The 12th Edition of India Game Developer Conference (IGDC) is here, a unique “for the industry, by the industry” event-driven entirely with volunteers from across the Indian games industry and with active support from companies in the ecosystem. The event which will be held online from 17 to 20 November 2020 across four virtual rooms, from 3 pm onwards each day, will be a free-for-all to attend.
“Given the pandemic situation, IGDC decided to go with an ‘all-digital experience’. We also viewed this as an opportunity to attract an ever-wider audience who can attend this conference virtually, not just from India, but from all parts of the world, and thanks to the strong support we have received from industry sponsors, we have made access to this conference free for everyone. For a lot of aspiring game developers, this is a great way to participate without having to invest in travel and accommodation. We have a strong line-up of Indian and international speakers who are happy that they can be a part of IGDC virtually. Going virtual has created new pathways to access, network and connect with game dev community, discover great games being developed and played, benefit from having insight into running a successful game dev business, search for openings to build your game dev career, and applaud the accomplishments of games that disrupt the eco-system, most importantly, inspire and get inspired,” said IGDC 2020 Convenor Rajesh Rao.
This year’s four-day virtual conference has attracted over 100 industry expert speakers across eight major tracks, 50 exhibitors in the e-expo floor, 30 investors and publishers and participation from several international delegations.
Some highlights from the speaker line-up include seasoned grandmasters like Ernest Adams providing a workshop on the “Fundamentals of Game Design,” to successful indie developers such as Arvi Teikari talking about their journey with the award-winning game, “Baba is You,”. The Art track has a workshop on character creation by Naresh Das, art director at EiTri Studio, and a VFX talk by Daniel Santalla. The Tech track features talks by Shawn Beck from Unity and Jason Davis from Backtrace. The Applied Games track features talks by Tsahi Liberman- Simpool. And Michelle Lee- Schmidt – IDEO. The Biz track features William Hughes- Tilting Point and Craig Chapple- Sensor Tower. Other speakers include Jon Hook – Boombit talking about publishing deals, Neale Hemrajani- Annapurna Interactive and well-known indie developer Rami Ismail.
IGDC will also host its popular, IGDC Investor-Publisher Connect 2020 which will be a virtual invite-only forum for investors and publishers to meet with companies bringing unprecedented innovation in the Indian gaming ecosystem, which has grown rapidly in the last one year. Over 30 investors and publishers have signed up for the event.
This year, the highly anticipated BYOG (Build Your Own Game) game jam that is held alongside IGDC was also held virtually, receiving 87 finished entries by the deadline, which was three times more than 2019. The number of participants also increased by about 50 per cent, jumping from 200 in 2019 to 313 in 2020.
