Rob Alvarez Bucholska
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Building Success from Scratch in Gaming with Dhiraj Jujare | Episode 380

 

If you’re struggling to keep people engaged and loyal in your product or business, check out my FREE gamification course to learn how to do just that: professorgame.com/freecommunity-web

Unlock the secrets behind truly captivating game design and community-building. We have this conversation with Dhiraj Jujare, the force heading Warpverse X. Armed with a visionary outlook, Dhiraj demystifies the paths less traveled that bridge gamers and creators under one roof. Set your imagination free; here awaits thought-provoking discourse on harmonizing fine art with technology, built upon enduring design principles. If you have ever wondered what’s at the heart of winning players’ loyalty through compelling narratives and expressive visuals, this is your podcast episode!

Dhiraj Jujare is a trailblazing entrepreneur and the CEO of Warpverse X, a cutting-edge gaming platform revolutionizing the digital gaming ecosystem. Known for his innovative mindset and deep passion for technology, Dhiraj has positioned Warpverse X as a central hub for gamers, developers, content creators, and brands alike. His leadership emphasizes fostering vibrant communities, leveraging advanced tools for game development, and driving forward-thinking solutions in esports and digital marketplaces.

Rob is a host and consultant at Professor Game as well as an expert, international speaker and advocate for the use of gamification and games-based solutions, especially in education and learning. He’s also a professor and workshop facilitator for the topics of the podcast and LEGO SERIOUS PLAY (LSP) for top higher education institutions that include EFMD, IE Business School and EBS among others in Europe, America and Asia.

 

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Lets’s do stuff together!

Looking forward to reading or hearing from you,

Rob

 

Full episode transcription (AI Generated)

Rob:
Hey, this is Professor Game where we interview successful practitioners of games, gamification and game thinking to help us multiply engagement and loyalty. I’m Rob Alvarez, I’m a consultant, I’m a coach and I’m the founder here at Professor Game and I’m also a professor of gamification and game inspired solutions at IE University, IE Business School, efmd, EBS University and other places around the world. And before we dive into the interview, you’re struggling with engagement in your business and are looking for to find out how to make your users stay with you. You will find our free community full of resources quite useful. You can find it for free in the links below in the description Engagers. Welcome to another episode of the Professor Game podcast. Today we have with us Dhiraj. I hope I pronounced that decently, but Dhiraj, we need to know are you prepared to engage?

Dhiraj Jujare:
Yeah, I’m ready.

Rob:
English let’s do this. Dirash Jujar. Is that a good pronunciation or a decent one?

Dhiraj Jujare:
At least it’s a decent one. It’s called Juzare because we pronounce our as a generally.

Rob:
So I never know where do people pronounce them and not so I do, I do just the person when it comes to mine.

Dhiraj Jujare:
But at least you try to pronounce it as it is because a lot of people pronounce it as Suarez as well. Like the player Louis Sua. I’m very confused by that as well the people from other countries. Here you can continue.

Rob:
Interesting, Interesting. So Dash Juji is a trailblazing entrepreneur and the CEO of Warp Verse X which is a cutting edge gaming platform revolutionizing the digital gaming ecosystem. He’s known for his innovative mindset and deep passion for technology. He has positioned Warpverse as a central hub for gamers, developers, content creators and brands alike. His leadership emphasizing fostering vibrant communities, leveraging advanced tools for game development and driving forward thinking solutions in esports and digital marketplaces. Dash, is there anything that we should know that we have not mentioned in that intro?

Dhiraj Jujare:
No, it’s pretty much it because like I have come from the gaming background myself and moving forward I wanted to do something that was because I saw a lot of gaming industry was fragmented so I wanted to build a. Build something that was like letter structure so everybody can come and have that place that they want in the community and that’s how For Sex was born.

Rob:
Amazing. Amazing. So Dash, if we were to follow you around for a day, a week, I don’t know how would that look like? What are the Kinds of things that you’re doing regularly or semi regularly, whatever that looks like.

Dhiraj Jujare:
So. So basically every day starts with waking up and working out. Because I have to work out or my days, like it’s a bit messier. I didn’t used workout before, but when since I started it’s been. Been more fresh, it’s been more like focused. Then after that I start up my PC, then do the daily logging of what the stuff I have to do. Then after that, whatever the development of is there, I start working on that. Then we have the meetings and everything we discuss everything. Like that has to be done and that has to be done throughout the day. After that, once, till evening, all of this goes. And after, after the evening, I. If there’s a soccer match, we go and watch a soccer match. If. If it. There is not, we sometimes play soccer. Yeah. That’s how the whole day goes. And like the week we. In the weekends, we go outside, have some fun. Every weekend. And that’s the whole week right now.

Rob:
Once, like sounds fantastic.

Dhiraj Jujare:
Yeah. Like get stuff going on. Yeah. Even in like being Madrid. Real Madrid is a big club and I have a lot of friends who are Real Madrid fans as well as Barcelona fans, and they keep having the argument and as I’m an English club fan, so we get stuck between those arguments every day. So.

Rob:
Well, Manchester United, you know, has its history and all that, but nowadays, nowadays it’s hard to argue with Real Madrid being the best club right now.

Dhiraj Jujare:
Like, it’s. It’s different.

Rob:
I’m kidding, I’m kidding. Everybody has their opinions. They’re all fine and welcome. I am a Real Madrid fan. Yes, I am. Funny thing, before arriving to Spain, I actually didn’t watch much. Much football. Soccer, yeah. But my wife sort of followed Real Madrid for a while. She’s kind of. She was a fan. But then I became more of a. Of a fan than she was. We actually had. We had football TV at home for a while until the pandemic came in. And it was a lot of fun. Like, I kind of miss having my.

Dhiraj Jujare:
Football nights, but it’s good that you say football because a lot of what happens is we. Due to American audiences, more people start saying it like soccer. And even I say football. But I thought, like most of your audiences, maybe Americans, I said aware of.

Rob:
The fact that it’s. They call it soccer. So that’s why I say football. And every now and then I. I throw in a soccer so that Americans don’t get confused, but, you know, is what it is.

Dhiraj Jujare:
Yeah.

Rob:
I mean, calling American football, American football for them is also weird. So, you know, it’s. It’s what it is.

Dhiraj Jujare:
Yeah.

Rob:
We always like.

Dhiraj Jujare:
Yeah, no, continue. No, I was just saying, like we discussed before, the dialects and the languages get changed.

Rob:
Yes.

Dhiraj Jujare:
Every year. And this. You were asking.

Rob:
Satiras. We always like to, you know, introduce our guests and get the best out of them and showcase many of the amazing things you guys have done. However, we also like to bring you to the ground level as well so that our audience can also realize that all of you are actually real people. Like you are, you know, you have faults, you have difficulty, you’re learning just like the rest of us and of the engagers. Right. So we, we like to kick off with this story. Right. A story where you actually tell us of a time things did not go well, especially if it’s in the gaming world. Game development, game design, gamification, I don’t know, wherever it is you want to lead us, we want to be there with you at the ground level. Feel that difficulty, that pain. And I don’t know what lessons you took or how did you get out of that, that failed moment or first attempt to learning again. We want to live that story with you for a second.

Dhiraj Jujare:
Yeah, sure. So the first thing that I think would come to my brain when I started going and learning about gaming stuff in the college, because in India we didn’t have that many resources before. Like right now we have everything. We have the colleges for particular sets of things. But when I started out, like in 2015, I didn’t know there were many gaming colleges and stuff. And I was, I just got into like game art. I was doing zebras and stuff and I was trying to learn what exactly her art work is done, like what exactly we need to do to like get in, get it into the game. Because the models that zebras does couldn’t be directly integrated into game. So I was figuring that out. And so by that research, once I started researching, I started getting more into the game design aspect of it as well as game development aspect of it. Because when I started, I started out, I just thought that, yeah, you just read the 3D models and you place them and the things start working by themselves. Then I got more into the rep while researching it. Then I found a course over here which is called tmedu and I started attending it. Moved out of home for that. Then things started working out. Then after completing my college, I tried doing an internship at Ubisoft for some time, but that didn’t work. Out well for me because the was a lot of crunch time and I wanted to be into more of a development side of the games. But they put me into testing and I didn’t want to be a tester. I wanted to design games and make games. And for seven years I was making games. I was like figuring out problems regarding g gamifications and game design stuff. Then I thought why, why shouldn’t we go for something like. Because there are a lot of. The main thing that I noticed was there is a lot of fragmentation that that has been happened in the gaming world because if you, if people want to connect to the community like gaming committee, what do they go to? Discord. But for playing games they go to Steam or Epic Games or maybe Gog or whatever the preferred platforms is. So I thought like why can’t we bring all this stuff together and start making something that is. That, that is more integrated for like the gamers as well as game developers as well as the, the gaming content creators. Because right now in India the gaming is becoming really big. Even our Prime Minister has been like meeting with the gaming content creators and doing a lot of stuff with them. So I thought it’s a good time to start the platform because even like in the revenue aspect of the thing there is a demand for it as well. As I thought like if we can make something that is very like, like we can create an ecosystem that is very helpful for all the people who are in same audience basis that that would be great. So that’s how Oprex was also born. And plus as you said gaming story like I started from nothing and right now I’m like mostly getting integrated in the whole ecosystem building kind of thing.

Rob:
That sounds amazing. Thanks for sharing that story. I mean it’s from almost from rags to riches in a way. Like not necessarily, necessarily in the financial aspect but you know, in the, in the way that you went from something you didn’t want to really want to do all the way to actually building your own, your own warp 1st X indeed as thanks for sharing that. I mean there’s plenty of lessons there. I think the audience can, can decide which ones to take and you know, see some of the aspects that you went through. Actually how about you, you go for something that you’re proud of that you want to share like a project that you did client you worked with. I don’t know whatever it is you want to go for. It doesn’t have to be like if you don’t want to share any names, if it has to do with the company, that’s fine. But especially again we want to live the experience with you. We want to hear how that went and maybe some of the success factors that you, that you had.

Dhiraj Jujare:
I wouldn’t go for a client based story. I want to go for a bit of personal story. It was in the time of college as well. Me and my roommate, we just started working on the game. It was a basic endless obstacle solving kind of game. And we just thought like, let’s make it, let’s have a design, like let’s make an R, let’s do designs and let’s publish and let’s see what we can do. And we published the game. The game game has been taken down now. It was like seven years ago. But when we published it we didn’t expect to get any downloads on it. Like we expected like mostly maybe we’ll get like 100, maybe 200 without any marketing. But the acceptable part was we got like 7,000 in a month. Like without any marketing or anything. That was like surprising. So that like, so that motivated us more and we started build, we started working together, we started building other kind of things. But after some time the split happened. He went his way, he’s into development, still working. But I played. But that was a great lesson. Like once you like the people even who are watching or listening to this, I would like to suggest you one thing that even if you don’t know anything about it, just start exploring, start going on, start implementing, just start applying. Once you start to apply, you will realize some mistakes, you realize some plus points, then you will realize your strengths and you will start designing and developing accordingly. And that’s how the basically arguing world works. We test out some stuff, then we make, then we make and then whatever the end product happens, sometimes it’s great, sometimes not. It’s not, it’s. Then it’s in the hand of audience. But making is the most important thing.

Rob:
And that’s, that’s key. Right. One thing that you mentioned there yet like you do, and then it’s about the audience and how to integrate that sort of, I don’t want to even say opinion because it doesn’t have much to do with the opinion. It’s how the, the audience actually feels and, and, and how they react to whatever it is you create and how to handle it. I think is something that is critical. And the sooner of course you’re able to get that understanding, the better things are essentially going to go through.

Dhiraj Jujare:
Yes. Yeah, I agree with you.

Rob:
That sounds fantastic and thanks for sharing that story as well. Is there in your experience, and you’ve been working in gaming in many different capacities to this point, is there something that you would say? Well, if you do this or if you think about things this way, you will have at least a better chance of having success in your project than if you don’t. So a best practice, no silver bullets, of course. But is there something that you think has been critical to your success or to past successes that you observed in projects you’ve actually been working at?

Dhiraj Jujare:
Yeah. So I think the basic aspect that everybody should follow is having a basic documentation. So everybody on the team is on the same page. Because lot of times what happens is like we don’t have any of basic documentation, like having a design documentation or a development documentation that causes a lot of miscommunications and inefficiency in the development of the project itself. Because like, let me give you an example. I was working on a project, I won’t mention the name, but it was a web based game. And the thing was that they approached me for the art aspect of it. Like they wanted to have 3D weapons, like 3D icons and stuff. But later down the line because of no documentation and inefficiency in the communications, the like the blockchain part, I was even given the blockchain part as well as the FX part because I used to do like a blockchain as well. So I, I even had him with, with that. What happened due to that was like, let’s say if that project use was to complete in like three or four months, it, it took like one and a half year just to get to a certain level in which it can be like at least marketed to users itself. So that, that’s why I would say, say the documentation is the key. And plus second thing, most important thing is setting the communication lines because even if you’re developing it alone, it’s. And then maybe you won’t need it. But documentation helps everything because you can just go back and see where your ideas were. Because number, number of iterations you have sometimes some old things also better so you can go back to those.

Rob:
So you’re talking there about communication and people think of documentation especially of course, especially when it’s a team based effort. And then they think like, well you know, I’m a solo developer, I’m an indie developer, I do everything myself. Why would I need documentation? I can, I can tell you what I think about that. But what would be your message after, after saying this, is it still important.

Dhiraj Jujare:
Yeah, I’ll just give the example of the game I launched with my partner. We had three iterations of that team. First was like a really car to cartoonically graph version. Like basically if you in like Angry Birds kind of shit. Then we developed the art style and made it more 3D by like the last stage when we published it. But there was a middle stage which it had like a mostly glowing and like a trippy kind of vibe. And people like that version a lot as well. And if we had that documented and if we had that like version saved on our PC, like made the versions of that, then we would even have that to publish. And like when we like after games got boomed then we went and like started to market it. And that time we’re even showing the version because we had the build fit but we didn’t have the whole like the programs and codes and everything because we had changed the same that thing in the project. So keeping the backup, keeping the documentation all helps because you can go back and if some things work there, you can implement it in the future versions as well.

Rob:
Amazing. Amazing. And dash, with all this experience, I’m guessing that when you create something new, you, you have some form of, I don’t know, maybe you do, maybe you don’t. Some people say no, I don’t. But you have maybe a process, a series of steps. If you were to face a new project right now, how would you do it? What would be, where would your mind go? What are the things that you would get into and where does documentation fit in there? Of course.

Dhiraj Jujare:
Yeah. So the first thing that I would do, let’s say if we get a game project, let’s say a FPS project. So what, what is the first thing I do is I’ll like have a meeting, have the whole recordings of the things like what the, like the client wants from that. What I got, I create a whole documentation based on the designing, based on the art, based on the development. So there will be basically at least the three, these three sections will be finalized. And in the, in the documentation what can also help you is identify your core audience. Because what generally happens, I would take, I would say that games don’t that kind of success because they don’t know what exactly the target audience is. Because if you, if you are, if you are publishing or if even if you are making a game and if you know your base core audience or your target audience, it gets much easier to develop the game accordingly as well as have the design aspects and the things implemented very easily and Other than that, when you create a design documents, you can on the. On paper, you can also experiment with the mechanics that are going to work in the game or they will not work in the game. Because see, sometimes what happens is that we create. We. We had a capture capture flag kind of board board. This was like an assignment we had. And I put too many mechats while designing in the games which were not initial. But what happened was to that was the game got way too complicated to play and so we had to provide a very big booklet to people just to understand the game before setting it out. And I think like the. The process of any like enjoying any game or like starting out any game is having the tutorial in game itself, which is very helpful for some. And the gamification process also gets much easier.

Rob:
Absolutely love that. So Dash, we start asking you for recommendations now. Is there somebody after answering these questions and seeing, you know, the vibe of the podcast, is there somebody you would be curious to listen to answering these questions? A future guest for the Professor Gabe podcast?

Dhiraj Jujare:
Yeah, there are some people. There are some people who are from development side. There are some people who are from like who are literally doing the game news. I would suggest you. You can talk to Siddharth Gameput is his tag name and he can. He will be really good in telling you aspect of the industry. So basically with. I said the targeting of the core audience, which was a really great thing because he notices that trip really easily because I have had like a couple of meetings with him as well as I even did my podcast with him. So that guy. Other than that, if, if somebody I would like to see would be John Carmack from Beth. But that is like a huge leap because I had, I had listened. Listened to him once on Joe Rok and the way he explained the design and the mechanics of Doom when he created it, it was very inspiring and I was in awe like how he did it and like how his approach was. And mostly I think my approach also was greatly inspired by him as well as I think you must know about Jonathan do as well, right? The guy who developed Witness. Yeah, so that person. I even. I would recommend that because his design, the ways he thinks design. I haven’t seen anybody do in. Do it in that way. It’s really amazing and different.

Rob:
And how about a book like those sound like fantastic guests. Is there a book that you recommend and say the audience look, you should have this one in your library and of course read it. Sometimes we have too many books that are unread.

Dhiraj Jujare:
See the book, I wouldn’t suggest in the gaming effect of it, but just in life. Like mostly your day to day life. I would suggest it’s basically a rendition of already a book by EG Yoshawa but I read the comic version of it which is Vagabond by Takaiko Inoue which are really great book. Plus even if somebody’s a game artist or something and they want to different do different style of art, then get inspired by the art style as well because it’s a really subtle and realistic art style. Plus plus as well, the story of Musashi is always inspiring for me and the way they have executed it in the Vagabond manga, it’s phenomenal. It’s very exceptional. So that’s what I would do.

Rob:
Fantastic. I would have definitely not read that one. So perhaps I’ll add it to my list. Dinesh, what would you say is your specialty? That thing that you do. Great. When we talk about game creation, game design, game development, what is your sweet spot? That superpower?

Dhiraj Jujare:
I would say the visuals, the arts and everything. I would recommend all the guys, all the listeners to go and visit our website. The unique thing about our website is the visuals itself. It’s not like how the things are placed or like what the stuff like what applications it will have. But at least people will get that idea. Like see what whoever is making this website or whoever is like branding this company, they are more focused on the visual aspects of it and see in gimmicks. I think somewhat the visual effect also matters because some great looking games can also work. Like if you have maybe played Abzu or something. It’s a very great looking game. Maybe in design aspect I would have done more other things but the visual aspect of it is really great and I think it’s my superpower when it comes to games. Visuals.

Rob:
Visuals can be very, very important for sure. Dash, we get to the difficult question now. What would you say is your favorite game?

Dhiraj Jujare:
That’s a really hard question. All if you’re saying all time like even if play you give me a chance and I’ll play it. It will be Pokemon. Any kind of Pokemon. Like the Pokemon. The red, blue and green versions.

Rob:
All the oldie, all the.

Dhiraj Jujare:
Yeah the oldies. Because I basically my introduction was introduction to gaming was due to those games. First of all I knew about anime when it came to India. But games my uncle got a PC for PC to us and he showed us how to install an emulator and play Game Boy games on it. And that’s what my introduction was gaming to gaming was. And I started gaming at really early age. I think I was three or four. Four years. Four years old when I started that. So that game is like. It’s a bit of nostalgia as well as the like the design aspect of it. Like I didn’t used to realize when I used to play play when I was young. But right now, when I see the design and the mechanics of the game and how the. And how the reactions happen, that is a really fulfilling game. If even if they don’t make open world, it has a lot of complication when it comes to design.

Rob:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, it’s sort of an early, early stage of open world in a way.

Dhiraj Jujare:
Right? Yeah. Yeah.

Rob:
So Dash, we have a question from the audience. We always. When we have a chance and we have a few extra minutes, we like to make these questions. And I have a question about a. It seems, I’m guessing this is from a music professor. It says I would like to hear how gamification is used. Can be or can be used to help students practice and learn a new musical instrument or for seasoned musicians to motivate them to practice, make it more fun. If you hear this, what comes to your mind?

Dhiraj Jujare:
I think you wouldn’t have asked this question to anybody better because a lot of my people, like I would say the friends I have are from the music industry. I play the guy myself. I do vocals as well. So the gamification way, what I would suggest especially in terms of sheet music because even when I was learning that I couldn’t read, read sheet music, it. It is. It’s too hard for me. Instead of that I used. Started using tabs because it was much easier to just figure out each fret to play rather than have the.

Rob:
Than actually reading the music.

Dhiraj Jujare:
Yeah. So what I would suggest the gamify way to do that would be having a visual cue of the music sheet and, and whenever the music play, like the student hit the right note on. On the guitar, the. The visual creates some kind of reward system for it. Like if they play a continuous piece right. They get a certain kind of score and if they start, start, let’s say hitting the full song or something, the. The reward system can be a really great gamification for the, for the music. Like what you can say music learning curve as well as. The second thing I would suggest is when it’s come when it comes to production and like I go into. Bit into electronics and stuff right now if you go to the L studio or kind of softwares what they do is you can create publish it there and the more views you get, you can have like you are the ranks get boosted. There is the leaderboard for it. So that also can be efficient for creating competition as well as having that complications inside the music system itself.

Rob:
Interesting, interesting. Love that. Very, very interesting. This person did not ask further name to be revealed. But I think I know who this question is coming from. So I’ll reach out privately and tell them that you were the one to answer their question. Dash, it’s been an absolute pleasure to have you on the podcast. This is the last, you know, question I’m going to ask. It’s actually more of a question. It’s, you know, this is your space you can share with us where we can find you if you have any final piece of advice, all the things that you want to say in the next or the last couple of minutes perhaps that we have for the podcast. So the microphone is yours?

Dhiraj Jujare:
Yeah. So you guys can find me on LinkedIn, Instagram, just search for my name, Dheera Zuza. You will find it really easily. Second thing I would like to do is plug in my website. You can go to op4secs and start registering because we are open to register and we will have the community session and the content creation section really up soon. So you guys can even create your own gaming content and start posting it as well as join the communities, have discussion with your fellow gamers and developers. And the one piece of advice I’d like to give to everybody is whatever apps, just start, start with it. Just start making. You can figure out things later because once start making, that’s good, really good starting point to have your foot in the industry. Because see, nobody knows anything before they start. Once you start it, once you start making just download Unreal, download Unity. If you want to go into art, download Zbrush and just start making things. Once, once you start making this, you will start understanding a bit like how the how stuff works. And once everything is like once you start understanding you will get more into it and then maybe you can have some kind of amazing idea like all of our favorite games games developers have made.

Rob:
Amazing, amazing. Sounds like brilliant advice people. Keep that in mind. Dash, if somebody is confused about how to write your name, they can just go to our webpage, look for this episode and they can find all of the links that you mentioned to your LinkedIn, to your Facebook, to your Instagram, to your webpage. We will definitely have all of that. Or if you just put in the search bar, you put warp verse, I think that’s going to be easier for everybody to find. Thanks again Dash for being on the podcast today. Thanks for your insights, your knowledge sharing, all of those things. However, Dash and Engagers, as you know, at least for now and for today, it is time to say that it’s game over. Hey Engagers and thank you for listening to the Professor Game podcast. And since you’re interested in this world of creating motivation, engagement, loyalty using game inspired solutions, how about you join us on our free online community at Professor Game On School? You can find the link right below in the description, but the main thing. Is to click there. Join us. It’s a platform called Skool. It’s for free and you’ll find plenty of resources there. We’ll be up to date with everything that we’re doing, any opportunities that we might have for you, and of course, before you go on to your next mission, before you click Continue, please remember to to subscribe using your favorite podcast app and listen to the next episode of Professor Game. See you there.

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