Spawned Elsewere

Game Developer with 15+ years experience, originally from India working abroad. Contributed to over 40+ Games across AAA, AA on all Consoles & PC

[Spawned Elsewere @SpawndElsewhere]

Wow, @GDAI_in never ceases to surprise, all that talk about need for good support system @shruti_verma and you bring @nikmlnkr who blames his team for the failure and outsources core design 🤣, lacks any sense of accountability.

[Spawned Elsewere @SpawndElsewhere]

Ask any AI Chat with search enabled “generally, give me to 10 reasons why game developers make games and rank them” and then add Indian to it, you would notice stark difference. And everyone asks why India doesn’t have great games, because the goal was something else.

[Spawned Elsewere @SpawndElsewhere]

ngl, it’s a improvement from the last trailer. But still doesn’t give the impression of BM:W, the combat feels off. What looks good is the camera work but the DOF in every shot 🤦

[Unleash the Avatar @utathegame]

After 6 months of hard work, we're ready to show what's next.

Get a glimpse of the latest gameplay trailer and story bits featuring Johnny Yong Bosch (who voices Ichigo from Bleach) as the voice actor of Vikram.

[Spawned Elsewere @SpawndElsewhere]

India Doesn't Need More Game Developers. It Needs Better Game Studios.

I have heard the same conversation about Indian game development for years.

Talent. Potential. Market size. Cultural stories. Mobile penetration. The inevitable line about India becoming the next big gaming hub. None of it is wrong. But none of it has moved the needle either, and at some point you have to ask why.

The question I rarely hear discussed is the harder one underneath all of it: why do so many promising Indian teams fail to become real studios?

@shruti_verma, CEO of @GDAI_in, recently put it clearly: India does not simply need more game developers, it needs more successful game studios. She outlined four areas where the ecosystem needs to act. I agree with the direction. But one of those areas is already being handled badly in practice, and I think it is worth being honest about that — including about GDAI itself.

The capital problem goes deeper than access

Patient capital is a real need. But the problem is not just that there is not enough of it. It is that much of the capital currently available comes attached to the wrong mental model.

Many investors approach game studios the way they approach SaaS startups or app companies: fast traction, visible metrics, quick exits. That framework does not work for original IP development. If a studio is building something ambitious — for PC, console, premium mobile, or a globally competitive audience — the timeline is simply different. No amount of enthusiasm closes the gap between how games are actually made and what many investors currently expect.

Until that mental model shifts, promising studios will keep taking money that eventually forces them to compromise before they have had a real chance.

Mentorship cannot be theatre

The mentorship point is where I want to spend most of my time, because it is the area most at risk of being done badly while looking like it is being done right.

I have genuine respect for what GDAI is trying to build. The intention behind creating real infrastructure for the Indian games industry matters, and Shruti's post itself is evidence that the thinking is in the right place. Which is exactly why I think GDAI needs to hold itself to a higher standard when it comes to mentorship specifically.

Out of curiosity to understand the state of affairs, I recently attended a GDAI session where the speaker was positioned as a veteran of the Indian games industry. On paper, useful. In practice, it had almost no value. It felt more like self-promotion than mentorship. There was no useful breakdown of production realities, no specific lessons from shipping, no serious discussion of market positioning, no actionable guidance for founders or teams — nothing that could not be found in a basic online article.

The only visible outcome was a handful of networking moments and a few LinkedIn posts.

That is not mentorship. That is industry theatre.

If GDAI wants mentorship to be a serious pillar — and it should — it needs to be far more careful about who it puts in front of young studios. Experience alone is not enough. A mentor needs substance. They need to understand the stage of the team they are speaking to. They need to be able to talk about actual problems: scope control, burn rate, production milestones, publisher pitches, hiring mistakes, team structure, monetisation decisions, live operations, platform choices, and what not to build.

Good mentorship is contextual. Bad mentorship is generic inspiration.

And right now, too much of what passes for mentorship in India is generic inspiration.

We need mentors who have built, failed, shipped, sold, and survived

The Indian games ecosystem needs mentors who can tell founders the truth.

Not vague motivational lines. Not "follow your passion." Not recycled case studies from global companies everyone has already read about. Not personal branding dressed up as advice.

We need people who can answer uncomfortable but practical questions:
- How do you decide whether a prototype is worth continuing?
- When should a studio kill a project?
- How do you avoid over-scoping your first commercial game?
- What does a publisher actually look for in a pitch?
- How do you structure milestones so the team does not drift?
- What should founders understand before taking money?
- How do you build a production pipeline with a small team?
- What should Indian studios learn from global indies, and what does not apply here?
- What kind of talent should an early studio hire first?

These are the conversations that can actually help studios survive. Everything else is noise, like the Gullies, Wars and all the clones.

India has talent. That was never the problem.

It is true. It is also the least useful thing we can keep repeating.
Talent without structure burns out. Without capital, it compromises too early. Without real mentorship, it repeats mistakes that could have been avoided. Without production discipline, it never ships anything worth remembering. These are not talent failures. They are ecosystem failures.

If India wants globally recognised game studios, the conversation has to move away from counting how many people are entering game development and start asking how many teams are surviving, shipping, earning, and growing. That number tells you far more about where things actually stand.

Better capital, better publishing pathways, better production education — all of it matters. But none of it works without mentorship that has real substance behind it. Not more panels. Not more sessions designed to look useful on a schedule. Mentorship from people who have actually been through it and are willing to say the hard things.

The posts will keep coming. The sessions will keep running. The panels will keep filling seats. None of that is the problem. The problem is mistaking activity for progress. The Indian games ecosystem will mature when its institutions start holding themselves to the same standard they ask of studios: did something ship? Did it survive? Did it get better?

[Spawned Elsewere @SpawndElsewhere]

The AAA Mirage: E-Cricket and the Danger of Label Inflation

Let's talk about the word AAA.

In the global games industry, AAA is not a vibe. It is not a trailer font. It is not a funding headline. It is a production standard: depth, polish, animation quality, visual consistency, optimization, QA, UX, content scale, and the invisible discipline required to make all of that feel seamless.

But in the Indian gaming conversation, “AAA” is increasingly being used like a marketing spell. Say it loudly enough, attach it to Unreal Engine 5, add a few celebrity names, and suddenly the product is treated as if it has already crossed a quality bar it has not yet publicly demonstrated.

The latest case study is #ecricketgame by #LightFuryGames.

The promise is massive. The official site describes eCricket as a “flagship Esports cricket experience,” powered by Unreal Engine 5, with “stunning realism,” “AI-driven gameplay,” “next-gen mechanics,” real-time multiplayer, live esports tournaments, and a 2026 release window. That is not modest positioning. That is a very deliberate attempt to place the game in the premium sports-game conversation.

And now there is even more fuel on the hype fire: LightFury announced an $11 million Pre-Series A round, backed by investors including Blume, V3 Ventures, MIXI, Times Internet, and strategic investments from Indian cricketers including MS Dhoni, @Jaspritbumrah93, @hardikpandya7, @ShreyasIyer15, Ravindra Jadeja, Tilak Varma, and Sai Sudharsan.

That is a serious raise. It also makes the expectations serious.

Funding gives a studio oxygen. Famous cricketers give it visibility. Licensed names give it marketability. But none of those things automatically make a game AAA. They create a halo around the project; they do not prove the execution.

The Screenshot Problem: The Crowd Gives the Game Away

The recently shared E-Cricket screenshot is trying to sell spectacle: a player celebrating under stadium lights, bat raised, crowd behind him, branding on the boundary boards, and a SneakPeekSaturday caption doing the usual hype-cycle work.

But look past the foreground pose and look at the crowd.

For a project positioning itself around realism and next-gen presentation, the crowd does not yet carry that claim.

The player in the foreground is heavily blurred, which conveniently hides a lot of character detail. But the background crowd is still visible enough to judge the overall production read. And that crowd looks low-to-mid fidelity: repeated human shapes, stiff silhouettes, flat lighting, limited variation, and a stadium atmosphere that feels more like a polished mobile sports title than a premium console broadcast.

In a true AAA sports game, the crowd is not just wallpaper. It is part of the spectacle. It sells scale. It sells pressure. It sells the fantasy of performing in front of thousands of people. The stands, lighting, animation, camera treatment, density, and crowd behavior all work together to create a broadcast-grade illusion.

Here, the illusion breaks exactly where it should be strongest.

The stadium feels staged rather than alive. The crowd reads like a background layer. The composition uses foreground blur to create drama, but the image still exposes the asset quality behind it. If the marketing language is “stunning realism” and “next-gen mechanics,” then the visual artifact has to carry that burden. This screenshot does not.

That does not mean the final game cannot improve. Static promotional images are limited evidence. But if you are going to use AAA language before release, then every public screenshot becomes evidence. And this one does not support the claim.

Funding Is Not a Quality Benchmark

The recent funding round is important, but it should be read correctly.

An $11 million Pre-Series A tells us investors believe there is a market opportunity. The presence of cricketers tells us the project has cultural reach and celebrity validation. In cricket-mad India, names like Dhoni, Bumrah, Hardik, Jadeja, and Iyer generate instant attention.

But celebrity capital is not production polish.

A cricketer investing in a cricket game is a strong marketing signal. It is not a rendering benchmark. It does not prove animation quality. It does not prove batting feel. It does not prove AI. It does not prove career mode depth, esports readiness, controller responsiveness, device optimization, or live-service stability.

This is the danger of the halo effect: the conversation shifts from “what has the game shown?” to “who is attached to it?”

That is exactly how hype debt starts.

To be clear, none of this means LightFury is not serious. Raising this kind of money, attracting visible backers, and attempting a cricket game at scale is not trivial. India needs studios willing to take bigger swings. But bigger swings also invite bigger scrutiny.

The Signup Flow Is Also a Signal

The early-access page leans hard into scarcity: “passes are limited,” “a chosen few,” and a progress bar claiming “EARLY ACCESS PASS: 99% SIGNUPS COMPLETED.” This is classic conversion psychology. It creates urgency before the audience has seen enough gameplay evidence to judge the product.

The public form is Mailchimp-backed and the form markup uses novalidate, which disables native browser validation. In testing, an invalid email does trigger a custom “Please enter a valid email” message, so the more precise criticism is not that there is literally zero validation anywhere. The criticism is that a high-hype, premium-positioned product is relying on a brittle-looking web signup flow where validation and error states feel inconsistent rather than polished.

This is not about whether a Mailchimp form makes or breaks a game. It obviously does not. But when a project is selling premium polish, every public touchpoint becomes part of the trust signal.

That matters because public UX is part of execution maturity.

If a studio is asking players to believe in “next-gen” cricket, then the front door to the experience should not feel hacked together. The early-access page is not the game, but it is still a public product surface. It is part of the trust contract.

A polished studio does not only polish trailers. It polishes the small interactions too.

Hype Debt and the Marketing-First Trap

There is a dangerous concept in game development: hype debt.

Hype debt happens when a studio spends future trust before the product has earned it. You borrow excitement through big words, famous names, funding announcements, scarcity mechanics, and cinematic screenshots. But eventually the audience asks the only question that matters:

Does the game actually feel that good?

E-Cricket is now carrying a lot of debt.

The official language promises realism, esports, AI-driven gameplay, next-gen mechanics, and a flagship cricket experience. The funding announcement adds institutional confidence. The cricketer investors add emotional credibility. The early-access page adds scarcity and urgency. The screenshots try to add spectacle.

But the visible evidence so far does not yet match the size of the promise.

That mismatch is the issue.

Not that an Indian studio is ambitious. Ambition is good. Indian games need more ambition. The issue is using AAA vocabulary before showing AAA execution. Because once you invoke that label, you invite comparison with the production standards of the games that actually live there.

The Collateral Damage: A Trust Deficit

This is bigger than one game.

Every time an Indian project overuses premium language before proving premium quality, it damages the trust environment for everyone else. Players become cynical. Developers roll their eyes. Investors learn the wrong lesson. The next honest studio — the one building a focused AA game, or a polished mobile-first title, or a genuinely original indie — has to fight through the skepticism created by someone else’s inflated marketing.

That is the real cost of label inflation.

There is nothing wrong with making a mobile-first cricket game. There is nothing wrong with building a high-fidelity sports title for India. There is nothing wrong with raising money, signing licenses, working with athletes, or aiming for esports.

But call the project what it is, and let the shipped quality upgrade the label later.

Do not use AAA as a costume.

The Path Forward: Show the Build, Not the Buzzword

LightFury still has time to prove the claim. The way to do that is simple:

Show sustained gameplay. Show batting and bowling feel. Show animation transitions. Show crowd behavior in motion. Show device performance. Show UI polish. Show multiplayer stability. Show how the game handles pressure moments. Show why “AI-driven gameplay” means something beyond a phrase on a website.

And most importantly, show a game that looks and feels better than its marketing language.

Because right now, the public evidence says something else.

It says E-Cricket has money, visibility, cricketer backing, and a lot of carefully engineered hype.

What it has not yet shown is an AAA cricket game.

Let’s stop building mirages and start building games.

[Spawned Elsewere @SpawndElsewhere]

Saw the latest trailer drop for Unleash the Avatar, must say good progress, one thing I liked was the mood and lighting. However, I guess most of my previous observations are still valid.
Aura farming at its peak, @waitin4agi_ knows what creates a buzz. Will have to check with my friends in China about the talk over there. Might ponder about writing a detail blog post.

[Spawned Elsewere @SpawndElsewhere]

“You can’t photogrammetry your way to a great game.”
India’s Unleash the Avatar had all the right tools — but missed the craft.
A breakdown from a dev watching from afar:
https://t.co/sYQRqUgfXt

@waitin4agi_ @rohan_mayya @lazyassassinyt @IGN_IN

[Spawned Elsewere @SpawndElsewhere]

@RishiAlwani What’s more astounding is how people like this later manage to find jobs in the industry, which in turn raises questions about those who hire them as well.

[Spawned Elsewere @SpawndElsewhere]

Put your money where your mouth is, create & publish a game using this so called “game engine” and then promote it. I wanted to stop the video as soon as the Zeeshan said Blender is entirely developed in Python which shows the lack of depth his & yours that you could not counter it.
Targeting student and beginner as an easy target be they don’t know any better and from some running a Skool to promote this is deeply misleading. I guess easy money for these self-styled entrepreneurs.
Don’t even get me started on all that has been discussed and the platform itself. Finding snippets of code online to develop their own physics engine from scratch. Now let’s come to the terms and conditions, “grant us a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use, distribute, and display your User Content” I am not a lawyer but that sounds dubious.

[Spawned Elsewere @SpawndElsewhere]

Put your money where your mouth is, create & publish a game using this so called “game engine” and then promote it. I wanted to stop the video as soon as the Zeeshan said Blender is entirely developed in Python which shows the lack of depth his & yours that you could not counter it.
Targeting student and beginner as an easy target be they don’t know any better and from some running a Skool to promote this is deeply misleading. I guess easy money for these self-styled entrepreneurs.
Don’t even get me started on all that has been discussed and the platform itself. Finding snippets of code online to develop their own physics engine from scratch. Now let’s come to the terms and conditions, “grant us a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use, distribute, and display your User Content” I am not a lawyer but that sounds dubious.

[Spawned Elsewere @SpawndElsewhere]

@RishiAlwani 🤣

[Spawned Elsewere @SpawndElsewhere]

Steps to become a game developer in India

1. Start a YouTube channel
2. Announce India first (pick any genre) game and release a trailer, Add some deshbhakti elements and don’t forget MakeInIndia #
3. Give interviews about it, as it’s India answer to any popular game.
4. Connect with like minded individual/org and give talks, get invited to stage panels
5. Raise funds from VCs who know nothing
6. Do more talks about the challenges
7. Start complaining about lack to talent.
8. Start a Skool to make money.. oops train talent
9. Fund that talent to make games

Done you are now a certified & experienced game developer.

p.s. if possible release the worst game for negative publicity and raise more funds, now that you know how to make games.

[Spawned Elsewere @SpawndElsewhere]

What’s the difference between @GDAI_in and #IGPDA? What they are hoping out of it? Except adding “Publishers” to the list.

[Spawned Elsewere @SpawndElsewhere]

Looks like it was never about gaming or sports, it was always about making money from fools. Name me one passionate game developer who would jump from “gaming” to fintech (based on report from moneycontrol)

[Dream11 @Dream11]

See you in our second innings.

[Spawned Elsewere @SpawndElsewhere]

Amazed to see Indian RMG firms playing the victim card with talks of ‘hard work’ and ‘dedication’ to build the industry. Which industry? Surely not gaming. Even worse is seeing people supporting them from my connections.

[Spawned Elsewere @SpawndElsewhere]

Gambling: the activity of risking money on the result of something, hoping to make money whose result may be determined by chance or accident.

People tend to mislead, India did not ban ludo, carrom or other reskins, they banned RMG.

About time.

[Kavin @kavinbm]

After 4 years building Rush in India, we’ve made a tough decision: exit India completely and go all-in on the US & global markets.

Why? The Govt of India has made its stance clear: Real Money Gaming will not be allowed.

Another potential GST bump to 40% incoming, years of regulatory ambiguity, and now a bill rushed through to ban all RMG without industry consultation. The message is loud and clear.

We are disappointed. Not just for ourselves, but for the entrepreneurs, developers & teams who poured their hearts and billions of dollars into building this sector.

At the same time, we respect the Govt’s right to take a moral stance on what it believes is best for society. Policy-making is complex and involves hard trade-offs especially in large democracies.

What we wish: that this decision had been made sooner, with clearer communication. It would have saved billions in investment and avoided leaving the industry in limbo.

This isn’t the first signal. India also chose not to embrace crypto, leaving the promise of Web3 ownership which is the very foundation of what we’re building.

By contrast, the US is moving toward clarity. The Genius Act for stablecoins has passed. The Clarity Act for tokens is on the horizon. Together, they create one of the most exciting environments in the world to build in Web3.

And that’s why we’re excited.

Our early US/global metrics are already stronger:
• 10x higher ARPU
• 2x better retention
• Superior ROAS

The US also opens up new business models beyond RMG — Advertising & Virtual Goods — categories already worth billions, with far higher consumer spend than India.

And globally, we finally have the room to unlock our Hike Gaming Nation vision: a Company 2.0 where players aren’t just participants, but citizens and owners of the networks they help build.

In India, Rush scaled to over $500M in gross revenue in just 4 years.

The challenge now → Can we scale our US/global business to be bigger than India — and do it within 18��24 months?

We believe the answer is yes. It’s time to build the Gaming Nation. 🚀 @Hikexyz @Team_Hike

Real the full post (linked below)

[Spawned Elsewere @SpawndElsewhere]

Gambling in Disguise — Why the Ban Might Be the Best Thing to Happen to Indian Gaming

— A perspective from a dev watching from afar

When I read about the blanket ban on Real Money Gaming (RMG) in India, my first thought went to the families left in pieces by gambling losses. I’ve heard stories of homes mortgaged, savings drained, and relationships shattered under the illusion of “skill-based” fantasy sports. It’s heartbreaking. I also think of the many developers whose livelihoods are now uncertain, talented people who built careers in RMG because the ecosystem offered them few other options. Their families too are caught in the fallout. To them, I can only say: this isn’t your fault, and I hope the industry evolves quickly enough to give you better, more creative opportunities.

Still, my relief came from somewhere else. Maybe, finally, Indian gaming can step out of the shadow of gambling.

For too long, fantasy sports, rummy apps, and casino mechanics were paraded as part of the “booming gaming economy.” Let’s be honest: there was nothing “gaming” about it. The house always wins. And the ecosystem paid the price.

VC Capital Went Where the Easy Money Was

Fund houses poured millions into RMG apps. They dressed them up in market reports, celebrated “India’s trillion-dollar gaming opportunity,” and conveniently blurred the line between gambling and game-making. Startups chasing creative, original projects couldn’t compete. Why fund a slow, uncertain game when a gambling app prints cash overnight?

Sponsorships Shaped the Narrative

Look at the biggest gaming events in India. IGDC at home, GDC abroad. Who were the loudest sponsors? Not studios making games, but companies running RMG platforms. Panels, parties, banners — all powered by gambling disguised as gaming.

When the faces of the industry are tied to betting platforms, what message does that send to young developers trying to build real games?

Revenue That Distorted Reality

Last year, India’s gaming revenue was pegged at $3.7B. Impressive at first glance. But peel back the number and you find $3.2B (86%) came from RMG. The real “gaming” share was a rounding error. And most of that came from foreign hits like BGMI and Free Fire, not local innovation.

So when investors, media, and policymakers talked about India’s “gaming industry,” they weren’t talking about games. They were talking about gambling apps.

The Cost of an Ecosystem Stuck in Neutral

This distortion stalled progress. Why dream of a AAA or even a polished AA game when the ecosystem rewarded quick, shallow bets? Why nurture talent when the best engineers could earn more building cashflow systems for RMG apps?

The result was predictable: an industry that produced hype and clones but no sustainable pipelines, no mid-sized studios, no culture of iteration and craft.

Hopeful, but Cautious

A blanket ban won’t fix things overnight. There’s a risk the law sweeps too wide and punishes legit creators. There’s also the question of what fills the void. Will it be indie studios with vision, or another wave of hyper-casual copycats?

But at least the ground is shifting. With the easy money gone, maybe, just maybe, we’ll see capital, sponsorship, and talent redirected toward building games, not casinos in disguise.

And some already are. Titles like Mukti by @und3rdg show that Indian-made games can carry craft, restraint, and vision. It’s early, but it’s proof that not all hope is pinned on hype. That’s the direction worth doubling down on.

Hopeful, yes. But cautious. India won’t leap to AAA just because RMG is gone. That will take time, patience, and craft. Still, it’s the first step in the right direction.

— A game dev, far from home

[Spawned Elsewere @SpawndElsewhere]

lol I see “Winzo”

[Spawned Elsewere @SpawndElsewhere]

@GDAI_in wonder who’s at the India Pavilion at #Gamescom2025
@RishiAlwani any guesses?

[Spawned Elsewere @SpawndElsewhere]

Source: https://t.co/IxxTek0KPv

[Spawned Elsewere @SpawndElsewhere]

Nazara Technologies lost about ₹1,650 crore in market capitalization today, a decline of around 12.8% and according to this post 25% of total equity exposure in Moonshine, wonder what’s next…

[Varsity @ZerodhaVarsity]

Nazara Technologies - While it is a pure-play gaming company, it owns ~46% of Pokerbaazi through an investment of 805 Crores (cash and stock). This won’t impact Nazara’s revenues, but can impact its net profit. 805 Crores is roughly 25% of Nazara’s total equity. (9/n)

[Spawned Elsewere @SpawndElsewhere]

Finally, let’s make games

[MyGovIndia @mygovindia]

The Govt’s Online Gaming Bill 2025 ensures gaming strengthens youth, not harms them.

• Boosts eSports and social games
• Creates new job opportunities
• Stops illegal money gaming and harmful practices
• Protects users from addiction and risks

India is shaping a safe and innovative digital gaming future.

#OnlineGamingBill2025

@GoI_MeitY
@MIB_India