Anino to spearhead Filipino interactive entertainment industry“The global market for games outsourcing is set to grow to US$2.5 billion by 2010. That is 40 percent of the total game development spending,” said Niel Dagondon, president of Anino Entertainment, a local interactive entertainment company. “The Philippines should grab a slice of that pie.”
China and Vietnam are leading the way in Asia with the former, which started in 1996, cornering the Japanese outsourcing needs and the latter silently steering the global gaming industry towards competence. The Philippines’ gaming sector started in 2002 with Anino Entertainment at the forefront.
Now, it is time to press the start button on stage 2 of Philippine game development industry.
“Some foreign companies outsource only parts of a particular project. They give us a gun model and ask us to create 50 more variations—in video games you can never run short of weapons! We’ve also done characters’ clothes.”
One emerging subsection of game development is “serious games”. Niel said, “Imagine a real estate company wanting to market its condo units to their audience. Anino can make a 3D environment wherein interested customers can walk through the rooms via a computer. They can change wallpapers, place whatever furniture they want, change color schemes WITHOUT the hassle of having to do the actual physical work.”
Simply put, “serious games” are non-entertainment application of game development software. “It’s being done in the US presently. Local companies are starting to pick up and Anino is once again pioneering it.”
Anino so far has created models for a shampoo product and a department store using “serious games”.
Anino Entertainment made waves in the local gaming industry when it released the first Filipino-made computer game “Anito: Defend a Land Enraged” in 2003.
In February this year, Anino Entertainment’s “Anima Wars”, a mobile phone-based video game using 3G technology, bagged the “Best in Connectivity Award 2006” at the International Mobile Gaming Awards held in Barcelona, Spain.
The company is run by Filipinos headed by its president, Niel Dagondon, and has a partner studio with offices in Canada, US, UK, and Ukraine on the lookout for possible projects in the region. Its target markets include North America, Western and Eastern Europe and Australia.
Anino Entertainment employs 50 of the country’s 250 game developers.
“We want to double that,” Dagondon adds. “We want to be able to handle more subcontracts and projects. We can’t always just turn them over to China and Vietnam whenever we can’t accommodate.”
The Philippines, as a business processing outsourcing destination, presents no language barriers with an annual pool of 380,000 English-speaking college graduates. The games development sector is one of the IT and IT-enabled services that the country is promoting under the Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions (CITEM), the export promotion arm of the Department of Trade and Industry through the first Philippine participation in the Asian Games Developers Summit in Singapore
(8-9 September) and e-Services Philippines 2008 (11-12 February 2008).
Dagondon further said that the inherent creativity and cultural affinity to the East and West as Filipinos’ main tools in competing for its rightful place in the game development outsourcing industry.
Outsourcing is already common. It is estimated that 60% of game studios from the major markets outsource today; and still, this figure is projected to rise to 90% by next year.
“Bottom line: we definitely have to start pushing the right buttons if we want any of that outsourcing opportunities,” Dagondon states.
China and Vietnam are leading the way in Asia with the former, which started in 1996, cornering the Japanese outsourcing needs and the latter silently steering the global gaming industry towards competence. The Philippines’ gaming sector started in 2002 with Anino Entertainment at the forefront.
Now, it is time to press the start button on stage 2 of Philippine game development industry.
“Some foreign companies outsource only parts of a particular project. They give us a gun model and ask us to create 50 more variations—in video games you can never run short of weapons! We’ve also done characters’ clothes.”
One emerging subsection of game development is “serious games”. Niel said, “Imagine a real estate company wanting to market its condo units to their audience. Anino can make a 3D environment wherein interested customers can walk through the rooms via a computer. They can change wallpapers, place whatever furniture they want, change color schemes WITHOUT the hassle of having to do the actual physical work.”
Simply put, “serious games” are non-entertainment application of game development software. “It’s being done in the US presently. Local companies are starting to pick up and Anino is once again pioneering it.”
Anino so far has created models for a shampoo product and a department store using “serious games”.
Anino Entertainment made waves in the local gaming industry when it released the first Filipino-made computer game “Anito: Defend a Land Enraged” in 2003.
In February this year, Anino Entertainment’s “Anima Wars”, a mobile phone-based video game using 3G technology, bagged the “Best in Connectivity Award 2006” at the International Mobile Gaming Awards held in Barcelona, Spain.
The company is run by Filipinos headed by its president, Niel Dagondon, and has a partner studio with offices in Canada, US, UK, and Ukraine on the lookout for possible projects in the region. Its target markets include North America, Western and Eastern Europe and Australia.
Anino Entertainment employs 50 of the country’s 250 game developers.
“We want to double that,” Dagondon adds. “We want to be able to handle more subcontracts and projects. We can’t always just turn them over to China and Vietnam whenever we can’t accommodate.”
The Philippines, as a business processing outsourcing destination, presents no language barriers with an annual pool of 380,000 English-speaking college graduates. The games development sector is one of the IT and IT-enabled services that the country is promoting under the Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions (CITEM), the export promotion arm of the Department of Trade and Industry through the first Philippine participation in the Asian Games Developers Summit in Singapore
(8-9 September) and e-Services Philippines 2008 (11-12 February 2008).
Dagondon further said that the inherent creativity and cultural affinity to the East and West as Filipinos’ main tools in competing for its rightful place in the game development outsourcing industry.
Outsourcing is already common. It is estimated that 60% of game studios from the major markets outsource today; and still, this figure is projected to rise to 90% by next year.
“Bottom line: we definitely have to start pushing the right buttons if we want any of that outsourcing opportunities,” Dagondon states.
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