Some of you might have read somewhere that the video game industry is worth billions of dollars, an awesome fact.

Indonesia is part of that economic reality, alive and kicking, albeit not as big a player as the United States or Japan. The video game industry here is relatively young. It first took off after 1999.

JP/Novia D. Rulistia

We don’t hear much about it in country is because most games are developed for export to Australia, the United States and others parts of Southeast Asia.

We don’t have massive companies like Electronic Arts and CAPCOM, but we do have a few well-developed video game companies, like Matahari Studios, Pesona Edukasi and some smaller game development studios.

Speakers who presented at a seminar on  Indonesia’s video game industry at Binus International University in Jakarta on September 24, mentioned about 12 well-established game studios in Indonesia, but only around half of them are focusing on the local market. Game studios differ a bit from game companies: They are usually smaller, less structured and with less financing.

Another reason the industry seem  to have a small footprint is that most of the games created are simple to develop, like mobile games and casual web games. The rampant piracy of console games has deterred most studios from investing in developing console games.

The video game market is a wide market with multiple segments. Usually one studio focuses on one market segment. Each focuses on specific developments for that segment’s audience. 

Evil is not always bad. For toy lover and maker Cipta Croft-Cusworth, evil characters are his obsession and his fortune.

“Bad guys are generic, they all wear uniforms, look much cooler with cool vehicles, guns and stuff like that. I’ve always collected the evil ones, the antagonistic characters from the stories that have become the major influence for my company.” Croft-Cusworth told youthspeak in a recent interview at his studio in Central Jakarta.

To channel his eternal passion for toys, especially for bad guys, he set up a toy company, GoodGuysNeverWin, in 2005 and started marketing his creations to other toy lovers.

GoodGuysNeverWin produces cute-looking war machines, such as the highly coveted Dollores, short for doll of resin, TankBobs, BobJets and many more. “My father introduced me to toys when I was little. I didn’t just want to play with them, I tried to make my own toys from the beginning,” Croft-Cusworth said.  

He learned the technique of making toys from resin, and now enjoys taking his passion for play into his working life. 

“I get ideas, I do a few sketches, but the end product never looks like the sketch, it’s very loose. I just sculpt and shape from that original concept.”
Through the company, he freely channels all kinds of inspiration, whatever he thinks up, and turn it into toys he personally likes.

“Just like painters when they paint, making toys is art to me,” Croft-Cusworth said.

He said that he routinely exhibited his work through toys fairs and used the opportunity to sell his toys and to get to know his buyers directly.

He has participated in exhibitions in Jakarta and Bandung, and even made it to London, New York and France.

Croft-Cusworth started out just exhibiting his toy collection, but gradually people were looking to buy his handmade toys.

Apart from taking care of his shop, his professional work has expanded. He has been entrusted with designing the country’s new theme parks in Makassar, South Sulawesi, and in Bandung, West Java.

Grown-up responsibilities have not dampened his personal love for toys.  “I no longer need to make my toys talk or move. But toys have always been very important to me, and I always have some with me wherever I go,”
he said.

With a collection in the thousands and studios jam-packed with toys, he hopes one day to build a museum so he can share his passion with many more people.