Global Game Industry News Blog

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Remaining Bits and Pieces Settling Down

I don't have much broader commentary today. More experiential. I've been busy making sure all of the logistical bits and pieces are falling in to place. The two HR managers at RedOctane and Dhruva, have been extremely helpful in making all of this fairly simple for me. All of my internal airfare and lodging is finalized, so I don't have to worry about that any more. I've also managed to find a fair number of folks to chat with in Hyderabad, so that risk has paid off. Even though members of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) clamored that I must visit Hyderabad, I found very few developers actually willing to sit down and talk with me.

I'm going to be running a slew of interviews in the coming days, which will keep me very busy. I likely wont do much with these until after I get back to the states. Perhaps listen through them again afterwards, but no transcribing. I did realize yesterday just how much Rajesh here at Dhruva knows about the internal layout of the companies around him (I suppose that's part of his job as a CEO). It was pretty impressive. I'm hoping that he can draw a map of that world. We were planning on a meeting this afternoon, but something seemed to come up.

The nice thing is that it sounds like I've got a good cross-section of these companies, and even if I haven't been able to get sit-in time with all of them, I'll at least have an opportunity to chat with a few folks from many of them. I also got a good feel about some of the studios that I was hoping to visit, but didn't pan out, and while I'm sad that I couldn't check out India Games, I've also now got a better idea about what they're up to.

I'm going to move from the console group here to the mobile group to get a feel for what's going on over there.

Today is very nice out. Its the hottest its been since I arrived, though even now at a little after 4:30pm (IST) it has cooled down significantly. The sun is shining (we've had a fair amount of rain and cloudy skies) and I have every intention to take a slew of photos. I know I've been negligent in posting those.

Last night I ate at Friday's. Yes, I know... How very American of me. It was actually quite fun, because I ended up sitting next to a guy full of commentary about video games in India. Plus I just really wanted some mozzarella sticks. I've made it a rule that I cannot go to a place more than once while I'm here, and have stuck to that pretty well. Other than that I've made it out to many different kinds of places and had numerous different kinds of foods. I keep being encouraged to try places that aren't "Indian," but Indian versions of other foods. For example the "American" salad I had at Fridays was quite spicy, and very good. The mozz sticks were another story, you just can't adjust those too much. People keep recommending "East Asian" and "Italian" places, so I'm doing well with my goal. I'm also one go off a recommendation before I just start wandering.

Tomorrow night I'm going to have a couple of beers with guys from here after work, so that should be fun.

(15.0)

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