricket body and the Phillipines’ biggest export, it seems that Karkaddan has identified some very specific demographic needs within the region’s multicultural population, and I ask Ortiz if the company is intentionally targeting some of the region’s biggest expat populations: “Of course there are massive multicultural populations in the region and we want to reflect that.