Meet Ardhan Fadhlurrahman, Regional Publishing Manager

Ardhan Fadhlurrahman–Dhan for short–earned his undergrad degree from the University of Indonesia researching game-based learning for elementary school audiences. He went on to earn his postgraduate degree from the University of South Wales for game design and production with a focus on researching animation production pipelines and using game engines such as Unity and Unreal Engine. Ardhan also collaborated with the Cardiff Museum to help build a virtual reconstruction of Cardiff Castle in VR and researched subversive narrative in VR using environmental storytelling.

Dhan has had an exciting and prolific professional life. To start, he has worked as a teaching assistant for software and game development classes at the University of Indonesia, where he taught game design and production classes that covered everything from brainstorming to showcasing projects at local Indonesian game dev events. Dhan has also been a product manager of gamification at an edutech company, where he created an engagement machine using gamification methods to help make learning fun for Indonesian high school students. He also managed the content and virtual economy inside applications to make sure learning remained fun while the company continued to be profitable. Additionally, Ardhan has worked as a researcher at an IOT startup where he helped define and clarify user persona and project market fit on several IOT projects, and was the product manager in digital goods at Tokopedia.

In addition to his already impressive professional career, Ardhan has earned various awards, including being recognized for his long-time commitment to volunteering for the Global Game Jam and being awarded by the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) for helping Indonesian Games go global.

Now, Ardhan has brought all his skills and experience to the TIC team, working as The Iterative Collective’s regional publishing manager with a focus on Indonesia!

What do you think Indonesia uniquely brings to the indie game ecosystem?

Indonesia has a tons of cultural references that could be introduced to the world, from thousands of local foods, tribes, and even local stories that really shine and could be made into creative products such as films, movies, and especially games.

As one of the biggest markets in Southeast Asia, we do have a lot of passionate talents in the Indonesian game industry. Many outsourcing studios work on really cool AAA games, helping with the production of those games in 3D modeling, programming, and more. Right now is the time for us to collaborate with them to create many wonderful games from passionate and talent creators!

We already know there’s some amazing games coming from Indonesia that have gotten multiple awards in the international market, and this has really shown that not only can we offer good outsourcing services but also make great quality games for sure! Abundant support from government bodies, game associations, academies, and incubators are working together so there’s always an upcoming generation of talent in game development. The Indonesian Government has really doubled down on the digital and creative economy, and game development is one of those focuses. It really shows by their involvement in the growth of Indonesian developer.

In fact, Indonesia has more than great developers; we also have other ecosystems in the making such as media, streamers, and other support that will greatly help Indonesian developers’ games reach local audiences. If you have your game localized into Bahasa Indonesia and get marketing from local media and streamers, I’m pretty sure they will bring huge traffic for your game, as Indonesia also has the most consumers compared to others in the SEA market, and they are pretty proud of their local language and traditions as well.

Finally, I’d like to add that Indonesians are very welcoming, especially on social media. So if you see Indonesian developers, game studios, content creators, or streamers related to games and game development please do get to know them! Maybe you could even collaborate with them and pitch your game to us!

What do you love about working at TIC?

Working at The Iterative Collective has been one of the highlights of my career, especially alongside my work as the deputy of industry relations in the Indonesian Games Association (Asosiasi Game Indonesia). Those two professions really go hand-in-hand to elevate one another.

The working environment is very open and welcoming if you have any ideas or things to discuss, and compared to my previous corporate job, this has been blast! I could really pitch ideas about what I’m trying to

do and we have great discussion on how we can better execute those ideas!

All my teammates really are passionate in their field for sure. We all want to contribute so our games succeed. One example is the work we do to creating great, catchy marketing art that really highlights the game itself. Sometimes I see that they really are going the extra mile to make sure that all of the games succeed in their own way.

One of my core beliefs is that that many SEA creators—and especially Indonesians—are great talents that need to be introduced to the world, and TIC really supports me in that, and I’m really grateful for it!