FAU-G returns: Vishal Gondal’s nCore eyes gaming revival with 'Domination'

(L-R) nCore co-founder Vishal Gondal; Nazara founder Nitish Mittersain; Dot9 Games co-founder Deepak Ail

When gaming veteran Vishal Gondal's mobile gaming firm nCore first announced the action game FAU-G in September 2020, it seemed poised to be a hit.

The Covid-19 pandemic had fueled a surge in gaming usage as millions of people were confined to their homes. At the same time, the Indian government had just banned the popular game PUBG (PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds) Mobile citing data security concerns, causing many gamers to seek out other options. FAU-G had also roped in Bollywood superstar Akshay Kumar as a mentor and a partner.

However, despite garnering nearly 50 million downloads, the title witnessed severe criticism from Indian gamers and struggled to retain its player base for long.

In an exclusive interview with Moneycontrol, Gondal attributed this to a mismatch between what people were expecting from the game and what the title actually offered.

"Because of its name and the timing, people thought that it's a PUBG replacement, which it was never intended to be. So when you come with that expectation, you are bound to be disappointed. We never said it was a PUBG replacement," Gondal said.

Also, FAU-G was a hand-to-hand single-player combat game that didn’t include any weapons, which was one of the main criticisms it faced.

"We were trying to be true to the storyline of Galwan Valley, which was a hand-to-hand combat and no weapons were used. We also focused on the story mode and what we thought people would like as an Indian soldier. But people were asking why there are no weapons in the game," he said.

The game was subsequently discontinued after a couple of years, although Gondal said it proved that there was a big hunger for high-quality fighting games.

This is also evident from the popularity of titles such as Krafton's Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI), and Garena's Free Fire, which are currently the top two grossing mobile applications on Google and Apple's app marketplaces in India. Other popular shooting games include Microsoft's Call of Duty and Riot Games' Valorant.

nCore is now making another attempt to cash in on the genre's popularity with FAU-G: Domination, a made-in-India multiplayer shooter game. Although this game is part of the FAU-G franchise, Gondal said that it has been built entirely from the ground-up with a different engine, game tech, and story.

The company has also roped in Nazara Publishing, the publishing arm of India's first publicly-listed gaming firm Nazara Technologies, as its publishing partner.

FAU-G Domination features modern-day military aesthetics with Indian characters

The game is a 5v5 multiplayer shooter game, which means two teams of five players compete against each other in a shooting match. It will feature modern-day military aesthetics with Indian characters, each with unique backstories.

"This is for the first time that people will have many Indian characters to customise with. The idea was to focus on relatable Indian themes and aesthetics. We also want to make sure that there is smooth gameplay and we are able to work on a variety of devices, including low-end devices," Gondal said.

FAU-G: Domination has been developed by Dot9 Games, a Mumbai-based gaming studio backed by nCore. Dot9 Games was established in 2021 by Deepak Ail, Srinivasan Veeraraghavan, Kaiwan Yezdani, and Prasad Ramdas, all of whom worked with Gondal in his earlier venture Indiagames that was acquired by Disney in 2011. The company stated that these industry veterans have nearly two decades of expertise in building games.

The original FAU-G game was developed by Bengaluru-based nCore Games, a different studio under the nCore banner, which was subsequently shutdown.

Gondal mentioned that the firm is taking a measured approach for the release of FAU-G: Domination, in contrast to FAU-G's splashy launch, which made the game available to everyone immediately. This time, nCore is conducting multiple gameplay sessions with peers and critics and showcasing the game at developer conferences and gaming industry events worldwide to gather feedback and make improvements before the official release, he said.

"A lot of focus right now is on the quality of the game and the gameplay...We are making sure that we don't leave any stone unturned. Of course, there will be many cosmetic things which can be made better in future iterations. We have a live ops team, which will constantly improve it" he said.

Gondal said that FAU-G: Domination is banking on its India-first focus, which emphasizes local culture and themes, to attract more consumers to its game amid intense competition in the shooting genre.

"People are hungry for local content and local languages. As we launch, we will focus on hyper-localisation to take the game wider. We will have characters talking various Indian languages like Tamil and Telugu inside the game," he said.

A snapshot of India's video gaming market

Preference for games with India-first content is increasing among consumers in the country due to its relevance and familiarity, several gaming founders have earlier told Moneycontrol.

About 80 percent of the gamers in a pan-India survey showed a propensity and preference for culturally resonant gaming content, while 69 percent claimed they would play an Indian IP-based game, as per a 2022 report by Lumikai, a gaming and interactive media venture fund.

Gondal said that when Indiagames was still around, Indian games and Indian content dominated the app stores. "However, since 2013, there hasn’t been any major investment that has gone into somebody creating a game"

As the game launches, a key focus will be improving retention, which will be crucial to its future monetisation strategy, Gondal said.

"We need to create a compelling proposition for people to spend, and that will only happen if we crack the retention," he said. The game intends to make money by allowing gamers to buy cosmetic items and battle passes through in-app purchases. There will be no pay-to-win elements for people to buy their way into the game, Gondal said.

The launch of FAU-G: Domination comes at a time when India’s gaming sector is showing signs of maturity in user behaviour and their gaming habits. The fledgling sector is also reaching an inflection point in terms of its scale and willingness to pay.

This is spurring local studios to attempt to create bigger, better, and more complex games that can eventually compete with their international counterparts and position India as a global gaming hub.

Also read: Indian gaming studios see big action; take bolder, ambitious bets

India is the fastest-growing games market in Asia, both in terms of revenue and gamers, according to Niko Partners, a market research and consulting firm that covers video games, e-sports and streaming in the continent.

The combined mobile, PC and console gaming revenue is projected to reach $943 million in 2024, up 13.6 percent from the previous year.

The market is expected to surpass $1 billion in revenue in 2025 and reach $1.4 billion in 2028, growing at a 5-year compound annual growth rate of 11.1 percent, it said. These figures do not include revenues from real-money games or exports.

Recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also stated his intention to make India a leading nation in the gaming industry.

"I want the country's youth to lead the gaming industry, not just in playing but also in producing games. Indian games must reach the world," PM Modi said during his Independence Day Speech on August 15.

Gaming, however, remains a hits-driven business, similar to other forms of entertainment like movies, television shows or music, where only a few are expected to succeed.

Gondal also concurred with this assessment and believes that more individuals should start creating game titles in the country.

"It's akin to saying that if the whole country had just one movie release and you are expecting it to be a blockbuster. This is why I always want to encourage people to launch more games. Only when we have 10-20 games, one or two may break out and become a success," Gondal said.

That said, building high-quality complex games is expensive and the gestation period is also quite long. "You need about a million dollars per year as your operating costs to sustain. So, if your game takes several years to develop, you can expect to multiply a million dollars by the total number of years it takes to develop the game," Gondal said. A game development team outside India would typically require five times that amount, he said.

The lack of investment in the sector also remains one of the biggest challenges faced by the burgeoning industry, Gondal said.

"Whatever is happening is too small for a country like India. There are very few gaming-focused funds in the country...Unfortunately, most of the capital was invested in real-money games" he said.

Also read: Gaming studios to PM Modi: Need clear distinction between video games and RMG

Gondal believes the scenario could change when a few Indian games become hits. "This is a classic herd mentality, where one company breaks out and then suddenly everybody will want to jump and invest in the sector. This happened with real-money gaming businesses but has not yet happened in the pure gaming sector" he said.

"The best thing about gaming businesses is that when you get an outlier, it can be massively profitable. Your game production cost is already covered and you are mainly servicing the game, so every additional dollar made is profit" Gondal said.

nCore Games had raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Galaxy Interactive and Animoca Brands with participation from Polygon and HyperEdge in January 2022.

FAU-G: Domination has also been designed for competitive play, with eSports set to become an integral part of the title's future strategy once it gains enough traction among gamers in the country. This includes features such as custom rooms and lobbies that enable players to host their own matches as well as allow for streamable content.

"There is a strong focus on eSports for us, as it will propel more people to want to play our game. Hence, just launching the game standalone is not a great idea, one needs to focus on the content and the community aspects of it" Gondal said.