Developed by Cyprus-based Wargaming, World of Warships is a game that prides itself on historical accuracy and realism. Nearly two years after launching in India, World of Warships got INS Mysore as a playable ship in-game a couple of weeks ago.
INS Mysore was a Fiji-class cruiser commissioned to the Indian Navy in 1957. Acquired from the Royal Navy, she served in World War II as HMS Nigeria. INS Mysore was the second cruiser to be purchased by independent India. She served as the flagship for the western fleet during its service and was also the command ship for the raid on Karachi Harbor in 1971.
Naturally, IGN India was curious as to how the company brings the likes of the INS Mysore into the game. We spoke to Rajeev Girdhar, Regional Publishing Director, World of Warships Europe to find out.
How Wargaming Brought the INS Mysore to World of Warships
“The process starts with the research, once we decide which ships to recreate, then we send an expedition to the museum or an archive to find blueprints, historical photos, professional models or any other documents we mind find useful,” says Girdhar. “After we gather the needed references, 3D modelers start to build ships, it takes them three to six months to finalise it. Finally, the ships will go into phases of testing and [game design] balancing before the actual release. Therefore, sometimes it takes up to a year to create a single ship.”
This made us wonder what the developers on World of Warships have to keep in mind when bringing a new ship into the game. Spoiler: a whole lot of statistics and math.
“We’re focused on recreating the historical ships as true as possible yet making the whole experience immersive and fun to play,” he says. “Balancing ships’ stats is an art form for itself. We need to make sure each ship is competitive in its tier. Also some ships make up a better team with the other ships, so there are several different layers of information one should take in account before the vessels are ready to be launched and interesting to play with. When making these decisions we take in account both the data gathered by our players while they play these ships, but also their opinion.”
That said, one of the bigger challenges was to find the right ship to represent India.
Since World of Warships features vessels from the first half of the 20th century, settling on a ship that “played a key part in Indian Naval service during this period” proved formidable Girdhar tells us.
Who Plays World of Warships in India?
On the topic of tough tasks, launching a game or service in India is never easy, more so on PC with skyrocketing prices and unavailability of core components. To Girdhar however, the concerns are related to pricing.
“First and foremost, mobile gaming dominates the Indian market, therefore we needed to identify how to reach PC gamers,” he says. “Also, we are aware that the market is price sensitive so we had to adapt our content to fit the local market expectations.”
Usually most gaming companies tend to have high-profile launches with little in the way of a follow up. Girdhar prefers to err on the side of caution with the company’s India approach.
“We are a PC first gaming company and PC gaming is far from mainstream in India,” he admits. “That is why being loud and high profile does not yield the results as compared to the mobile market. This is the reason we are being pragmatic and more focused with our activities, so that we can attract the right audience that have access to suitable equipment and that can enjoy the game to their full satisfaction.”
On the topic of audiences, World of Warships has an older player-base, skewing to men in the age group of 40+ . Girdhar tells us its Indian players are in a similar bracket.
“Indeed, in India as in the other regions, our game tends to attract more mature, predominantly male audience,” he says.
More Indian Ships in World of Warships?
When World of Warships launched in India, Wargaming partnered with ISP ACT Fibernet and Zotac to bring subsidised in-game currency prices along with, patches and customisations, and other discounts. It was far from the glitzy kind of affair that usually marks a game launch in India, making us wonder how it was received.
“The players’ response was very positive,” he says of the game’s local partnerships, before hinting that the INS Mysore is just the first of many local content offerings for India.
“We plan to support the Indian market with more locally adapted content, such as our introduction of INS Mysore,” he says. “We are hoping to resume our local activities which have been hampered heavily by the COVID-19 outbreak.”
It’s interesting to see Wargaming committing to more content for India. With most of the hype surrounding mobile and console, it’s heartening to see one developer take on the challenge of bringing relevant content to audiences in a market that is usually considered an after-thought.
