The Exchanges

Q Where was that inspired from? Do you feel like you're a thug in real life?

A Uh, not really. People do think that I'm a little bit of like have a bullish nature in the gaming industry, but that's not true. I think that's just because, you know, things that I've been luckily been able to do, which I'm very proud of across the last six years. The name story is very simple. Eight-bit was my clan name in a game called Clash Royale, which I was heavily invested into as a casual gamer, not professionally. I was pursuing my CA interest. And I had something to do in, uh, to get, because I don't want to step out, spend a lot of time studying. So that was a game I was heavily invested into. I made a clan eight bit. That's how the prefix of my name came in. And thug is actually a short form of thug life, which is also from a song from a movie called dictator college days, nothing to do. I said, it's a good name, good name, you know, getting fascinated by movies. So, and then Uh, actually when I used to play PUBG Mobile, it did not take eight bit thug life as my full name. So I left out life and it's eight bit thug and rest is history.

AI assessment note: “Uh, not really. People do think that I'm a little bit of like have a bullish nature”

Q the University of Michigan free course. I learned whatever Roblox is, and then I built not A hyper casual, but a casual game, which is mobile first, because most people in India are playing on mobile. You said 97%. Do I then integrate influencers, discord and twitch to sell the game and get the word out? Is there a particular way to do that? How does a game garner virality?

A See, that's a very typical way of doing it. Like you're launching a product in the market and you have influencers talking about it. The other way of how me as a game mode want things to happen is involve those influencers or those key stakeholders or those gamers that you actually want to target. Obviously it cannot be the entire cohort, but at your alpha or pre beta stage or even before alpha. So this is one thing that Indus did, the super gaming that I'm talking about. Indus invited us a year and a half back to, you know, just show us the game and just take casual feedback of how it's doing. What do you think about it? I think those are some key things that are very important. And it really helped strike a chord between, so it was me and mortal who went there. That, you know, if they invited us at such a stage to take feedback, that means it's a sort of a moral responsibility towards us that when this game comes out, we'll talk about it. And we actually went ahead and talked about it. Even today we talk about it. Like that's the reason I'm talking about it because I felt really connected to it. So I believe that generally the development storyline also helps. That was the case with, ah, what, how Riot does it. You know, they will call the game Project X. Then they will talk about it for two years. Then they will release teasers. Then there will be leaks that will come out. A…

AI assessment note: “involve those influencers or those key stakeholders... at your alpha or pre beta stage”

Q Where was that inspired from? Do you feel like you're a thug in real life?

A Uh, not really. People do think that I'm a little bit of like have a bullish nature in the gaming industry, but that's not true. I think that's just because, you know, things that I've been luckily been able to do, which I'm very proud of across the last six years. The name story is very simple. Eight-bit was my clan name in a game called Clash Royale, which I was heavily invested into as a casual gamer, not professionally. I was pursuing my CA interest. And I had something to do in, uh, to get, because I don't want to step out, spend a lot of time studying. So that was a game I was heavily invested into. I made a clan eight bit. That's how the prefix of my name came in. And thug is actually a short form of thug life, which is also from a song from a movie called dictator college days, nothing to do. I said, it's a good name, good name, you know, getting fascinated by movies. So, and then Uh, actually when I used to play PUBG Mobile, it did not take eight bit thug life as my full name. So I left out life and it's eight bit thug and rest is history.

AI assessment note: “Uh, not really. People do think that I'm a little bit of like”

Q the University of Michigan free course. I learned whatever Roblox is, and then I built not A hyper casual, but a casual game, which is mobile first, because most people in India are playing on mobile. You said 97%. Do I then integrate influencers, discord and twitch to sell the game and get the word out? Is there a particular way to do that? How does a game garner virality?

A See, that's a very typical way of doing it. Like you're launching a product in the market and you have influencers talking about it. The other way of how me as a game mode want things to happen is involve those influencers or those key stakeholders or those gamers that you actually want to target. Obviously it cannot be the entire cohort, but at your alpha or pre beta stage or even before alpha. So this is one thing that Indus did, the super gaming that I'm talking about. Indus invited us a year and a half back to, you know, just show us the game and just take casual feedback of how it's doing. What do you think about it? I think those are some key things that are very important. And it really helped strike a chord between, so it was me and mortal who went there. That, you know, if they invited us at such a stage to take feedback, that means it's a sort of a moral responsibility towards us that when this game comes out, we'll talk about it. And we actually went ahead and talked about it. Even today we talk about it. Like that's the reason I'm talking about it because I felt really connected to it. So I believe that generally the development storyline also helps. That was the case with, ah, what, how Riot does it. You know, they will call the game Project X. Then they will talk about it for two years. Then they will release teasers. Then there will be leaks that will come out. A…

AI assessment note: “involve those influencers or those key stakeholders... at your alpha or pre beta stage”

Q I know in cricket, talent is timing. Time. Maybe you have more time before you hit a ball. Right. Body, physical strength, all of that. What distinguishes one gamer from another in terms of talent?

A Understanding of the game. The biggest thing. I think every game which is competitive in nature has so many strategical aspects to it that you need to give it real time, uh, to understand it. And believe me, a person who gives a lot of time This is a thing called meta. Meta is like, what is something that is dominating the, which strategy is dominating the game right now? So how does a meta change? What is that strategy that changes? There is someone spending so much time on the game to bring out something different that gets him a win condition. Like, you know, he starts winning games and that's when everyone else adopts it. So I think talent is about that strategical input that you're bringing to a game. Apart from that, if you're playing a first person shooter or shooting game, the reflexes matter how fast you react to situations.

AI assessment note: “Understanding of the game. The biggest thing.”

Q Animesh, after listening to this, where do you think the opportunity is for someone young?

A I still feel obviously this is a very big opportunity. It's futuristic from all I've read, all I've seen, but I believe that if someone wants to build a start building a game tomorrow and actually go out in the market in the next three, four years, uh, that data where you mentioned that, you know, 40% of the time is going to social media. I think that is very key to India sticking to mobile gaming and my generation people, the younger generation sitting, uh, sticking to mobile phones. So I think even if I look at my gaming journey and how I got into games, after a break of break from giving for good seven, eight years, I think after class eight, I haven't played too much games until I got into college and had some free time and as away from home. So it all started with Facebook. And then I started playing maybe a Zynga game inside Facebook. And then on Facebook, I got maybe a recommendation of a supercell game, which was Boom Beach. And then I went into Boom Beach, but The reason why I started playing, continued to play in Boombitch was there's a big social element attached to that game where I could chat with different people, make a clan, we could strategize, although it was within the game. However, what happened next is that I took that entire set of audience, we exchanged our numbers within the game, or we went to a discord server, but then we were always socially connecte…

AI assessment note: “people love playing games, which has an element where they can connect”

Q So what do you, what do you mean by, uh, your time Focused on the game going down. How much time?

A I think it's not about the time. It's about the next event that's going to happen when I'm playing the game. So I think if, if I, for example, if I'm meeting an NPC, a non-playing character in the game, and it progresses my storyline. Earlier when I've played games like Batman, et cetera, we used to have long chats, long dialogues that they would use to tell us. The story used to be really beautiful. I don't think people are going to be ready for that in the next five years. The first event, the next event needs, the rate at which events happen in the game or events occur in the game needs to be faster. Because I think swipe up generation is gonna take up the world, and it's just gonna be swipe, swipe, swipe. So we need to have events that happen faster. Attention span, games that are fast paced, very fast paced. I think that's the reason maybe battle royal or FPS games would live longer, because it always involves action. Like, you know, even if they, even if you're standing at a position, you're still, You still are doing something which will help the next event occur. But when you're playing story mode games or normal casual games, you cannot just be moving slowly and wait for something to happen.

AI assessment note: “I think it's not about the time. It's about the next event”

Q I know in cricket, talent is timing. Time. Maybe you have more time before you hit a ball. Right. Body, physical strength, all of that. What distinguishes one gamer from another in terms of talent?

A Understanding of the game. The biggest thing. I think every game which is competitive in nature has so many strategical aspects to it that you need to give it real time, uh, to understand it. And believe me, a person who gives a lot of time This is a thing called meta. Meta is like, what is something that is dominating the, which strategy is dominating the game right now? So how does a meta change? What is that strategy that changes? There is someone spending so much time on the game to bring out something different that gets him a win condition. Like, you know, he starts winning games and that's when everyone else adopts it. So I think talent is about that strategical input that you're bringing to a game. Apart from that, if you're playing a first person shooter or shooting game, the reflexes matter how fast you react to situations.

AI assessment note: “Understanding of the game. The biggest thing.”

Q Animesh, after listening to this, where do you think the opportunity is for someone young?

A I still feel obviously this is a very big opportunity. It's futuristic from all I've read, all I've seen, but I believe that if someone wants to build a start building a game tomorrow and actually go out in the market in the next three, four years, uh, that data where you mentioned that, you know, 40% of the time is going to social media. I think that is very key to India sticking to mobile gaming and my generation people, the younger generation sitting, uh, sticking to mobile phones. So I think even if I look at my gaming journey and how I got into games, after a break of break from giving for good seven, eight years, I think after class eight, I haven't played too much games until I got into college and had some free time and as away from home. So it all started with Facebook. And then I started playing maybe a Zynga game inside Facebook. And then on Facebook, I got maybe a recommendation of a supercell game, which was Boom Beach. And then I went into Boom Beach, but The reason why I started playing, continued to play in Boombitch was there's a big social element attached to that game where I could chat with different people, make a clan, we could strategize, although it was within the game. However, what happened next is that I took that entire set of audience, we exchanged our numbers within the game, or we went to a discord server, but then we were always socially connecte…

AI assessment note: “people love playing games, which has an element where they can connect”

Q So what do you, what do you mean by, uh, your time Focused on the game going down. How much time?

A I think it's not about the time. It's about the next event that's going to happen when I'm playing the game. So I think if, if I, for example, if I'm meeting an NPC, a non-playing character in the game, and it progresses my storyline. Earlier when I've played games like Batman, et cetera, we used to have long chats, long dialogues that they would use to tell us. The story used to be really beautiful. I don't think people are going to be ready for that in the next five years. The first event, the next event needs, the rate at which events happen in the game or events occur in the game needs to be faster. Because I think swipe up generation is gonna take up the world, and it's just gonna be swipe, swipe, swipe. So we need to have events that happen faster. Attention span, games that are fast paced, very fast paced. I think that's the reason maybe battle royal or FPS games would live longer, because it always involves action. Like, you know, even if they, even if you're standing at a position, you're still, You still are doing something which will help the next event occur. But when you're playing story mode games or normal casual games, you cannot just be moving slowly and wait for something to happen.

AI assessment note: “I think it's not about the time. It's about the next event”

Q Where else in this domain can young people make money in India? Streamer, gamer, then?

A Okay. So now this is where I want to come to the conversation that, you know, you're having with Joseph. What I feel that India, Does not really, so if you look at Indian market, gaming boomed in India, 2019 mid, it's exactly when it started booming and COVID happened and it, the gaming industry just blew off the lids. I believe if you compare Indian gaming trajectory to Western and European market, like European and American market, you realize we paced in, we like, you know, the graph was very steep. We moved at a very fast pace. We paced really well. Gaming in India grew by lips and bounds compared to the pace at which other countries were coming in. But that is the consumption part of it. India has surpassed US and Brazil in terms of mobile game downloads. India has five sixty eight million online gamers. So numbers are great, but there was a big void in the system, which was this, that we did not have the proper, uh, correct roles defined. People did not know what jobs are available, but people did not know that apart from being a model or a scout or becoming a gamer, there are other hundred domains where you can enter the gaming industry. So I believe that we are too young for that. The industry is too young for that. India will produce the best of games in coming years, but it's not going to happen at least for the next five years.

AI assessment note: “people did not know that apart from being a model or a scout or becoming a gamer”

Q Where else in this domain can young people make money in India? Streamer, gamer, then?

A Okay. So now this is where I want to come to the conversation that, you know, you're having with Joseph. What I feel that India, Does not really, so if you look at Indian market, gaming boomed in India, 2019 mid, it's exactly when it started booming and COVID happened and it, the gaming industry just blew off the lids. I believe if you compare Indian gaming trajectory to Western and European market, like European and American market, you realize we paced in, we like, you know, the graph was very steep. We moved at a very fast pace. We paced really well. Gaming in India grew by lips and bounds compared to the pace at which other countries were coming in. But that is the consumption part of it. India has surpassed US and Brazil in terms of mobile game downloads. India has five sixty eight million online gamers. So numbers are great, but there was a big void in the system, which was this, that we did not have the proper, uh, correct roles defined. People did not know what jobs are available, but people did not know that apart from being a model or a scout or becoming a gamer, there are other hundred domains where you can enter the gaming industry. So I believe that we are too young for that. The industry is too young for that. India will produce the best of games in coming years, but it's not going to happen at least for the next five years.

AI assessment note: “we did not have the proper, uh, correct roles defined. People did not know”