Jefferson Prince's iCazual Entertainment is developing its First Person Shooter game project for all major platforms such as Microsoft Xbox One, Sony PlayStation 4 and PCs
In June last year, when his classmates in London were
counting the days to the prom, Jefferson Prince was worried about the
hashtag #onlyjefferson used for taking potshots at him on Twitter.
Prince called himself a CEO and most of his classmates thought of it as a
self-allotted designation to a one-man team and started harassing him.
One of them publically threatened to bully him if he came to the prom.
Prince ended up not going.
What his critics did not
realise was that Prince was a busy man as months after the prom, in
December 2013, he moved his company — which started in a small room in
2012 — to a four-storey building in Kodambakkam in the city.
And
now, Prince is the picture of professionalism. There stands a
customised door that has ‘Jefferson Prince CEO’ imprinted on it. I catch
up with this lean-framed gaming expert, sitting in his cabin clad in a
suit. The room, which he calls his den, is lit with natural light and he
says he likes it that way. The space has four large computer screens,
and a wall-mounted TV. The Macbook Pro and other gadgets are
systematically placed. “I like my workstation and I spend a lot of time
here, more than at home,” says the 17-year-old.
His
company, iCazual Entertainment is developing its First Person Shooter
game project for all major platforms such as Microsoft Xbox One, Sony
PlayStation 4 and PCs. They also operate in the visual effects field to
generate income until the game project is complete.
While
many made fun of him initially, he says, he always believed that he was
meant to do something special. In fact he is glad that he did not go to
the prom. “I had always liked computers. Even as a kid I liked to stay
indoors and discover new opportunities in the virtual world,” says
Prince.
Even some of his teachers ridiculed him for
his social awkwardness. “Though most of them spoke high of me, there was
this teacher who announced in front of the class that I’d be a failure
in life.” People like Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs have inspired
him. They dared to think differently and took risks at a very young age.
Prince was born in Tirunelveli and moved to London
when he was three years old, where his father, Prince Jayachandran,
worked with computers. “Computers were my toys as a child. When I was
five, I could assemble them.” By six, he was a master at games like
Prince of Persia and Age of Empires. At 15, he competed with 100
students at Warwick University to develop eStudent, an application to
help parents keep track of their child’s performance at school. “I
learned basic coding when I was hardly six. I even created my own social
medium and called it ‘Crowned Prince’. This was exclusively to interact
with my mother. I’d sit in my room playing games and shoot out messages
to my mother on her laptop, I did this when I was 12. At 13, I created
my slave — a representative of my virtual self. It was an Internet Relay
Chat (IRC) through which I connected with my friends and managed my
IRC-bots.”
By the time he was in his teens, he did
odd jobs to earn money. One summer when Prince and his friend were
playing a video game, he realised that a lot could be done with it. “I
thought why not make a game for myself that met all my expectations. I
wanted to create a trailer first. We successfully completed the trailer
but it was not up to my standards so we scrapped it. This happened in
early 2012 when I met the core team of this company,” he says. By now he
knew what he wanted to do. He started a company, with the help of his
father in the U.K. and later moved to Chennai to set up the main
division. “I wasn’t sure if India was the right place but it was my dad
who suggested that I tap the market here. A chunk of VFX work for
international movies is done here. He was right. I am lucky to be
working with some of the best professionals,” he says. Some of his
employees have been associated with him from the beginning.
Everybody
in his team is older and has years of experience. Is it difficult being
a boss? “I found it difficult initially but now I have found my way. I
have to be firm and confident about my vision.”
After finishing school, he took a break but still managed to study his
course material. “My aim is to go to the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology and fund my own education. Also I want to figure out a way to
manage the business when I’m in college. But before that, I have
promised myself a Lamborghini Aventador by 2015. I’m waiting to turn
18,” says Prince, who swears that he will not have a girlfriend as he
dreads dealing with break-ups. “It’s scary and a waste of time at my
age,” he says.
Prince knows that he is missing out
on a lot of things that boys his age do but he says he is happy to make
the sacrifices. He plans to open a foundation in the future to help the
disadvantaged.
