Canada-based Discreet's Raman Madan spoke on gaming, an activity ignored in India, but a billion-dollar industry in the US. American spending on animation is close to US $ 47.8 billion out of which US $ 14.45 billion is spent on gaming per year, much more than the US $6.1 billion spent on broadcast TV industry.

Gaming is the topmost revenue earner. The different areas of gaming are console type, web/ personal computer, handheld and playstations, Madan said. The entire gamut of gaming includes games of strategy, role playing, action games sports and racing games.

Any new game development begins with a new design or content. A prototype for sale is then made which is either marketed or published. Decisions regarding the engine to be used, the pipeline to be followed and the designing of the gaming characters in real time is the next step. After the limits and controls to animation are set, the last step is production. 87% of all games are based on 3Dmax technology, he said. In India, Discreet has tied up with Arena Multimedia to introduce courses on animation and gaming in India.

Discreet has now come out with a new concept, Discreet Gmax, in which the engine allows you to modify a game two weeks after downloading. Most game fans get bored of the same game after two weeks and want a change, and this enables them to change the game the way they want, he said. Sony Japan sells around 20 million playstations worldwide in a year, he added.