What started last year as the premier mobile gaming conference in India has come back to the country with a bang. Yes, we are talking about PGConnects (PGC) Bangalore 2016 edition. Part of PocketGamer conferences that take place at various important markets across the globe and one of the utmost important market in terms of mobile gaming in not only Asia but also world is India. Hence this conference which has been co-organised by Reliance Games gives key insights in the world of mobile gaming.
Speaking to AnimationXpress.com, Reliance Games, CEO, Amit Khanduja reveals what is the agenda and the focus for this year’s conference and how could developers who are part of this industry as well as the one’s who want to step into this multi million dollar industry should all gather in Bangalore on 21 and 22 April 2016 for PGConnects Bangalore.
“This year the conference has taken a huge leap and is even bigger and better than last year. PGC Bangalore agenda this year will be to continue from where we left last year. The objective still remains the same, that is to enhance the ecosystem and what is working on the different parts of the world and quickly embrace it for India.”
Apart from the agenda, this year two more tracks have been added to the sessions of the existing four. ‘Mobile Game University’ and ‘Vision’ are the two new tracks apart from the four ‘Made in India’; ‘Indie Academy’; ‘East Meets West’ and ‘Superstar Sessions’. Also, ‘The Very Big Indie Pitch’ and ‘I Love Indie Showcase’ the two game developer focused events will keep happening throughout the day giving a platform to indie game developers from the country to showcase their games for everyone to see.
‘The Very Big Indie Pitch,’ a live pitching session lets game developers pitch their games to host of judges who will then select a winner. The winner gets a cash prize and a world platform for his game. But, this year the stakes just got higher. Along with the cash prize, the winning game developers or the indie studio will also get $30,000 to market and polish his game. The money will not only help the studio/developer to publicise the game but also polish such that it meets the quality level which the top players are churning out today.
“We are bringing guys from Dots, Doom and people who have had success abroad. They will tell their stories and learn what can be imbibed from these for their own games. We are also focussing on bringing in success stories from Indian game developers and know what works here and what does not.”
Apart from casual and hardcore mobile games, there is another category known as the enterprise games that has drawn a lot of developers to develop games for various MNCs to explain complex issues within the organisation such as HR systems and financials. Web games too have seen a decline with the mobile gaining momentum and one could gain an understanding about the platform from the conference and charter a course in that direction.
“Web gaming has also been important and this year we are bringing in a lot of web game developers and understand how that market too can be utilised both for mobile developers and vice versa. Another area of gaming that we are tapping is the serious or the enterprise gaming business. Enterprise gaming are not only becoming big components in the western markets but also here in India. So, we are telling that developers should also be looking at this option along with what they are doing,” Amit explains.
Talk about the lessons from last year’s conference, Amit mentions, “Last year, we had a lot of sessions which were more globally focussed short sessions that lasted for 15 to 20 minutes. Also, the attendees from last year gave a feedback that they wanted workshops next year. So, we have incorporated both the feedbacks, with workshops being added this year along with more India focussed sessions with the duration of the sessions extending to 30/45 minutes.”
Speaker list too this year features a number of renowned personalities from the global as well as local industry. With the likes of successful Ketchapp, CRO, Christian Calderon; Google SEA, India, Australia, head of business development, Kunal Soni; veteran game developers like Mark Skaggs and John Newcomer are some of the foreign speakers. The Indian speaker list too boast names of Yellow Monkey, founder, Shailesh Prabhu; Rovio, country head India and South Asia, Anurag Sachdeva; EA, head of sales and marketing, mobile publishing, Prashant Ojha; Dhruva Interactive, founder, Rajesh Rao and Games2Win, founder, Alok Kejriwal among the many that will share their success stories as well as hardships in the mobile game industry during the conference.
Amit further elaborates, “Yes, India is the hottest market right now when it comes to mobile games but developers still need to learn from people who have already been there. A general trend right now in India is that, developers develop the game and when it is out on the app stores, they work on it for three to four months before moving on to the next project. There is no product life value, whereas if you see the big developers like SuperCell or even us, the games have been there for about two to three and still the demand for the same game is there.”
We could not agree more. Apart from a few casino games, most indie developers have been developing games that are active for maximum six months and move to make new games.
The PGConnects Bangalore is set to take place next week on 21 and 22 April at Vivanta by Taj Yeswantpur and we will be at the conference so keep logging on to AnimationXpress to know more about the conference.