After a two-year-long wait, the 14th edition of IGDC – The India Game Developer Conference saw a total of 4000+ attendees including game developers, publishers, investors, and gaming enthusiasts. The conference was held between the 3-5 November 2022 at the Hyderabad International Convention Centre.
The India Game Developer Conference is a one-of-its-kind “by the industry, for the industry” initiative fully focused on supporting and empowering game developers with insights, upskilling and networking opportunities with investors and game publishers.
With 150 speakers that included 40 international speakers, the three-day conference saw about 80+ sessions that consisted of workshops, talks and panels across games technology, art, design and production. Conference also included CXO panels discussing the state of the Indian games industry, investment trends and their predictions for the future.
IGDC’s flagship networking initiative, the Investor- Publisher Connect, saw the highest ever entries with around 75 startups, 28 investors and publishers conducting over 600 meetings in two days.
The IGDC Awards also had a record number of 150+ game entries and a new category of Popular choice quipping the interest of the audience and making the awards ceremony very engaging.
The BYOG initiative (Build Your Own Game) also saw a record number of 700+ participants together making 170+ game submissions for the judges to evaluate.
Day three of the conference saw a new initiative called IGDC Futures being launched with the sessions focussed on opportunities in the gaming industry with the intent of encouraging the next crop of talent into the gaming industry.
Commenting on the conference, IGDC convenor and chairperson Rajesh Rao said, “IGDC 2022 has exceeded all expectations as we made our on-ground appearance for the first-time post pandemic. It was heartening to see the tremendous turnout and participation from all parts of the gaming ecosystem, people clearly wanted to meet in person and network. This year saw a record number of meetings between investors, publishers and startups. Key trends included seeing a number of upcoming games with Indian themes, with local cultural and social flavour. IGDC Awards saw a jump in overall quality of submissions. Wrapping up yet another buzzing year, we are confident that this edition’s success will yield greater achievements and contribute to the overall growth of the gaming industry.”
IGDC had strong support from across the Industry. Epic Games’ Unreal Engine was the presenting sponsor for this year’s conference, KRAFTON, Inc. the platinum sponsor, AWS as the gold sponsor, Rockstar Games and Kwalee partnering as silver sponsors; Games24x7 as experience partner; Microsoft, Xbox, Ventana Ventures, Arsht Rock, Winzo, Hyper Hippo, Hero Vired, Tezos as Bronze Sponsors; Nazara Technologies was the awards sponsor; London Stock Exchange Group, Payoneer, Loco and Hungama as associate sponsors. IGDC Futures was supported by Crazy Labs and PTW while Global Victoria was the Country Partner. Lakshya Digital and Yesgnome as the ecosystem partners.