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SEA Game Awards 2018: making winners and imparting lessons


Malaysia’s SEA Game Awards 2018 saw 40 of Southeast Asia’s best games vying for 10 prestigious awards. In the end, the event not only produced winners, but also lessons from which any game developer can benefit.

The value of unsafe ideas

The winner of SEA Game Awards 2018’s biggest prize, the Grand Jury Award, is “No Straight Roads,” an innovative game revolving around music.

“No Straight Roads” is a source of pride and honor for developer Metronomik. Its selection as one of the 40 finalists means the studio made the right choice when it took the risk to commit to a strange, new concept.

“No Straight Roads” isn’t a rhythm game as you’d expect; it’s an action-adventure game where music and rhythm can be exploited to make your attacks more powerful and your evasive or defensive maneuvers more effective.


According to Metronomik co-founder and CEO Wan Hazmer, the studio found a “sweet spot” between rhythm games like “Patapon” and pure action games like “Devil May Cry.”

“People always think the money will not come if you do something new and unsafe,” said Hazmer.

“But that’s very untrue in the game industry. In the game industry, the more unique and fresh your game is, the more popular it will be. If you want more people to play your game, don’t be safe.”

Making “safe” games only leads to uninspired, inferior clones of established games, Hazmer believes.

He however stressed the importance of testing new ideas: “Make sure you test the game with users, whether they like it or not. If they don’t like it, change it. Good thing with games is they can be modified even in the middle of development; you don’t have to rebuild them from scratch… Game development is very flexible.”

Hazmer also trusts in the power of storytelling. In “No Straight Roads,” the two main characters and all the bosses have stories that are conveyed through their speech, behavior, and appearance.

The value of story

Malaysian studio Kaigan Games won Best Innovation for “SIMULACRA: Pipe Dreams,” which is a spin-off of “SIMULACRA.” Both are interactive horror games that have players operating a “mobile phone” to interact with characters and the world. Both have garnered extremely positive reviews on Steam.

“What’s special about ‘SIMULACRA: Pipe Dreams’ that I hope our players take home is the story itself,” said Kaigan Games CEO, Shahrizar Roslan.

With the “SIMULACRA” titles, Kaigan Games explores a subtler kind of horror. “The horror we are trying to tell isn’t in-your-face jump scare horror, but the digital horror that people don’t talk about, such as meeting strangers online and not knowing if they are who they say they are,” said Shahrizar.


While it isn’t necessary for a game to tell a tale, a story can add another level of value to the experience, especially if said story features relatable situations and a relevant message. By tackling issues of the digital and social media age, the “SIMULACRA” games are able to tap into real fears.

Shahrizar also believes in selling your game to as many people as possible. An esoteric game might prove popular in a specific region, but acceptance by a global audience will yield more revenue and experience.

“‘Build locally, sell globally’ is a catchphrase to remember. Build locally with local talent that you can expand down the road to grow with you, but sell to a global audience because you can learn a lot from that,” said Shahrizar. “If you’re going to target just the local market, you’ll be limiting yourselves. So from the start we aimed to be a game company that makes content that can be enjoyed by everyone around world.”

The value of game events

SEA Game Awards is part of Malaysia’s annual game conference and expo, Level UP KL. This year it saw 85 industry experts from around the world sharing their knowledge in over 50 panels, and a massive showcase of games from Southeast Asia’s finest developers.

Hazmer believes events like Level UP KL are extremely important.

“They create awareness that there is such thing as a Southeast Asian game industry,” Hazmer said. “The game industry is taking over the movie industry. There’s lots of revenue. A lot of parents don’t think it’s a good career path for their kids, that there’s no money in it. But that’s because games are still not celebrated well enough…”

Game Developers Association of the Philippines (GDAP) President Alvin Juban, who was a speaker at Level UP KL 2018, also believes such events are crucial to the growth of any region’s game industry.

“(Level UP KL) is my benchmark event,” said Juban. “This is very game-centric, so there’s a lot of learning… This is just so mature already, the content is amazing… It’s not just playing games and wasting my time, there’s a science and craftsmanship behind it.”

 

Game Developers Association of the Philippines (GDAP) President Alvin Juban.
Game Developers Association of the Philippines (GDAP) President Alvin Juban.


The Malaysian government supports its game developers and events like Level UP KL.

This inspires Juban; if he can share the success of such an event with the Philippine government and Philippine stakeholders, then perhaps they too, will start treating the Philippine game industry seriously.

There are other ways to encourage the powers-that-be to invest in the future of the Philippine game industry.

“I think we just need to make more noise; we have to get more sizeable contracts for outsourcing, get work from bigger brands,” said Juban.

“The government takes notice of that. The bigger the contracts, the more you can employ, and the more it’ll make sense for the schools to keep on teaching game development. And with this drive, the indie developers will be encouraged to develop their own games… That’s how you form an ecosystem.”

To aspiring game developers, Juban has the following message: “You have to work hard. The degrees you earn in school will give you a solid foundation, but most of the things you have to learn on your own… It’s a discipline of always learning new technologies. And besides mastering the craft of developing games, you also have to learn the business side. So take it seriously.”

Visit the official Level UP KL website for the full list of SEA Game Awards 2018 winners. — AT, GMA News

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