Post recent budget I had written a post on how games would get cheaper in India thanks to a cut in customs duty, but looks like there was another provision in the bill where the government made it practically impossible for any Indian to pay and download games. According to this story in Business Line, Indians will need to pay an excise duty of 10% while downloading any sort of application to a mobile phone or a PC, from a foreign supplier or a website.

This makes life difficult for a lot of gamers who decide to download legitimate copies of the games from services like Steam and also for console gamers, who download games from services such as Xbox Live and PlayStation Network. According to the story in Business Line, non-payment could have sever implications:

Mr N.R. Badrinath, a partner with a consulting firm Accretive Business Consulting, told Business Line that in case of downloads made available by foreign suppliers, under the ‘reverse charge principle’ the person downloading such software in India would need to pay the service tax at 10.3 per cent. This means that even an individual downloading software for personal use would need to pay the service tax, seek registration under the service tax provisions and also file the statutory returns thereafter. Non-compliance with the provisions could trigger interest and penalty. “This amendment brought in with respect to information technology software services will create a lot of hardships,” Mr Badrinath said.

Now as this post in Medianama suggests, it is ridiculous to expect users to register just because they want to file service tax.

Under this reverse charge clause, individual users will apparently have to register for the service tax provisions and file the statutory returns for every piece of software they buy online, even for personal use. To top it off, this is applicable for every individual purchase one makes. So if you wanted to upgrade your blog’s theme and bought one, you would automatically have to go through the process of registering and filing 10.3% service tax on it!

Preethi at Medianama is right when she says that India does not care about ecommerce, for not only do gamers miss out an option to download games at a cheaper rate than it is in stores, this law will just add to the confusion which was created after govt made it mandatory for all credit card transactions online to have a special pin. Services like Xbox Live still hasn’t integrated this featured making the process of buying live points, to buy games a challenge in itself. Till now only software which were downloaded for commercial purposes were taxed but post this bud(I don’t)get, we ‘previlaged citizens’ will have to pass through more red tape and babugiri, just because we wanted instant access to a game. The government has done a big disservice to its people by coming up with such irrational measures which’ll in no way help anyone (except may be bring down the fiscal deficit; which according to me should have been handled differently). So this makes me say that the Indian government has truely eared it… not bournville.. but the hate of netizens for killing off ecommerce (and gaming) industry in India right at it’s infancy.

Implications

If government is very strict about implementing it’s laws, it needs to be seen how they’ll monitor transactions online. Paypal went through a difficult phase in India recently and finally now Indians will need to make special licenses to make transactions using the service. So in case they DO start forcing this down users throat, we’ll see a spike in piracy, but thankfully it may not affect services such as game4u and Consoul where though the purchase is made online, the products are delivered via courier. Let’s hope that services like Steam and Live don’t actually get blocked in India, knowing Indian government they are capable of doing that too.

It’s the beginning of the month, you (or your dad) just got your salary, so why wait for later? Why not decide on the games you are going to buy this month? E-xpress has sent us a list of games which they’ll be releasing in India this month. It’s not a complete list of all the games that’ll be releasing this month, but e-xpress definitely has a few good titles for you this month. Here’s the full list:

PC (Games for Windows)

Title Name      MRP      Publisher      Genre
Aliens vs Predator     699     SEGA     Action
Nepolean Total War     999     SEGA     Historic Real-Time Strategy
Sonic & Sega All Star Racing     699     SEGA     Kart Racing
Assassins Creed II     999     Ubisoft     Action Adventure
Silent Hunter 5     699     Ubisoft     Action Adventure
Supreme Commander 2     999     Square Enix     Sci-Fi Real-Time Strategy
Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising     499     THQ     Real-Time Strategy
Metro 2033     699     THQ     Sci-Fi First-Person Shooter
Just Cause 2     699     Eidos     Modern Action Adventure

Playstation 3 (PS3)

Title Name      MRP      Publisher      Genre
Sonic & Sega All Star Racing     2499     SEGA     Kart Racing
Final Fantasy XIII     2499     Sqaure Enix     Role Playing
Yakuza 3     2499     SEGA     Modern Action Adventure
Batman Arkham Asylum GOTY     2499     Eidos     Action
Just Cause 2     2499     Eidos     Modern Action Adventure
Resonance Of Fate     2499     SEGA     Role Playing

Microsoft Xbox 360

Title Name      MRP      Publisher      Genre
Sonic & Sega All Star Racing     2499     SEGA     Kart Racing
Final Fantasy XIII     2499     Sqaure Enix     Role Playing
Metro 2033     2499     THQ     Sci-Fi First-Person Shooter
Batman Arkham Asylum GOTY     2499     Eidos     Action
Resonance of Fate     2499     SEGA     Role Playing
Just Cause 2     2499     Eidos     Modern Action Adventure

PSP

Title Name      MRP      Publisher      Genre
Shaun White Snow + POP ‘Rival Swords’  PSP Pack     1299     Ubisoft
Driver ’76 + Prince of Persia 3 Revelations PSP Pack     1299     Ubisoft

Brothers In Arms D-Day + Rainbow Six Vegas PSP Pack     1299     Ubisoft
Splinter Cell Essentials + GRAW 2 PSP Pack     1299     Ubisoft

Pranab Mukherjee’s budget today gave gamers a reason to cheer. In the budget he has brought down the customs duty which now stands at around 12%.

It’s not clear what the final rate will be, but lower customs duty is definitely a welcome move. Also taxes on CDs have also been brought down, but considering how cheap they are it wouldn’t make a drastic difference to the price of a game.

A lot of gamers in India import games from sites such as Play Asia and many UK sites even to get the games in the first week of its release. It needs to be seen what effect it’ll have on the price of games in retail as distributors in India too import the game CDs (for consoles) rather than importing just a master CD. Exception would be PC games which are still published from within India after importing a master CD.

(Thanks to @FagunB for the heads up)

Following launch of a gaming store by competitor E-xpress, Milestone has launched one in Mumbai — called game4u after their online gaming site. According to GameGuru, “the store is more about delivering an interactive entertainment experience to the customer.”

The store has a special Game4u Girls section and an area where gamers can try out Rock Band kit. The store also has a special blu-ray section if you’re into watching movies in HD (ehmm.. on your PS3). Game4uGirls is a section comprising of games which they think appeals to girls such as Hannah Montana, Littlest Pet Shop etc, there are also a few Wii games in this section. The store will also let gamers trade in older games for new ones according to IVG, but it needs to be seen what kind of prices they’ll offer. If they offer good prices people might prefer such stores where they get money instantly instead of forums.

We had earlier written about Milestone’s plans to open a store when they were hiring people through their blog.

The store launch leaves e-xpress with a question if they should be opening an online store or not. Milestone has both online and offline covered under the game4u branding and not the ball’s in e-xpress’s court to make their move.

News on the competition aside I’m looking forward to console manufacturers tying up with these stores to bring out special super-discounted consoles. such a move will not only give these some publicity, but’ll also do some good for gaming in India which has growing at a slow rate.

If any of you want to check it out, it’s at Mega Mall, Oshiwara (psst do let us know what you think about it )

Saltmarch Media, the same group who had organised Indian Developer Summit is organising Indian Game Developer Summit in Bangalore, on Feb 27 (this weekend). The one day event will see discussions on topics ranging from game development, marketing, team-management among others.

You can check out the schedule here, the talks I’m looking forward to the most are:

• Technology And Market Trends In The PC Game Industry by Keita Iida, part of NVIDIA’s Content & Technology organization since 2001
• Bootstrapping for Mobile Game Development in India by Krishna Chaitanya Pediredla, founder and managing partner of Drona Labs, which focuses on developing games and applications for the Apple Iphone.
• Quality Asset Creation & Sound As A Storyteller by Varun Nair, who has been a part of sound industry for the past four and half years and has dabbled in most areas of sound during this period.
• Stretching Torque to Duplicate a Commercial AAA Game Engine in Ghajini by Imran Khan, VP Technology at FXLabs.
• Preparing for the Great Indian Social Gaming Rush by Sumit Gupta, CEO and Founder of BitRhymes, a social gaming company.
• Open Source for Your Game Development by Kinshuk Sunil, an indie game developer from New Delhi and Yadu Rajiv, an indie game developer from Trivandrum.
• The Creative Core Team by Jithin Rao, a producer at Ubisoft Pune, the game publisher Ubisoft’s first Indian studio.

Now the list is cool if not for the last two which clash, hmm I guess I’ll have to figure out a way to attend both. In case you’re interested, you can register here and do ping me if you’re around. You’ll find all my contact info here.

Highly anticipated title, Bayonetta, will finally be available in India on Jan 8, Friday, corresponding with the release of the game in Europe. Developed by Sega, this third-based action game, set in a fictional city in Europe, will be available for Xbox 360 and PS3. The game which relies heavily on combos has a sort of bullet-time — witch time — which activates a slow-mo sequence where you can inflict maximum damage while giving enemies very little time to react.

The game has received great reviews in Japan, where it released in October 2009.

Are you based out of India? Do you game on Xbox 360? Do you use Live service? If you replied with a yes to all three questions, then you have a reason to rejoice. Those under Silver plan in live service will get an auto upgrade to gold for free. Where did I get the info from? From the Facebook page of course!

Starting today 10:30 PM until 4 Jan 2010 10:30 PM all India silver members get access to Gold features for Free! So how you wanna enter 2010 now KFP

Good news for sure, but don’t cancel your new year plans now

PS: I’m finally getting an Xbox360 this new year.. I think it’s time I thought beyond PC gaming

Milestone Interactive, one of the top game distributors in India will be opening a physical store apart from it’s online store, game4u.com. No no, this is not one of those rumours we so often publish/refrain from publishing. This is for real folks. According to the blog at Game4u, they’re planning to start an outlet in Mumbai and are on the lookout for gamers who are “smart, talented gamers with a passion for retail.”

I thought I fit the criteria till I read the next line,

So if you live in Mumbai, are interested in working in what is probably the most vibrant industry around and love games, this is place to be. And if these few words don’t pique your interest, this ad might.

Okay I envy all you guys at Mumbai, not that I would have stopped blogging and worked at a gaming store, but I’m sure such stores area good place to meet up with fellow gamers. And that’s something we are lacking in. Keeping aside a Living Room or Consoul (both in Bangalore) or Zapak Gameplex, there aren’t many places in India where gamers can get together and have some fun, hopefully such retail outlets will provide that for gamers in the country

Remember Ghajini? Yes that game which made me scream nooooooo, turns out it won the 24fps animation award for the “Best Game Design”. Woah! Rilly? Could you please tell us who the competition included. I can only think of Hanuman, which was equally lame.

If my guess work is right, the award went to the game which sucked less than the other one, not to a game that deserved to win. Which brings me to yet another rant on gaming in India.

Do we need such pointless award ceremonies, or even categories where awards are given out just for the heck of it, to ease egos of few people in the industry. Sure, there’s nothing wrong in appreciating efforts by individuals in the industry, but does awards make any sense here? How do we appreciate companies that put in a lot of money and effort into creating games which — forget the international standards — are too buggy to be enjoyed. These games lack originality, lack a USP except the Indian-ness. The excuses range from low-spec nature of PCs in India to cost and returns, but my question is why can’t you guys think global? If Slumdog Millionaire a bollywood movie (in essence) with a UK based director can grab Oscars, why can’t we make an India themed game with international appeal and quality?

Why do the developers think the gamers here will fall for the shit that’s thrown our way? Yes, we would like to see the industry grow and for that reason we might even go and buy a copy of the game (I didn’t wait for the review copy of Desi Adda for example) but why make us regret the money we put into the game? How difficult is to develop a game based on a movie?

Take your time, don’t get bullied by the producer who thinks of games as a promotional medium rather as a stand-alone piece of art (poke poke at Ghajini).

Why not quote James Cameroon who wanted Avatar, based on the movie, to be different from the movie, not forced down by the story line and environments in the movie? Why not approach EA, Sony, or Microsoft (3 gaming cos with an established base in India) to produce the game, they do understand the production cycle of games right (Don’t put in your own money)?

The other approach would be the one adopted by UTV, buy a few studios abroad, let them worry about game production. Ultimately they have an India connect but the games have nothing to do with India except for the fact that parent company is based in India.

I think UTVs approach works better in India, of now. The parent company can set up a smaller studio in India who can help the bigger studio based abroad to develop the game. That way the Indian studio can understand India’s place in gaming world; understand how they can contribute to gaming industry. Should they be like Dhruva, who have worked on assets of tons of racing titles including Forza 3 or should they concentrate on mobile version of the game much EA’s Hyderabad studio does? As of now production work for games are spread out across the globe, direction work is mostly done out of US, coding in Eastern Europe, modeling, animation in Asia (Philippines, India etc) and all these are put together finally in US or Europe again and sent for testing to places like Bangalore.

What should be India’s role? Do we have good enough coders to produce games? Do Indian style of art (high on colour contrasts — ghajini) appeal to western audience (games needs to have an international appeal as of now unlike bollywood)? Do we have good game-worthy ideas? Are we over-dependent on mythology? A few debatable questions for which we may not have answers as of now, but the sooner we find them, we can stop talking about “India the next big gaming country” and get down to work at hand… and may be give awards to studios that has produced a game that deserves the award.

As a gamer, I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with the word ‘option’; I love it when one of the options is too good to be true; I hate it when all the options are good. This month and the in the coming one, all we gamers will be showered with options, thanks to E-Xpress. I’ve been getting mail after mail from them over the past week and a half on games that’ll be and has released in India. What’re the games you ask? Here goes nothing…

WWE SmackDown vs RAW 2010
Ya ya we all like WWE or used to like it at some point of time. If you’re one of those who still do, then I would like to inform you that it’s available in retail now.
Wallet Damage:  PS3- Rs2499 PSP – Rs1599  Xbox 360 – Rs2499  Wii – Rs2199  Nintendo DS – Rs1499

GTA China Town Wars and Episodes from Liberty City
Okay no explanation, we know you know all about them (If you don’t check our earlier posts)
Wallet Damage: PSP -  Rs1499  Xbox 360 – Rs1999
Meanwhile, those who haven’t played GTA IV yet, the prices of console version (both Xbox360 and PS3) has been dropped to Rs1,499.

Assassin’s Creed II
The original one looked good, but might have bee a little boring to play, the second one however looks a little more interesting.
The game will soon be available in stores
Wallet Damage: Xbox360 & PS3: Rs2599  DS & PSP: Rs1599

Borderlands
An interesting Diablo-inspired FPS title
Available for Xbox360, PC, PS3

Avatar the game
Yes, now that’s one game I’m looking forward to and I don’t think I’ll be disappointed.
The game will be releasing sometime this December and is available for PS3, Xbox360, PC, Wii and PSP.

So there, we’re spoilt for choice now let me go back to my first line.. the love-hate relationship. I hate to miss out on any of these games. Where will I put my money. Which game will I buy? Tough choice indeed!