Thursday, May 12, 2005

Piracy !!!

Onsite interview with Electronic Arts (EA)

EA techincal director: So do you have any questions for me?

Me:
Yes, Why doesn't EA concentrate on Indian market as well and try to cash it by developing asian games?

EA techincal director (Without a blink, in lightning speed):

Because there are 3 (he said 3, precisely) reasons:

1) Indians have the habit of using pirated copies (out of 10 million copies of FiFa soccer game sold, only 5% were original copies)
2) Indians don't have the money power to play on different consoles like playstation, xbox which are the main sources of revenue as compared to PC games
3) We cannot shift the development to India because they would not be able to understand the american and european games.

I could see the frustation in his eyes. And I think the main reason is the first one: Piracy. Can we stop it for giving a bad name to us?

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Comics

I had almost forgot about the comics till I saw the 'Sin City'. Sin City is a sincere attempt of bringing comics to the larger screen without any filmy element. Everybody would be having their own sweet memories reading comics during their childhood. But in this part of the world people never get old. They still are fanatic about the comic strips. I, myself, have started reading the comic strips back again.

My favourite comic is Asterix. The whole idea of Gauls fighting Romans, with due respect to magic potion, instigates my imagination. Almost all characters (especially Obelix) are funny. Their village setup, dressing sense, boar eating culture and other things attracts the reader's attention.

The main advantage of reading comic strips is that it is fun reading and ends in shorter time unlike novel where it has a single idea to present and takes about couple of days to finish. Comic strips are the visual retreat and takes you back to your childhood.