Amassing the members of the gaming community, Day 2 of GEMS 2020 witnessed a sequence of sessions musing upon the future of the Indian gaming industry and its growth so far.
Day 2 began with a trail-blazing session on talent management and livestreaming dynamics ranging from the feasibility of the platforms, the lives of content creators in gaming, innards of talent management and the overall gaming scenario.
Moderated by Indian Television Dot Com Group founder CEO and editor-in-chief Anil Wanvari, the session was participated by YouTube gamer, content creator Shagufta Iqbal – aka XYA, 8Bit Creatives director Animesh Agarwal – Aka 8Bit Thug, Trinity Gaming India MD Abhishek Aggarwal, Loco-Pocket Aces VP operations Firasat Durrani, Loco content creator Ketan Patel.
Gamers in India are starting to generate huge fan following. While Xyaa spoke about her foray into the gaming space and her ascent as a content creator, Agarwal delved into the elements that come together when creating vlogs as a gamer. Session explored the role of storytelling in reaching out to more eyeballs. While participants agreed that content creation and streaming goes beyond just playing games as it takes much more to captivate the audiences for hours. Apart from having a positive personality, according to insights offered by participants, it is also about interactions with the audiences.
Durrani and Aggarwal spoke about the unknown aspects of successful gamers and their role as the enablers in the gaming and live streaming space. While Durrani extolled the importance of doing charitable features on livestream, Agarwal informed how talent managers facilitate the gamers with the resources and play a big role in the financial motivations akin to industries like Sports and Bollywood.
The next session was titled “Getting Into The Mainstream.” The session saw a growing consensus on the fact that the last few months have already seen esports and gaming make inroads into the mainstream. Taking a cue from the earlier session as to the popularity of live streaming, the session acknowledged the huge growth potential of the industry, having grown manifold over the last two years courtesy of the 4G boom.
Moderated by GroupM ESP Business Head Vinit Karnik, the panelists included ITC FOODS Business division head of digital strategy and media Anushree Ghosh, Parle Products Sr.category head – marketing Krishnarao S.Buddha, Airtel Media VP Archana Aggarwal, MSI regional marketing manager Green Chang-Ching Lin, NVIDIA South Asia head consumer marketing Pawan Awasthi.
The experts shared their insights on how more and more families need to accept that being a gamer and an esports player can be viable career options. Brands, media platforms, press are beginning to understand the potential, as well as the importance of reaching out to gamers and the audience who is following them. Basically, perceptions towards gaming and esports are on the cusp of a big change in India. The session saw interesting gateways of insights opening from every step of the value chain.
Third session tracked around the Indian gaming ecosystem where industry advocates SBICAPS Securities head of equity research Rajiv Sharma, Nazara Technologies chief executive officer Manish Agarwal, Reliance Entertainment – Digital chief executive officer Amit Khanduja, Jetsynthesis vice-chairman and managing director Rajan R Navani shared the growth pace of the gaming industry over the past few years and how during the pandemic situation the industry leapt at heights.
They also discussed the potential of the gaming sector along with the investor’s interests that the industry faced during the pandemic situation. The gaming industry will keep growing and according to them, the sector will boom even more in the coming months. Experts also believe that the government constituency is where they need to evangelise, create awareness by creating a framework policy for the entire gaming sector.
The session was followed by a fireside chat and presentation by Capetitans Games co-founder and CEO Debasis Kayal. Here he shared how their game incubation centre will provide support to developers including indies and students. “We need an ecosystem, a platform to fulfil the gaps in game creation. We promote #ID3R which is an idea, develop/design, revenue/relax and so on. Any help which is required for game creation, promotion, marketing we are here,” Kayal added.
Moving forward to our concluding session of GEMS 2020, “Make in India: Indie Game Developers Speak.” The panelists included Nodding Heads Games co-founder and game designer Avichal Singh, Xigma Games co-founder Himanshu Manwani, Underdogs Studio founder and CEO Vaibhav Chavan, Lucid Labs founder Chirag Chopra, Ogre Head Studio founder and CEO Zainuddin Fahad, Capetitans Games co-founder and CEO Debasis Kayal and were moderated by Photontadpole studios founder and CEO Hrishi Oberoi.
They discussed various aspects of their indie game journey; from their struggles during the pandemic to their accomplishments of launching the game on various platforms while working from home. Apart from that, they have also discussed various peripheries on how to build a game from ideation to the final development. Lastly, they shared that because of their passion for gaming and game development, they can overcome any hurdles.
Day 2 added a feather to the cap of the gaming industry, stimulating discussions and forging solution-based conferences to trigger progress in the sector.