Whether you are a gaming start-up looking for funding or a venture capitalist looking for the next big gaming start-up, the India Game Developer Conference (IGDC) in Hyderabad will serve the purpose for both. To be held on November 22 and 23, IGDC, which is in its eleventh year, will take place at Hyderabad International Convention Centre (HICC). The Investor-Publisher Connect 2019 is their flagship programme where both parties will have the chance to interact with each other. In last year's conference, there were 35 investors and publishers and over 200 meetings between studios, investors and publishers and this year, they expect Investor-Publisher investment opportunities worth more than $10 million.
The two-day event has two formats. First, there is a speed dating-like roster, wherein, early-stage gaming companies will have the chance of meeting investors and game publishers. On the other hand, there will also be exclusive one-on-one meetings, wherein, traction stage and accelerated companies get to connect directly with investors, publishers and international partners. How cool is that?
Tracking trends
We got in touch with Ajish G Habib, MD, and CEO of TuttiFrutti Interactive to ask him about the trends of the gaming industry in India and he said, "We do believe that millennials and smart Indian techies will prefer interactive entertainment where they can control the pace of the story and guide its outcomes dynamically — and watch it on the device of their choice — on mobile, tablets or smart and high-resolution TVs. This 'emotional' segment will be deeply loyal, paying and will grow exponentially! Indian women players by 2025 will shift from 'static Hollywood/fantasy melodramas' to 'interactive fantasy emotional mobile games' which they can play at their convenient time, location and device." The CEO of the Kerala-based firm, whose first IP Darkarta won 10 international awards and five national awards, adds that streaming technologies allows gamers to stream and play HD games in their ordinary smartphone processors. This is expected to increase the mobile gaming segment share dramatically.
Getting together
Ojas Agnihotri from the VC firm Anthill Ventures says that "I nurture an early-stage company by helping refine the product-market fit and also providing access to new markets and geographies to help them accelerate quickly." And talking about IGDC, he says, "Unlike other sector agnostic events, IGDC is a gaming-focused convention that brings all stakeholders in the gaming industry under one roof. It is like an event-on-steroids, where investors get of the pulse of the entire industry and at the same time get a chance to meet the better-performing companies in the gaming domain."
