Metaverse, Gaming, Esports, & NFT (MGEN) Summit and Games, Esports & Meta (GEM) Awards organised by Animation Xpress ended on a high note with a big bang on 2 December 2022. India’s largest Games, Esports and Web3 summit and awards was attended by 1000 plus attendees and the day witnessed 10 plus sessions including panel discussions, fireside chat and presentations.
The entire event witnessed a bustling gathering including super excited students, enthusiastic cosplayers, delegates and the industry stakeholders. The presenting partner for the event was dentsu Gaming, Rockstar Games was the associate partner, Metapolis being the technology partner, Zapak and Reliance Games as industry partners and BenQ with Illusion Reality Studioz as support partner.
The event began with welcome note delivered by Animation Xpress founder, chairman and editor-in-chief Anil Wanvari and Carat India CEO Anita Kotwani followed by lighting of the lamp done by Wanvari, Kotwani along with Rockstar India development director Vishnu Chakkaravarthy, Metapolis co-founder and CEO Mohan Kuldeep Ponnada, Reliance Games senior VP Ninad Chhaya and Illusion Reality Studioz CEO and Contiloe Pictures group CFO Nitin Dadoo.
In the very first session, which was For The Game – Data fusion sheds a new light on players, Carat India director Faraz Sayed gave away statistics and key highlights from the gaming report dentsu was about to launch. After Sayed’s insights, the dentsu team including Kotwani, dentsu Gaming group solutions unit director Jamie McConville, dentsu creative chief business officer Heeru Dingra, dentsu international India chief growth officer Simi Sabhaney, Amplifi India president Saagar Sethi, dentsu International Amplifi chief investment officer Sujata Dwibedy, dentsu International Story Lab country head Deepak Kumar and Carat India VP Megha Nair unveiled the physical copy of their gaming report.
In the first fireside chat for the day – Unveil the best of gaming action in Intel’s playground the speaker was Intel India creative & media brand head Gayatri Makhijani and the moderator was Carat India associate director Aditya Pandit. Makhijani spoke about Intel’s and it’s products’ role in the gaming industry over the years in the session.
Next up in the line was a panel discussion on Decoding the evolution of consumers’ behaviour. Moderated by Sony Pictures Networks India ad sales strategic planning and insights AVP Sujai Rajapaul, the panellists for the session included SuperGaming communication manager and writer Rishi Alwani, CrazyLabs India head of studio Surojit Roy, Carat India director Faraz Sayed, Rooter revenue head Ayush Aggarwal, Yudiz Solutions Pvt. Ltd. chairman and director Bharat Patel and Skyesports chief marketing officer Gnana Shekar. The panellists spoke about the changing consumers’ behaviour and discussed on creating the kind of content that is liked by the consumers.
In the next fireside chat – Turning ideas into successful and profitable hyper casual games, the speaker Kwalee technical director Vaishali Kalal and moderator Wanvari spoke about the ideas and kind of content that has the potential of becoming successful. Kalal also shared some tips with the audience.
Followed by the fireside chat, an interesting panel discussion was conducted on RMG platforms: The massive growth story & how to enhance the customer experience. Quadrific Media Pvt. Ltd. senior VP Vikas Kanti, Playerzpot product AVP Jayendra More and FanClash founder Richa Singh were the panellists and Sharmilee Daru PR and 4WD Gaming founder Sharmilee Daru was the moderator for the session. The panellists shared how the RMG platforms have grown over the years and to make it more successful they discussed the potential ideas.
Another panel discussion for the day post lunch was on Dawn of the Indian Web3.0. Moderated by Whistling Woods International VP & Business Head CTO & head of emerging media Chaitanya Chinchlikar, the speakers for the panel were Gamitronics studio head Vishnu Murthy, Studioverse co-founder and Anthill Ventures partner (media tech) Sameer Ganapathy, House of Gaming founder and CEO Yash Pariani, WazirX VP Rajagopal Menon, GuardianLink global head international partnerships VP Sandrina Paula and Metapolis CEO and co-founder Mohan Kuldeep Ponnada. In this session the moderator initially shared some interesting statistics about Web3 and later on the panellists discussed the ideas that will help the Web3 industry grow forward which is at a very nascent stage in India.
In the next session titled Staying human in a digital world, the speaker, dentsu Gaming group solutions unit director Jamie McConville gave a presentation.
McConville’s session was followed by another presentation titled Web 2 to Web 3 with Metapolis, how brands can leverage the metaverse for engaging millenials and Gen Z. The presentation was given by Metapolis CEO and co-founder Mohan Kuldeep Ponnada.
Next in line was an interesting panel discussion Carving the brands’stories in which the speakers shared their insights on leveraging the gaming industry for their growth. The panellists were Carat India VP Anita Kotwani, Nestle India marketing manager Soumya Bhatia, Indicold founder Kartik Jalan, Reliance Games senior VP Ninad Chhaya, Wings co-founder Vijay Venkateswaran and InMobi consumer platform ads product marketing & GTM director Dhrubajyothi Sarkar and the session was moderated by Anil Wanvari.
After that there was a fireside chat titled Mastercard Gamer Xchange which has Mastercard South Asia marketing and communications VP and head Manasi Narasimhan as the speaker and dentsu Media Group chief digital growth officer and iProspect India CEO Vinod Thadani as moderator.
One of the most interesting panels for the day was Esports’ future: what can we expect? In this the panellists spoke about the way forward for the esports players, organisers, tournament producers and esports streamers. The panellists for the same were Gamerji CEO and founder Soham Thacker, Penta esports CEO and founder Anurag Khurana, Orangutan co-founder Jai Shah, 7Sea Esports director esports and founder Santosh Pecheti, Galaxy Racer chief gaming officer and Nigma Galaxy chief strategy officer Siddharth Ravishankar and Global Esports CEO and founder Dr. Rushindra Sinha. dentsu Creative India chief business officer Heeru Dingra was the moderator of the session.
Cracking the investment Game was another fireside chat session in which the speakers shared the tricks and tips to pitch an investor for their game. Moderated by Anil Wanvari, the speakers for the fireside chat were Anthill Ventures founder and CEO Prasad Vanga and Brinc India managing director Karan Keshwani.
Last session for the was the most anticipated panel discussion titled Deep diving into the dazzling world of content creation and live streaming. The panellists shared insights about content creation, live streaming and gaming. 7Sea Esports brand ambassador Savage Girl and Android Gamer, AlphaZegus founder Rohit Agarwal, Galaxy Racer South Asia creators & talent director and commentator Ocean Sharma were the panellists and the moderator was GoLiveGames founder and CEO Ravi Kiran.
The MGEN Summit 2022 was followed by GEM Awards and it was a one happening event with 45 plus winners and a power packed Cosplay competition and electrifying performance by beatboxer D-Cypher who made the audience groove to his beatboxing tunes.
