The future is the game of an innovative quest powered by fiction. The mindly universe is as infinite as the cosmic consciousness of eternal artistry of an endless evolutionary Homo Sapiens’ multiverse of mindboggling technological advancements. In the interstellar game-verse of two and three-dimensional multitudes, a decade-old saga of Rocksalt Interactive Games shines like an epic ride of spacetime fuelled by ever-excelling benchmarks, in-game animation, and imagination in game art and design.
Every aspiring game developer knows that to achieve the AAA benchmark of game quality, they must grasp the entire game development lifecycle. This is where, the entire team of Rocksalt is distinctively guided by the Founder and Managing Director, Utkarsh Veer, to focus constantly on the game lifecycle management aspect rather than following the service provider approach. He informs, “Headquartered in Hyderabad, India; with our Business office in Singapore and two more studios in Denmark and in Manila, Philippines, we always aim to achieve the best in our endeavours and targets to grow the…
Game Lifecycle Management Industry
…rather than being just a ‘game service provider.” With ten years of solid expertise and more than 90 game titles to its credit, 15+ award-winning games and 30+ international clients, Rocksalt is among the most preferred outsourcing partner.
According to Utkarsh, what sets them apart is that they have a brilliant team with adequate experience in game art and animation production both in 2D and 3D. “We retain 70%+ of our employees who are happy working with us for the past at least seven years. Our core team have a total experience of more than 20 years in this industry,” he says. This understanding and experience in this industry not only helps in maintaining the standard of quality of the outputs, but it also helps in effectively delivering these outputs on time.
Telling more about Rocksalt’s offerings and aspects that make it stand out in the cutthroat competition, Utkarsh says that their specialities include 3D and 2D game art, concept and marketing art, animation, AR VR, VFX, and asset integration services. “Fuelling imagination to create winning game art design is what we do best. It’s been over a decade since we are into game art and animation outsourcing and we possess our 70% global clientele for more than seven years and continuing with their different game titles. That reflects our track record. Our commitment to quality, being agile and adaptive to the clients’ dynamic requirements, and processes gives us an edge of being the preferred outsourcing partner,” states Utkarsh.
An Innovative Leader Par Exemplar
An innovator and creative thinker who leads from the front. Utkarsh provides his vision and strategy for getting things done simply. Over 23 years in the industry with a wide and rich hands-on experience in the animation and Gaming industry, he has grown the Rocksalt team from four to 120+ teams while maintaining the unique culture that makes Rocksalt one of the best places to work. His constant innovation and sincere efforts have positioned Rocksalt as one of the top game art outsourcing companies in Hyderabad.
With his keen business acumen and insights, Rocksalt has also established its presence in the Gambling Game Art Development industry targeting the niche areas of development of casino and slot games.
Utkarsh brings into Rocksalt, intelligent leadership and strong management skills along with a creative instinct. Utkarsh began his career as one of the first creative artists with UTV working closely with creative leadership. His previous stints include some of the best animation studios like DQ Entertainment, Escotoonz, and UTV Toonz.
He is deeply passionate about the Entertainment Industry in India and envisions Rocksalt to be a leader in the industrial sphere. Highlighting their professional values and qualities greatly admired by their clients, he says they are,
- Up-to-date with IT infra to protect clients’ Information and data security.
- Wide range of services in art and animation production.
- Quick adaptability of any tools, softwares and processes.
- Long-term team allocation.
- More than ten happy clients over seven years to date.
- “Our 70%+ English-speaking team.”
- Realistic in planning, and transparent in communication.
The Creative Minds’ Artistic Endeavour
Being an experienced leader, Utkarsh shares his opinion on how the adoption of modern technologies like AI and ML impacts the Gaming space and how Rocksalt is adapting to the change. He says that as much as the adoption of modern technologies is a must in the current scenario, “Where industries dynamics are changing every minute as we talk, we feel that more weightage will be always on human skill over AI and ML.” AI and ML are no doubt massive support for a game to reach its highest level of achievements but without the core skill base games cannot sustain with just AI and ML.
“In Rocksalt, we have our skill-set up to date to have ourselves at par with the industry requirements from time to time.”
He adds that considering the current industry scenario, there are some significant hurdles they have to overcome to drive his company ahead. “Being a growing and dynamic industry, like most industries there is a talent crunch that we face.” And with global markets more accessible with work-from-home options the entry barriers have lowered so there is always an ongoing challenge to attract and retain good talent as resources are quite costly.
“We keep our regular flow of talent through encouraging and grooming new budding graduates. The quality of work that we do, openness and transparent work culture helps us attract the right talent and we keep our bars of recruitment high. Owing to the quality of work and work culture we are able to attract some very good experienced talent through internal references and word of mouth,” he reveals.
Entire Game Lifecycle Provider
In his advice to budding entrepreneurs aspiring to venture into the Gaming space, he says that the gaming industry has become much more diverse and dynamic now compared to the older days. To venture and sustain in it, it needs lots of study and understanding of current trends and future transformation that might take place in future which widely depends on the development of technology used in gaming overall. “And different areas of gaming, most specifically understanding where our strengths to start with and what needed to expand further, all depending up on where we are venturing, ‘game services or game development as a whole.”
This is definitely not the place where one can invest and see the money flowing in instantly or continuously. It is necessary to have a good business strategy in place to hit the right target customers, the right region and more importantly need to have the right team.
Having this said, Gaming is one industry with endless opportunities spread out with wide-ranging areas to venture in with a focused approach and when it’s the right time, can expand to different areas.
“We have a talent pool consisting of a percentage from Art colleges and universities. Our core team takes up to train and develop fresh talent creating employment opportunities for the younger generation and trying to bridge the talent gap,” he shares.
On envisioning scaling Rocksalt’s operations and offerings in the future, Utkarsh divulges, “Our vision was always to be an entire game life cycle provider with the right partnership or explore Co-development opportunities.”
Clients Praises: names and company names to be removed due to client NDAs.
- “The transparency in communication, how Rocksalt’s team worked on the setup and how they continuously improved our complex workflow was outstanding!”
- “Rocksalt is result-oriented and quality conscious, making constant improvements in production while maintaining open lines of communication and adhering to deadlines.”
- “You guys nailed the pose from the first time. Greta work maintaining the appeal of the 2D design and love how polished and precise the model and facial expression are.”
- “I fondly remember multiple occasions when I was just glowing with joy after seeing how they managed to push the character animation and performance to the next level!”
- “Rocksalt has worked with us on multiple projects throughout the years. We are happy with the successful collaboration on all levels of production. Great results!”
- “The Rocksalt team has done a great job! We are very pleased with the quality of your work and your responsiveness. We will certainly keep you in mind for future needs.”
