HYDERABAD: Packing plenty of gaming punch over the last three days, the 15th annual edition of India Game Developer Conference (IGDC) came to a close today at HICC Hyderabad. Over 4,000+ attendees including game developers, publishers, investors, game developers, and gaming buffs had converged to lap up the riveting action in store. The IGDC Expo showcasing offerings of over 100 gaming companies was buzzing with gaming enthusiasts.
With over 200+ gaming expert speakers from across 20 countries, the three-day conference saw about 125+ hyperactive sessions that included panel discussions, talks, workshops across gaming technology, design and production. Also on focus were various Round Tables between industry, government representatives, academia and other policy makers put together by Industry bodies such as Invest India, Start-up India, AIGDF, Primus Partners and MESC.
There were also special sessions by conference partners: Unreal Developer Day, Xbox Discovery Day, Unity Dev and Google Dev sessions running parallelly.
IGDC 2023 kicked off with the launch of ‘Lumikai State of India Gaming report F723,’ a collaboration with Google, which highlighted the Indian gaming market to hit the $7.5 Bn valuation mark by FY28. The conference then quickly graduated to many high octane sessions through the day.
Celebrations followed on Day 2 as the much awaited IGDC Awards 2023 was announced. The game ‘Sojourn Past” by the Nagaland-based gaming startup, ReDimension Games walked away with the “Upcoming Game of the Year Award” while the most Popular Game Award was grabbed for ‘Indus’ by SuperGaming. The IGDC Awards also had a record number of 150+ game entries. (Full list of winners across categories enclosed below)
Sridhar Muppidi, Director, IGDC and a key driving force behind the event had this to say: “IGDC today has become one amongst the top five Business Conferences in the world and amongst the top three in terms of size. Considered as South Asia’s biggest developer conference, we have been consistently attracting large-scale international participation who are keen on understanding the Indian gaming market.”
On the conference progress, Sridhar added: “We had over 70+ investors who were keen on investing in the Gaming sector and IGDC provided them the perfect platform for exploring these opportunities. We have also announced a lot of incubators during IGDC. Overall, it has been a great event and we look forward to hosting a bigger conference next year.”
The Investor-Publisher Connect, IGDC’s flagship networking initiative has seen the highest ever entries. More than 130 applicants and 1800+ curated meetings between Gaming Studios and Startups with Investors and Publishers in one-to-one and Speed dating formats were some key highlights from the Conference.
Building up momentum was the BYOG initiative (Build Your Own Game), which saw a record number of 700+ participants. They collectively made 170+ game submissions for the judges to evaluate.
Day 3 of the Conference focussed on the emerging Esports sector with some engaging panel discussions and talks.
Speaking on the backdrop of IGDC 2023, Mr. Rajesh Rao, Chairman, IGDC said, “Driven by a robust and favourable ecosystem, the gaming industry is now seeing rapid growth, especially the Indian gaming market which is becoming one of the largest gaming markets in the world. The Lumikai State
of India Gaming Report released at IGDC 2023 interestingly points out that a fascinating dimension to this gaming boom is the substantial participation of women, constituting an impressive 41% of the total gaming community. What’s even more captivating is that 66% of gamers hail from non-metro regions, underscoring the democratization of gaming experiences across the country.”
The IGDC this year had nine parallel sessions, solo talks, workshops and round tables. These dived deep into AI, Web3, Art and Design, Technology, Production, Business & Product Management, Applied games covering games for good, Emerging trends and Career opportunities.
