[Executive Edge] The game you want to play

The Philippines is a potential hub for video game development within Southeast Asia.

We need to look no further than the recent launch of new mobile games company, Xeleb. Its first title, Anne Galing, backed by Anne Curtis, has already been drawing comparisons to Kim Kardashian’s wildly successful app. Games featuring Isabelle Daza, Erwan Heussaff, and Kim Atienza are also in development.

According to Gwen Foster, a game producer from Quickfire Games and the co-founder of Let’s Play Manila, the Philippines has a lot of potential for video gaming because of our unique cultural mix. Foster said that Filipino game developers are well-versed in different kinds of art, including both Japanese and Chinese, as well as Western and European styles.

This familiarity allows Filipinos to do outsourced game development for foreign companies, in addition to creating original games targeting the Philippine market or greater Southeast Asia. Foster said that one of our advantages over our neighboring countries is one of our two national languages.

“The international scene is actually looking at Southeast Asia and now we’re in a good place because one of our strengths is that we actually speak English really well compared to our other Southeast Asian counterparts,” Foster said.

Given this advantage, Foster encourages Filipinos interested in video game development to pursue computer science in college. One of her biggest pieces of advice for them is recognizing the distinction between player and maker.

“If you really want to get into the game industry, you have to understand that playing games is very different from making games,” she said.

Playing games vs. making games

Foster said she is trying to sharpen such distinction through her organization Let’s Play Manila, which hosts meetups and events for the game development community.

They recently hosted a panel discussion involving various tech writers from the media, so that the game developers in attendance could learn what it takes to get their games featured or even reviewed.

Members of Let’s Play Manila, of course, play games together, but Foster shared her ultimate goal is for people to examine them from a more critical perspective. “How do these games get made?” she posed. 

Foster said that developing this critical framework is necessary because game developers need to get potential players interested and invested in their games, which are competing against hundreds of other possible recreational activities.

Foster wanted Filipinos to be more interested in local video games because the country can be an effective testing grounds for them. “We have such an understanding culture of what good games should be,” she shared.

She advised that aspiring game developers should not only ride on games that are “hot” at the moment. Instead, they should make the game that they themselves would want to play because passion. A lack thereof is always palpable in the finished product.

“You really have to make the game you want first and foremost, because it really does resonate when you make a game and it just feels like work,” she said.

Welcoming Filipina game developers

Foster praised the local video game community for being particularly encouraging toward female game developers, especially as the industry tends to be male-dominated.

She hoped that more Filipinas consider the world of game development, and pointed out that programming central to the field was originally a job of women.

“And it takes a special type of discipline to be able to execute things,” she added.

Foster called on women entering the industry to not only gravitate toward the artsy side of the field, but really work toward understanding the deeper mechanics of video games.

“And while the normal route would be to be a game artist, I think you really have to understand the inner works of how games are made so that you could really thrive in the industry,” she said. – Rappler.com 

Rappler Business columnist Ezra Ferraz brings you Philippine business leaders, their insights, and their secrets via Executive Edge. Connect with him on Twitter: @EzraFerraz