Is Indonesia's gaming dev scene on the rise? We ask Toge Productions

[Music] the games industry in Indonesia as a whole has seen a ton of shifts here and there but the one thing that's consistent mobile gaming especially free games for Indonesian players are King there that's why you see a lot of people hyped up for mobile legends and pop G mobile etc latest consoles and triple-a gaming experiences that all changed recently [Music] the indie hit coffee talk marks a strong start in Indonesian game development and production after all this adventure game is a by-product of developer toca productions a company that is run by a few industry veterans in Indonesia so it's a country facing a gaming resurgence has the game making climate change to the point where it's easier this time around well the answer is a little bit complicated fortunately we have Tokyo production CEO Chris Anthony to shed light on the situation yeah so it's still the same so basically in majority the Indonesian gaming market the majority of people is that they they just want to download the game for free and then if they like it or they you know get hooked then they'll start spending but they don't want to pay you know even like maybe $3 to $2 I didn't want to pay the game upfront so that's that's basically the problem for game developers Indonesia is that we couldn't make free-to-play games because well not that we couldn't but the effort to make 50 play games is huge right and you have to you know have your back-end server or whatever you have to do make maintenance and then you have to update the game regularly so that's a lot of effort and it requires a lot of resources and a lot of Indonesian game developers who don't have that you know resources a lot of them are mostly indie developers with team of like maybe 1 to 5 people and with very limited budget a lot of those developers because they we couldn't we couldn't get into the Indonesian game market so we we try to make single player games and make it premium and sell it on Steam and that's why in the you know in the past few years you see like a surge of Indonesian games coming in to steam market and also to consoles and so like we got a difficut back in 2017 and it's very hard to get deaf kids Indonesia it's it's almost impossible because because of like the government have you know red tapes about importation they put a very high tax and you know customs and everything and the platform developers like Sony Nintendo and Xbox they don't want to ship their deaf kids to regions that are famous for piracy so you know that's like a chicken and egg thing so we but fortunate for us we we managed to get in touch with Nintendo and and other platforms as well and basically talk to them then hey we have you know a lot of Indonesian developers that have talent and very good games and we want to bring them to consoles and after a long discussion you know like back and forth we finally get deaf kits that we could bring to to basically develop support games to consoles and so we open up basically our doors and we try to help other Indonesian devs they want to bring their games consoles and basically we elaborate with them and then we publish their games through two consoles like mint and a switch and stuff like that so yeah so that's that's how it is right now so in an easy like we have a lot of indie game developers the community is very active and it's very supportive to watch each other but it's very hard for us to get into our own market Sofie most of most of the devs saying we sell the games to to the global market instead but we do have some success you know like there's a maybe a couple or maybe three studios that managed to get successful mobile game titles in Indonesia but it's very hard to replicate right because sometimes it's it's based on love or like this perfect timing you're writing a certain trend or like a meme or something that's happening so yeah it's it's kind of hard to replicate or even you know two four four other deaths to to get into the mobile market Indonesia and especially you're competing with huge companies like Nettie's or $0.

10 yeah so the competition for mobile I think it's very very tough it took us that I think years so we the first time we met them I think it was in a conference and we talked about getting deaf kids they said oh sorry you know we couldn't do that because you know DJ's like in our black list something like that and then so yeah we just you know we just keep bugging them every time we meet them at conferences and we also you know we we try to build a you know a relationship without the TV devs as well so they can you know like you know give us give maybe second say to Nintendo or Sony or whatever then okay these developers are legit you know like we've been friends for years and we like their games and stuff like that so yeah it's it took us years one of the reason that they eventually you know agreed to give out the give us the F gets is because there was an another developer that's kind of a half reputation famous so they put us you know put a good word for us and so finally you know they agreed and then decided to give us the Nintendo deaf kids and even you know after shipping those deaf kids from from the day it arrived in Indonesian customs it took us maybe like three or four months to get it out from customs and that requires you know like we have to ask like we have a government agency for creative industry so back then we asked their help to basically make like a recommendation letter so that we can bring it to the customs department and then you know it took a long time to process and yeah eventually yeah finally we got it like a for months with the Cova 19 pandemic at large many game companies have to adopt a work from home approach to getting the titles developed and finished how is this affect that Tokyo production very fortunate because a lot of our like infrastructure is is already in the cloud so we can just work from anywhere because I personally would you know I often work outside of the office so we can adapt very quickly but for other deaths that are not used to the style of working they have to adapt and I think it took quite a toll on the development process so sometimes you know the pace is slower and maybe I homey have more distractions maybe you know like kids or like your spouse or whatever so you couldn't concentrate fully on the project compared to working in the office but yeah so far with we were that we are adapting quite nicely and I think in the future like the one thing that I I think it's very you know very positive out you know that comes out from this Cove it 19 endemic is that now we don't have to meet people physically and you know because like in in Jakarta traffic is like crazy and I've been I've been one car like promoting or like you know always asking people when we have a like a business meeting or any meeting I would always ask them like can we do this online through like Skype or Google hangout or whatever and the culture in Indonesia is like people are you know they prefer having like a physical meeting but I think because of this pandemic like everybody's doing you know like online meetings and hopefully they get used to it so that in the future we don't have to have you know like a meeting somewhere and then drive like two hours just for the meeting and then drive back two hours and two hours so I think yeah maybe the future is you know a lot of the companies can be more agile and then adapt more like cloud-based infrastructure and also like online meetings and stuff like that so yeah maybe that's like where the industry is going in the future since we brought up coffee talk we should at least ask where the game's future is headed our plan for coffee talk is like we want to expand the you know the lore like the world even further and also like develop the characters even more that's why like we release the the webcomic series just to give a little bit background off on each character in the game and maybe like you know like a peek to their to the world and yeah we were hoping to you know to expand on it further I couldn't you know like promise people anything yet but yeah we were hoping to you know create more games sent in the in that world universe you know the coffee talk universe when we when we started coffee talk actually back back and they're like the game start as a game jam in 2017 and the the games writer / director which is fuck me fuck me Hosny he was our marketing person back then right but he he always craved like I want to make my own game you know like he always always told me that so when we do the internal game jam he you know he jumped in and then he proposed an idea like I want to make a game that replicates the feeling of watching the rain well you know holding a warm drink and then just listening to chill music and then having conversation so that's like the the basic pinch of the game well back then we don't even know like what the game is gonna be about like what it's gonna be like it's gonna look like or even how to play that game but that's like the first thing that he pitched to us it's like I want to replicate this experience so I think you know we we kind of like that's the soul of coffee talk so it's always gonna be something an experience where you feel relaxed and and just enjoy the atmosphere music and then warm drinks and then having a close conversation with with close friends and that's what we don't want to keep you know in future at iterations of the game but we also want to deliver you know maybe new new experiences new stories that might not you know always be chill because like what we learn from coffee table is that even though the game is chill you need to have drama right you need to have moments that kind of excite you or or maybe make you feel a bit anxious but it's it's it's then resolved and then it's you know you feel relaxed again but you need to have a lot you know drama in the game so yeah that's a basically that's the direction we were going to take and then we feel that's the soft coffee talk so future games gonna be you know have that experience teaming up with game developers whom you share an ideology with is key to surviving the competitive business of game making especially in Southeast Asia tocut productions has a good relationship with magic in studios their upcoming title is an 80s in the nature era fantasy adventure game so how did the two meet and how does togi productions handle the publisher role in this regard so I've known them for a long time now like I think we first met back in maybe 2012 or something like that we were yeah we start by making flash games so that's how we know each other and we are we've always tried to help each other the Indonesian game the game scene is because like everybody's in the there's not many big companies so everybody and always try to help each other get feedbacks and stuff like that so we keep always keep in touch and we share like oh the projects that we're working on so and maybe like in 2014 you know I I kind of like proposed to them like we should do collaborations you know because like their team is known for their art you know they the whole team is basically artists illustrators and you know like very very art focus but they don't have any programmers at the time so you know in comparison like token productions like our team is mostly programmers and we don't have a lot of artists so we you know we I asked him like hey let's do collaboration so we started collaborating on several projects and I think around 2015 2016 maybe like there's a there's a lot of Indonesian indie devs or like studios that shut down because a lot of the a lot of the studios couldn't transition from flash making flash games to like making mobile games so a lot of this to do slows down and one of the studio that that's having like financial problems or semaj again and you know it's very sad to see you know seniors closed down so we don't want to we don't want to see more you can close down because we hope you believe that they have a very good you know talent and they have very good products so we decided to you know like partner up with them and help them on the project on several projects and we actually invest as well and once again so they are like our sister company now even though like we run independently but yeah we're very close and we always keep keep in touch with each other and help their projects as well so like the funny thing is like we we didn't plan to become a publisher all right so then some like we start because like we started with collaborations and stuff like that and then we also like in do it like you know like later down the road we do investment we do like project funding and then we realize like we're kind of like kind of like publishers now like we're you know we're petitioning it to like a publisher so we you know we we decided to oculus let's just do publishing and then we try to focus more on like you know like identifying what they are strengths or like the strengths of this videos like the games that they are making and we basically we try to you know we do a know you know and analytics and that not analytics we try to analyze their games and we we do like game design consultation we we help in like marketing exhibition and stuff like that funding as well so we basically now like every game that that mode you can makes they they don't have to it doesn't have to be published by togetic productions we try to find other publishers that you know to pick up their games but if they decided to you know to to have us as their publisher then we and we do revenue sharing we and also like we we basically give them development funding and you know the whole shebang so that's how how we work like basically we we just like you know like we try to help each other find them you know give the best outcome even though it's not you know with us and you know the game doesn't have to be published by film productions we kind of like we try to broker you know other publishers to meet what you can and then you know find a good deal but if you know if they you know if they don't like me the other publishers and so yeah they can always come back to us that Tokyo Productions is also a company that cherishes gaming history especially odd Square Enix 90s CRPD strategy titles they wanted to create a spiritual successor to Square Enix's Fred mission called creeks front we asked how that's progressing at the moment but we're still you know we're still kind of like you know because this is still very early in production most of the work is still in like doing pre-production stuff like research and stuff like that so we are still doing it you know like on the side kind of like chipping slowly on the project but because the project is like super ambitious and it's very big so right now we're like focusing on other like nekron ater for example but by developing micro nater we're actually building the technology and you know the engine and and everything that we could be used later for for creeks front so like technically we're still working on the game in parallel hopefully very soon we can you know continue production and have that game completed hopefully yeah I'm a huge fraud mission fan and I'm very disappointed with where Square Enix is going with you know with front mission and I think like a lot of people have the same you know perspective as I do and out of that frustration basically I you know we decided to like let's do this that's let's make a front mission game spiritual successor and and that becomes in the early prototype for crisp run and then we try to approach other publishers you know because the project is like when we break it down like oh my god is so huge and it's very risky so we've been talking with with several publishers and and there's one that's very interested in project and hopefully we can you know we could have them on board and then we can continue on the project oh you know full speed to cut this interview off we asked what separates toget production apart from every other modest game developer and publishing studio apart from its Indonesian origins and heritage because like when we first started the company like I told you before like we didn't have any you know like you know values or whatever even like the name then the company named okay that started as a inside joke because like back then like the word though game means like bean sprout Indonesia and when we're like hey what should we name our company and then we couldn't think of a name and in like why don't you say it's all gay like whatever you know okay and then we register that register that and then like it stuck with us but I think one of the defining traits of like what a togi productions game is is that usually the art style is like we love pixel art and so a lot of our you know our portfolio is like pixel art or something you know related to pixel art even like even even if it's a 3d game the texture maybe like pixel art or like a bit retro so that's like one of the signature that we that we have maybe another another thing is like we because like we we see like yeah we're very very proud of like Indonesian games or like the Indonesian game indie game scene so that we want to bring Indonesian culture or like something Indonesian through the global market so that more people can know you know what's happening or like what is Indonesia or like what is our culture or whatever so like for example in coffee talk like the drinks we we have you know some Indonesian drinks we put in there and maybe like you know like a space for the unbound we set it in Indonesia so that's like some of the traces we want to bring to the world and uh what else like we we try to we try to always experiment with new stuff so when you look at our games like it's not you know it's not you know just a typical you know game whatever so we in each title that we release it's is you even like it has a unique game mechanic or like a unique play style or like a static or something so basically we check we we love you know experimenting with new stuff and I think that's like one of our signature as well so yeah and there you have it an update on one of Indonesia's more prominent game developing companies that isn't solely focused on the standard mobile gaming experiences the future is looking bright indeed if they're taking this current fruit if you think the same or have some disagreements do give a shout out on our YouTube channel and our website do subscribe to us and get notified with videos like these we post new content every Wednesday and Friday bye for now and keep Southeast Asian gaming and content creation alive [Music] [Music] [Music].