God is a Gamer

by Ravi Subramanian

  Matt had made no effort to conceal his displeasure. Throughout the session, he blatantly ignored her and avoided taking her advice on anything. This had become a daily affair at NYIB. Malvika’s importance was fast getting eroded and that was clearly affecting her. These days Matt had the regional office’s confidence.

  The past few days had been terrible for her—she couldn’t sleep without a shot of whisky and sleeping pills.

  That day she was looking forward to the evening. She always looked forward to the time she spent with him. Malvika wanted to soak in the large tub in her apartment and drive away the negativity. She took care to ensure that she was at her best whenever she met him.

  *

  Around the same time, Varun’s phone rang. He looked at it, smiled, and took the call.

  ‘Hi, Varun!’

  ‘Hey, Tanya, wassup?’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I can be wherever you want me to be.’

  ‘Shut up,’ she said, even as she smiled to herself. ‘Will you come with me?’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘It’s mom’s birthday next weekend. Saturday. I need to buy her a gift.’

  ‘Ha! You want me to drive you to the mall so you can shop for your mom?’

  ‘How cruel do you think I am? I just thought I would get to spend time with you while I do some boring work,’ Tanya replied.

  ‘I’ll come, sweetheart!’

  ‘Great! I’ll see you at the Taj Hotel shopping arcade in an hour.’

  Little less than an hour later, Varun drove into the portico of the Taj Mahal Hotel at the Gateway of India. As he handed his car keys to the valet, he spotted Tanya in the lobby.

  He gave her a generous hug. She reciprocated. ‘What do you propose to buy for your mom?’

  ‘There is a Louis Vuitton store down on the right. I thought an LV bag would be a great gift for her. It’s got style and class.’

  ‘Cool.’

  Varun slipped his hand into hers. She turned to look at him, smiled and squeezed his hand back. ‘Want a coffee before we go shopping?’ he asked her and she nodded.

  The two of them headed towards the poolside coffee shop.

  ‘What were you doing when I called you?’

  ‘Dad has launched a new game. Was taking stock of that.’

  ‘New game?’

  ‘Uh-huh. Townsville. Indiscape is betting big on it. Let’s see how it shapes up. It hasn’t taken off so I’m helping him bring in a few changes. I was on a conference call with the folks at Facebook. We are negotiating a deal with them.’

  ‘What deal?’

  ‘After going back and forth, I’ve finally convinced dad and Sundeep to get on to social media and look to build an exclusive alliance. The folks from Facebook are coming next week to meet us. Was just doing some background work for that.’

  ‘Cool.’

  They headed for the LV store. After a lot of looking and trying, Tanya finally picked out a bag.

  *

  At her home in Malabar Hill, Malvika stepped out of the tub, dried herself, and looked at the clock. It was 7 p.m. She had to meet him in an hour. From her eclectic collection in the closet, she pulled out a bright orange saree. It took her five minutes to wrap it around herself. Another fifteen minutes to apply her make-up and she was ready to go.

  She always called him before she left. Just to make sure that he was free. The phone kept ringing but he didn’t pick up. She tried a couple of times, after which she decided to wait for him to call back. He would see her calls at some point.

  She switched on the TV and sat down on the lounger, aimlessly surfing channels. She landed on UTV where Mini Menon was anchoring a show called Eavesdropping. It brought out news from the grapevine. Rumours, which could neither be confirmed nor denied. She loved that programme and let it play. Five minutes and fifteen glances at the phone later, she was about to switch off the TV when Mini announced: ‘D.V. Subba Rao is said to be in the running for the post of governor of the Reserve Bank of India.’

  Malvika sat up with a jerk. What the hell? How could this happen. Her face went red in anger. This was not going according to the script she had written. Would all the compromises she had made be in vain? Had he been playing her all along?

  She had to confront him.

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  27

  Mumbai

  Varun was dressed in a formal suit when he came down for breakfast. Aditya was waiting for him.

  ‘Looking good, Son.’

  ‘Thanks, Dad. Is Sundeep uncle joining us?’

  ‘He hasn’t said so. I think he will come there directly.’

  ‘Cool. Let me quickly grab a bite before we leave. I seriously hope something works out today.’

  ‘Yes. Same here. Sundeep is not happy about it though.’

  ‘I know, Dad. But you know what? Facebook is the future for gaming.’

  Aditya nodded.

  They left after breakfast. Office was just a twenty-minute drive from home. The meeting with the Facebook team was at 11 a.m. Two hours to go.

  Sundeep came in at 10 a.m. He didn’t look his normal energetic self.

  ‘Sundeep,’ Aditya called out when he saw him walking to his cabin.

  ‘Yes, Aditya?’

  ‘I know you are upset.’ Aditya walked up to him and put his arm around him.

  ‘No, Aditya, it’s just that I don’t agree with what you and, more specifically, Varun want to do.’

  ‘Sundeep, you and I, we go back a long way so I can tell you this. Varun is back in my life and I don’t want to lose him. I marginalized him from my life in the past. I want to make up for that. He wants to try something new, I am letting him. If you ask me whether I am 100 per cent confident, I’m not. But our methods haven’t worked either. I believe that the youth of today are more in sync with current trends than you or I. I need you to help me in this. You need to support Varun.’

  ‘Aditya, I will do whatever you tell me to. Varun is as dear to me as he is to you.’

  ‘Thanks, Sundeep.’

  The discussion ended in an uneasy truce. Aditya was sceptical about Sundeep and Varun finding common ground.

  The delegation from Facebook Singapore comprised four people, all of Chinese origin. After exchanging a few pleasantries, Varun stood up and made a dramatic presentation to them. ‘A thorough integration of the game with Facebook. It should seem like an app from Facebook. Users should not only be able to play the game on Facebook but invite their friends too. We need to build an entire community of Indiscape players.’

  The Facebook team listened intently. Facebook had annual revenues of around 2 billion dollars, of which 90 per cent came from the US and Europe. Asia was a blip in the ocean. Of the 100 million dollars that Asia contributed, about 75 million dollars came from advertising revenues. Facebook in Asia was desperate to gain ground. The icing on the cake for the team would be that the replacement client for Zynga came from this region.

  At the end of the presentation, the regional director of Facebook looked at Aditya and asked, ‘So what do you expect us to do?’

  ‘Gentlemen!’ Varun interrupted, not letting Aditya answer. ‘We have given you a broad picture of what we want you to do. Before we get down to the specifics, let me tell you what we will do for you,’ and brought up a slide on screen.

  ‘One, we will make our games exclusively available on Facebook for a period of one year from the time they are launched. A user will have to have a Facebook account to play our games. Two, we will make sure all links on our portal, which has over 1 million hits a day, point to the Facebook page, where the game can be played. The login ids of each of our users will be automatically converted to a Facebook account. We have most of the details one needs to create a Facebook account. The customer will just have to click and fill in additional details and, lo and behold, his account will be activated. Remember, we have over 30 million
users logged on to Mafia Dons, of which we have 25 million MAUs. If any of them are not Facebook users, we will insist that they become users.’

  Sundeep was shocked. He looked at Aditya. He was about to speak when Aditya whispered, ‘Hold on!’ Sundeep got up and walked to Aditya. ‘Placing all our eggs in the Facebook basket might screw us badly. We should partner with them without signing away exclusive rights,’ he whispered.

  ‘We aren’t signing anything away today, are we? We’ll chat once these guys leave.’

  Varun carried on, oblivious to the consternation he was causing. ‘ . . . and three, we will make sure that our advertising campaign is Facebook-friendly. Not only that, we will share a predetermined percentage of all our revenues arising out of advertising prior to, during, or after the games, with Facebook. These are our terms, gentlemen, please let us know if you want to proceed.’

  The four Facebook representatives went into a huddle to discuss the offer. Aditya could hear strains of Mandarin. Finally the regional director looked up. ‘Can you please share with us the financials that are at stake here?’

  ‘Give us fifteen minutes, gentlemen.’ Varun walked out, followed by Aditya and Sundeep. The latter hadn’t uttered a word during the meeting.

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  28

  Mumbai

  After about ten minutes, Aditya returned with Varun and Sundeep. Varun walked to the head of the table. He thrust a pen drive into the USB port of the computer and opened a PowerPoint file. It had only one slide with three bullet points.

  1. Advertising worth 20 million dollars on Facebook at a 50 per cent discount on rack rates.

  2. Exclusive gaming contract on Facebook for twelve months. No other gaming company should advertise on Facebook for this period.

  3. 30 per cent of the revenue from customers who play the game (if we start charging customers) will be passed on to Facebook. Facebook, in turn, will provide advertising worth the same amount for free. For instance, if Indiscape collects 20 million dollars from customers during a year, it will pass on 6 million dollars to Facebook. In return, Facebook will provide advertising worth 6 million dollars to Indiscape for free. At rates agreed in #1 above.

  ‘If this is acceptable, sir, Indiscape commits a 25-million-dollar income to Facebook in year one,’ Varun added.

  Aditya and Sundeep said nothing.

  Varun continued, ‘This comprises 10 million dollars from direct advertising and 15 million from revenue sharing. In three years, I expect this sum to cumulatively go up to 125 million dollars.’

  The Facebook people promised to respond after conferring with their colleagues.

  ‘We are in a fairly advanced stage of testing a game called Townsville,’ Varun continued, ‘and if you do view our proposal positively, we would like to stop spending on other channels and focus on yours alone.’

  The regional director shook hands with the three of them and left, followed by his team.

  ‘Are you out of your mind?’ Sundeep yelled the moment the Facebook reps were out of earshot.

  Varun smirked. This irritated Sundeep even more.

  ‘Uncle,’ Varun said, ‘including development charges, we are already over 20 million dollars down on this game with no users to show for it.’

  ‘How does that justify this kind of an extravagance?’

  ‘First, it is not an extravagance. We will be able to reach 600 million customers in one go. I’m willing to wager that customers who are hooked on to Facebook will try out anything new on it. Today all our users play for free. We run an extremely popular but unprofitable enterprise. The moment we go back to our advertisers and tell them that they will now have access to 600 million customers—a number Facebook expects will rise to 1 billion in the next two years—they’ll start banging on our doors, cash in hand. That’s when we increase ad rates. That will take care of a large part of our 10-million-dollar payout to Facebook.’ He paused.

  ‘And second, we need to convert our games from completely free games to premium games. We will charge our customers a small amount to move from one level to the other. Townsville has fifty levels. We should ask the game designers to increase it to seventy-five. I project that this will net us another 25 million dollars in revenue. And once we have 20 million dollars worth advertising space on Facebook, we will not only advertise Townsville but also Mafia Dons and all our old games. We will relaunch them by making them Facebook-friendly. Look at the revenue opportunity there. And by accessing that market with an exclusive contract with Facebook, you are effectively barring the competition from benefiting from social media for at least one year. By the time they wake up, we’ll be well on our way to being one of the top gaming companies in the world.’

  It was beginning to dawn on both Sundeep and Aditya that they had become victims of their own rigid beliefs. Unwilling to change the way they went about their business, they had refused to look at emerging trends. The world around them was changing. They could either adapt or perish. What Varun had brought to the table was a fresh approach. Had Sundeep or Aditya looked at the business from the point of view of consumers, who were largely the youth of the world, they would probably have arrived at the same conclusion as Varun. It’s not often that a novice beats seasoned bankers at strategy. But this was not strategy. It was a simple case of having ears to the ground.

  That evening, the regional director called Aditya and asked for a written proposal. Within a few days, the deal was signed.

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  29

  New York

  The furrows on Josh’s forehead ran deep that morning. He had carefully put together the twenty-member team, most of them from the student body that he had led. However, at the last minute, one of them backed out.

  Josh was pacing up and down his room at 4 a.m. when he had a brainwave. His flatmate Stan was an illegal immigrant from Mexico and he did not have a steady income. It would not be too difficult to convince him to be a part of the team. He had not asked Stan earlier because he didn’t want him to know about the job. But now, he didn’t have choice. Once Stan was convinced, his team was set. It was execution time.

  On Saturday morning, the old man and Josh arrived at Midland Café at almost the same time.

  ‘The team is in place. No blood. No gore. No murders. No guns. Non-negotiable.’

  ‘Yes, I remember,’ the old man confirmed.

  ‘Will you now tell me what you want them to do?’ Josh asked.

  The old man bent down to pick up a bag that lay at his feet. Rummaging inside, he pulled out a leather folder, opened it and laid it out in front of Josh. He pulled out key cards for Hotel Grand from the folder and extended them towards Josh. ‘Here,’ he said.

  Josh was both surprised and curious. ‘What am I supposed to do with these?’

  Seeing his apprehension, the old man explained, ‘These are not hotel room keys, Mr Connelly. These cards have been coded with the details of five different international credit cards. They can be used to withdraw cash from ATMs. The PIN is written on the backs of the cards.’

  Josh turned the card around.

  ‘These twenty people will be split into ten two-member teams. Each team will be given five cards. They will go to ATMs across New York and withdraw cash using these cards. Each withdrawal will be exactly 2000 dollars. Five cards per team, makes it 10,000 dollars per ATM. They will need to cover as many ATMs as they can. They have till 4 p.m.’

  ‘Won’t the cards run out of cash? The accounts might get fully tapped out, right? What happens then? ATM cards might not work endlessly.’

  ‘The ATMs will dispense cash endlessly. It’s been taken care of. Half an hour ago, our team hacked into the banking systems of these cards and raised the withdrawal limits on each of these cards to 1.5 million dollars. You won’t have a problem. We need to get in before
the bank discovers the leakage and plugs it.’

  ‘You actually did that?’ Josh smiled. He looked at the cards again, then at the old man. ‘What do we do with the cash?’

  ‘That’s why we have you. Collect the cash from your teams. Wait for instructions. We will tell you what to do. Remember, the faster you move, the more cash you collect. I don’t need to remind you that 10 per cent of the total collection is yours. And each of the individuals in the team get 5 per cent of what they collect.’

  ‘Is that all?’ asked Josh, as he got up to give instructions to his team.

  ‘Raid the Manhattan ATMs first. They normally dispense notes of higher denominations. It’ll be easier for you to carry around. And . . . ’ he paused.

  ‘And?’

  ‘Please advise your team to steer clear of the CCTV cameras in the ATMs. When they enter the ATM lobby or get close to the kiosk, instruct them to draw up their hoodies. We don’t want the cameras to catch them in the act. If anyone gets caught, there will be no one to take responsibility. They will be on their own.’

  Josh nodded and got up. As he was walking towards the exit he froze. Seated in the corner, quietly engaged in reading a copy of the local magazine, was someone he knew. Josh pulled up his hoodie, covered his face and hurriedly exited the café. His team was waiting for him.

  Thirty minutes later, all the ten teams had been briefed and they set out to raid the ATMs in New York City.

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  30

  Mumbai

  The who’s who of the Indian banking industry attended Malvika’s birthday party at the Four Seasons on Saturday. CEOs, business leaders, regulators, bureaucrats, opinion-makers, page 3 people were all in attendance. Until the morning of the birthday, Tanya had kept the party a secret. But then she had to reveal it to Malvika so she could dress up for it.