An interview with Brett Caird the Founder of 5th Cell MediaAbout 5TH Cell Media LLCFounded in 2003, and led by Software Entertainment and Information Technology veterans Joseph M Tringali, Jeremiah Slaczka and Brett Caird, 5TH Cell is an independent developer of mobile, handheld and PC Casual entertainment software. 5TH Cell operates in both Bellevue Washington and Kuala Lumpur Malaysia, developing original content and working on top licenses in the mobile space. All products feature professional quality graphics, intuitive control schemes; instant action through comprehensible game systems and engaging session based game play. For more information please visit www.5thcell.comBrett took some time out to answer some questions for PVP:1. Could you tell us a bit about 5th Cell Media and how it all started?5TH Cell Media is an independant game developer. We started out in mobile games and have since moved on to developing on the Nintendo DS. The company was founded in 2003 in a modernised variation on the “garage” startup cliche. I was studying an MBA at the time, and was playing the beta of Shadowbane (Asia) in my spare time. As I already had one successful business under my belt, I found the MBA easy going so had plenty of time spare to put into playing and testing Shadowbane. I gained quite a profile in the game’s community, and the publisher noticed me too as I submitted roughly 25% of all bugs in the Asia-Pacific beta, which was more than the next 3 or 4 most prolific testers combined.I had an interest in getting into the gaming industry, so I put my resume in with the publisher. Really I didn’t expect anything to come of it since they were based in Hong Kong and I was in Australia and had no intention of relocating. As a successful entrepreneur and manager, its not like I was going to take an entry level QA job either. But thanks to the community manager at the publisher having gotten to know me and my skill set, when he moved on from there he approached me about partnering up with himself and some of his past associates to form 5TH Cell. My QA and commercial skills perfectly filled a hole in the management team he had been working on putting together.

The business operated virtually, with the management team spread around the globe - engaging contractors who were equally dispersed. It was more than 6 months after formation before I met my business partners face to face for the first time. With some blood, sweat and tears and a tiny trickle of capital we eventually managed to professionalise our operations and over time bring together most of the management team and operations to one office location. To this day however I still operate from Australia and we still engage some international contractors - even though the bulk of the management team and operations are now located in Seattle USA.2. Could you tell us a bit about your DS title and its reception at E3? Where did you get the inspiration for such an amazing concept?Drawn to Life received less coverage than we would have liked at E3. The feedback its been getting generally has been positive, interestingly several reviewers have commented that they didn’t think we took the user created content angle far enough - which is amusing to us given how far ahead of anything else on the DS it is in this regard.3. Could you tell us a bit about the mobile gaming market and your work in that area?Our experience in the market was not great. Our core competence as a company is making great original games, and we found this to be a complete mis-match with the way mobile games are marketed and distributed. Principally, brand names and IP are massive draw cards for people buying off a deck where the name of the game is the only information they have. And for low value purchases, people typically aren’t interested in doing research to ensure they are getting best possible value.4. Pakistan will have over 50 million cell phone users soon. Do you think such subscribers in emerging markets with low Average Revenue Per User can be turned into a valid profit center by Service Providers using games? What role can companies like 5thcell Media play?I don’t see any reason why service providers cannot capitalise on this opportunity. As far as I can see there is no role for a company like 5TH Cell Media however. If the situation in the fully developed world is anything to go by, mobile games become licensed commodities and not outlets for creative operations - other than as a potential proving ground to build credibility and experience for an indepentent developer.We found that we made just as much money in developing markets as we did in established western markets with the games we did put to market. Low ARPU is nothing to lose sleep over when the volume of users is large enough. But in terms of game production, the key with mobile games lies in efficiency for porting operations and related logistics rather than creative flare. As a creative company we found this a drag.5. How are development cycles different for handhelds and mobile phones?They are less different than you would think in terms of duration. While mobile is a 3 month theoretical development time, in practice with QA and porting and language certification it can end up taking the better part of a year from the first line of code until deployment. On DS the raw development time is much longer than 3 months (anywhere from 6 to 12), but because there is no porting, and certification processes are more mature and streamlined (you are working with an experienced publisher and a single vendor) all the incidental stuff is much faster. You can go from first line of code to deployment in just over a year, maybe under for a simple game that doesn’t do anything ground breaking or new. Obviously DS dev teams are larger also, but if you include the resources required to port for mobile - the teams aren’t that different in scale at the end of the day either.6. Any chance to branch out to the nex gen consoles?Yes. We are interested in and exploring opportunities on next gen. Wii is the most compelling to us as we’re more interested in gameplay and fun factor than flash and sparkle. It is also more accessible in terms of budget. The fact that it is proving to be so massively successful as a platform in the market is icing on the cake.7. Why on earth would you watn to do this line of work? What keeps you going?I like games and I’m a perfectionist. The nature of my role allows me to work almost as a recluse (which I prefer), work in a field which I enjoy, and apply my skills to it. Like any job the work can be draining and frustrating, but the general backdrop of gaming provides more opportunities for enjoyment along the way I believe.8. Did E3 really suck this year?Didn’t go, haven’t been for several years in fact. Not really convenient for me to get to the other side of the planet with a young family. This year we didn’t send anyone else either as we were all crunching like crazy to our final deadlines on Drawn to Life, so don’t really know much about how the new E3 went.Habib “Slain” Khanlady gaga
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Nintendo has won the console wars? Not so fast.There are Playstation 3’s sitting on retail shelves their cell processors gathering dust while Nintendo’s Wii’s are harder to find then true broadband connections in Pakistan. Xbox 360 is over a hundred titles and unlike those of the PSP a lot of them are actually playable. One PS3 is sold for every three Wii’s in Japan formerly a market dominated by Sony. Japan is the second largest gaming market in the world after the US and X Box has never existed there and the 360 follows this discredited path with aplomb. More X Box Japan heads have been moved or fired then Prime Minister’s in PK-land. Meanwhile Xbox 360 is reeling from a USD 1B charge (That’s one BILLION or 840 Million more then the population of Pk-land and 1 Billion less then the unofficial wealth of the guy who owns all the hoardings in Karachi) for extended warranties against manufacturing defects.Wii actually makes its intuitive gaming demigods a fifty dollar profit for every unit it sells. Meanwhile the 360 is piling the losses on its millions of units so far and the PS3 just cut its price a 100 dollars on a console already losing money so far. With costs to develop a blockbuster exceeding 30 million dollars for PS3 developers are increasingly giving precious gaming talent over to Wii projects which costs a third to make and thus are less risky. As Wii consoles keep selling at this pace they will take even more resources from these developers. No one likes to develop for a small install base. That makes about as much sense as eating Pizza with tomato ketchup which I hope we all can agree is simply not done if you have studied more then ten grades.The X Box chief has just left. Sony’s godfather has also been offered like a shish kebab to shareholders demanding blood for the lacklustre PS3 launch and because he ruled like a dictator, in true dictator style he has left a serious vacuum of leadership (Egyptians please take note). While the Nintendo boss is the toast of business circles across the globe. Hell Nintendo’s Wii even made it to FORTUNE’s cover usually reserved for portraits of titans of European or US business.

Broadband in Pakistan. Your gaming lives are about to be forever changed. Or. Go Wateen Go, Go PTCL Go.I got a sneaky message on my mobile from my DSL provider. “Dear Max.com customer, your 512K dedicated connection has been upgraded to 1MB for free!” For free? In Pk-Land? What’s the catch? I am a Standard Chartered customer so I know more then anyone else about hidden charges. But it seems that broadband did get cheaper. Usually customers don’t get all the savings passed on but in this case with the decision of PTCL to cut all prices by 25% everyone is forced to follow suit. I do remember reading deregulation policy details when I was younger and had more time on my hands and was obviously disturbed, so I think as a Significant Market Player (SMP) they are not allowed to do that. But hey! Let the Chief Justice take Suo Moto notice and fix it at will.We dear reader are going to rejoice. You see I beg to disagree with the typical Pakistani gamer who struts around thinking he is the luckier then Brad Pitt (Yes this site has an Angelina Jolie fetish…. Bite us) to be born into one of the top piracy nations where he can get any game for USD 1. There has been only one time when due to a rush of adrenalin my hands shook so hard I couldn’t type on the keyboard. It was my first Player vs Player encounter. I was an Archer in an MMORPG game I was beta testing with my Guild. Three of us a Pk-Lander, an Ozzie and a Kiwi ran across two much stronger Koreans. I barely survived with 6 HP. It was and is the highlight of my gaming life in pure joy. Broadband makes massively multiplayer games with a satisfying gameplay experience possible. And once you play against humans normal AI just doesn’t cut it. The difference is as stark as playing a game in 32 bit pixels and playing one in 1080p resolution.

God also bless our Arab brothers from Abudhabi who decided to launch a company called Wateen (Full disclaimer: The company I work for sold them some stuff) which will be bringing the joy of the largest global Wimax installation to us. Imagine wireless high data access for the internet and online gaming. No more cable and more competition to bring the broadband price even further down. Oh yummy!I keep remembering the example of Thailand where lower internet costs caused the launch of Ragnarok Online to become a phenomenon. It gathered 500,000 users with three months! When I look at over a million urban children with access to internet in Pk-Land – Even a little speed will go a long way for them. Online gaming will change the way we play and pay for our games and it will give our rudderless youth under sensationalist bombardment from shallow news channels and exposed to increasing social dysfunction a true center of gravity that has strong social elements. Lets face it. Gaming’s the only education we got and thanks to PTCL’s first unlawful monopolistic step that education is within our grasp.Go PTCL Go!Oh by the way R.E.S.P.E.C.T to Maxcom’s Customer Service. When their guy figured out that broadband was not working because my line was dead and there was a “pairing” problem in the telephone exchange he fixed everything just so the broadband could work. I love you guys man.Habib “Slain” Khan

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Whatever happened to Shera Jutt Pakistan’s first truly original 3D game?The guys over at Trango Interactive in Islamabad are a bunch of really talented people (Check out their concept art and 3D shots here: http://www.itrango.com/portfolio.html) who actually made a small but immensely playable and enjoyable game called Shera Jutt. I remember seeing it in Beta over a year ago and despite dated graphics I thought its play on popular Punjabi culture and the sheer originality rocked. There’s actually a scene where a massive buffalo charges at you as major boss and you defend your suddenly vulnerable self with nothing more then a gandasa.Well owing to go to market or business model issues or sheer letahrgy the game was never released in Pakistan. That’s a shame. Such a collaborative original effort should atleast have seen the light of day. Hell I would have released it for free just to get some publicity (After all how much does it cost to put in a CD with each copy of The Daily Times?). I bet you just that stunt would have built a pipeline of local orders to book their developers for two years straight. If you are listening Trango dudes – You can still do it. Or just lend it to us and we will put it up for a free download on p-v-p.com.

Habib “Slain” Khan

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Somebody asked that question at a gaming site the other day and I must admit I am intrigued. I am generally fascinated by “the secret sauce” that few studios understand of creating Intellectual Property or IP. How to breakthrough the clutter of creativity and make something that really resonates and breaks out into the mass cultural consciousness. Bungie did that with Halo, Blizzard do it with everything they touch! This is a big deal. That is why Microsoft boughtthe Halo IP. It could not create it despite having billions. Secret sauce baby. Only someone else’s mama knows how to make it.Halo 3 what we expected it to do. It broke the record for any entertainment launch in history. Yes boys and girls it brought more in its first day then Return of the Sith on its launch.At stake are billions of dollars from merchandise deals, additional games and additional media content. What Halo needs to do in order to become the next Star Wars is to become a franchise that can bring money in just by the mention of its name. I think the first test will be Halo Wars. While you are staying in the field of games you are moving from the FPS genre to RTS. It’s a big move in a field with the memory of giants like Westwood still casting a pall on it and with current kings Blizzard etc. dominating. This is a good test to see if Halo can become a franchise. Runaway success for Halo Wars means that Halo has juice as a franchise.

Here’s a rundown of the most anticipated games that I am looking forward to. Since without question I embody a stylish combination of wisdom and taste you can be damn sure this is your list too. You just may not know it yet.Crysis: This is the game that will get people buying fifty thousand rupee graphic cards. Will this be the best looking game in the history of gaming? Probably. This is a Sci Fi FPS set just a little bit into the future by the makers of Farcry. You play a US Marine battling out of space Hunters. Its your job to make sure they realize that coming to Earth was a very bad idea and that a lot of hunters they went to grade school with will die nasty deaths. Coming in November 2007. Grand Theft Auto IV: Yup you are back once again in Liberty City modelled after New York but with some desi twists it could easily be Karachi. In fact if they ever gave a free tool set with this I’d make Grand Theft Auto: Karachi: The Prado Wars a reality. But I digress. What we can be sure of is that you are a double crossed immigrant who is going to have to do some illegal stuff to get back on his feet. This GTA will be bigger then ever and include vehicles like Helicopters, boats etc. The details in the city will be stunning. You can just go out for a walk and it will feel like a real live city. And ofcourse this one comes with Multiplayer aboutwhich currently we know little. You can expect some special twists only Rockstar can deliver. The sort of twists that get games banned or atleast discussed on the Senate floor so in the interest of all you sick mentally unstable youths BRING IT ON! Coming in March 2008.Mass Effect: A 360 exclusive, this is the game that will set the bar for all future Sci Fi RPG’s. From Bioware (My fav studio ever!) the team that brought you Baldurs Gate, Neverwinter Nights and KOTOR comes an epic Sci Fi RPG. “You command an advanced starship in a future where humanity has reached the stars, and become part of the galactic community. The central storyline follows your epic adventure to save the universe from destruction at the hands of an invading menace.” Aside from stunning graphics with incredible facial details and expressions this game will feature the most realistic and natural inter character dialogue ever and will have great replayability owing the complexity of plot and character interactions. Coming November 2007.