Game development in the Philippines

Game development in the Philippines is a thriving industry. The Philippines may not be the top country in game development outsourcing, but it is getting close to the top. Among the reasons for the flourishing of game development in the Philippines:

Huge global market for games. Game development is done for a variety of platforms and channels, all of them requiring many developers due to the demand for games in each platform. These platforms are mobile devices (for video games on Android, iOS, Windows OS for smartphones, tablets, portable media players and other handheld devices), social media networks (the most popular being FaceBook), the “traditional” consoles (Xbox, PlayStation, Wii, DS/DSi, among others), and web-based games played over hundreds of millions of computers.

Skill, innovation and dedication of Filipinos in game development. Filipinos are known to be creative and technically proficient programmers, skilled in digital art, gaming, coding and design. More than this, Filipinos are recognized for being hardworking and dedicated. As early as 2007, a trade organization, the Game Developers Association of the Philippines (GDAP), was already established to promote the industry among educational institutions, game studios, retailers, publishers, affiliate organizations, and other key participants in game development in the Philippines. To show just how invested Filipinos are in game development, close to 500 game developers recently participated in a global event dubbed Global Jam 2015 organized by the International Game Developers Association (IGDA). The Filipino participants joined over 28,000 “jammers” from around the world. The Filipinos did game development out of four sites in the Philippines: Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU), De La Salle College of Saint Benilde (DLS-CSB), Muñoz, Nueva Ecija and Tarlac City, Tarlac province. The Filipinos, as solo and team game developers, contributed 85 new games from among the 5,000 plus produced and uploaded to the Global Game Jam website during that period.

Wide variety of services that need to be accomplished. Game development is a complex and arduous process. It has many subprocesses that require hundreds of man-hours to accomplish. Game development requires many programmers and designers who are skilled in different aspects. For sure, a team is required to produce entertaining and popular games. Some of these game development tasks are concept creation; technical documentation; animation; color editing, character design, graphical user interface (GUI); 2D or 3D modeling and rendering, as well as texturing; storyboard and lay-out development; testing; design and development using different technologies (Java, Flash, .NET, C/C++/C#, Python, etc.); and many more.

Game development in the Philippines is also being encouraged by the national government and by the Information Technology and Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP), the country’s flagship IT-BPM organization as it contributes to the national economy, and provides employment to thousands.