The three day India Game Developer Conference (IGDC) kicked off on 3 November at HICC, Hyderabad and will conclude on 5 November bringing a wrap to the five day IndiaJoy conference.
It seemed like people were waiting for an on-ground event to take place as a large number of students and game developers turned up for IGDC, most likely crossing the records of the previous editions. The event had various interesting sessions going on simultaneously and there was an expo area which kept the audiences engaged throughout the day.
The event was inaugurated by IGDC convener Rajesh Rao. Epic Games Unreal Engine India/SEA tech evangelist Arvind Neelakantan delivered the welcome note while highlighting the work Unreal Engine has done over the years in the industry. In the session Real money games…what’s next? Junglee Games technology VP Abhishek Bharathi spoke about challenges faced by Rummy as a game because of Indian jurisdiction and otherwise and what they are planning to do next. He also highlighted the fact that strategic thinking is an essential part of playing and winning in Rummy.
Super Gaming environment art lead conducted a workshop on Approaching 3D environments for mobiles, where he taught the audiences how to create 3D assets and briefly spoke about rendering and texturing among other things.
There was an Exclusive preview of Lumikai’s state of India gaming report 2022 session, in which the company representatives such as Justin Shriram Keeling and Salone Sehgal presented the report. The comprehensive report highlighted a few points including how India has crossed the half billion mark of gamers, Web3 has emerged as an emerging technology for games in 2022, how the Indian gaming companies are looking forward to raising 513 million dollars for the year 2022 and many other things.
Playtika product lead Francisco Furtado talked about the creative and competitive puzzle games they create at Playtika. He also spoke on the importance of creating and presenting original content in games and not just copying ideas and content from other games in the session, When you copy, don’t just paste.
In Predictions 2023 panel, speakers like Winzo co-founder Paavan Nanda, Nazara CEO Manish Agarwal, Aream co-founder and partner Kartik Prabhakara and 8bit Creatives co-founder and CEO Animesh Agarwal were present. The session was moderated by JetSynthesys gaming CEO Anuj Tandon. The panel discussed the upcoming opportunities for the Indian gaming companies, 5G and will it be the go to thing for games in future and Web3.
Post lunch a panel on Indian gaming market was conducted and Loco founder Anirudh Pandita, MTG investment and portfolio manager Filip Sauer, AWS APJ gametech BD Deependra Singh, Super Gaming CEO and co-founder Roby John and Winzo co-founder Saumya Singh Rathore were the speakers for the same, whereas Yesnome COO Imitiaz Hussain was the moderator. They spoke about the current state of the Indian gaming market and this panel too talked on 5G and how there’s uncertainty about it among the people, points on Web3 and a few points on the regulations the gaming industry sees from the government.
Dancing Atoms Saraswathi Vani Balgam, freelance game designer Sri Keerthi and moderator Shruti Verma from Epic Games talked about their journeys in the gaming industry as a creator, the difficulties they faced and how they continue to do the work they love in the panel Women creators program.
In a Hypercasual game session the Supersonic publishing manager Ayush Poddar spoke about the importance of creating original games as nowadays lots of new and creative games are coming up and the market has become competitive, so one should create a game with a personal touch to it.
In What is the key to eSports teams fandom: content-first or winning panel, Ampverse esports founder and director Santosh Pecheti, s8ul esports manager and entertainer Sidhant Joshi, Orangutan Gaming Pvt Ltd co-founder Jay Shah and Revenant Esports founder and CEO talked about how the companies can leverage on the fans and gamers who are also the content creators to create a stronger fanbase. The panelists also shared what their companies are doing on that track and highlighted the fact that only content creation doesn’t matter for them, the gamers streaming should also win the games which they are playing.
In the last session of the day there was a panel discussion on Creating a popular game: The science and business behind it. The panelists included Bombay Play founder Oliver Jones, nCore Games founder and CEO Dayanidhi MG, Junglee president Kapil Rathee and Mobile Premier League head of product Vibhav Vishwanathan. Photon Tadpole founder and CEO Hrishi Oberoi moderated the session. They talked and speculated about the science behind the next breakout game. As per the speakers out of the box marketing strategies, live game streaming and accepting and adapting new technologies for game development will eventually help the game become popular.
Day one of IGDC was a mixture of sessions on gaming business, game development, gaming market and most of the sessions conducted in several halls witnessed full attendance.
