Challenges for the Game Development industry in India

Posted by on Aug 30, 2011 in Media & Press | 1 comment

The gaming industry in India is expected to grow into an INR 14 Billion huge industry by this year. Economic Times recently did a story on the challenges being faced by the players in the industry and the rising number of new entrants. For the study, they talked to a number of experts in the domain including Vishal Gondal (CEO, Indiagames), Alok Kejriwal (Founder, Games2Win), Abhinav Chokavatia (CEO, Zatun Games), Shini (Indie Game Developer) and me (Hashstash!).

Here are excerpts about what I had to share:

Sunil Kinshuk, 26, started Hashtash, an independent game development company last June when he realised that his favourite pastime could be transformed into an interesting business idea.

“People were asking what I wanted to do after college and all I could think about was gaming”, says Kinshuk who cofounded the Delhi-based firms with friends Yadu Rajiv and Nandeep Mali.

No one keeps an exact count, but there are roughly 20,000 established game developers in India, says Kinshuk. “And then there are lakhs of college students and recent graduates whose work often gets lost in the way”. And over the past couple of years, India’s indie-game developing community has grown not only in strength but also in popularity.

An increasing number of online communities, Facebook groups and blogs have been created to support the growing talent. In recent years, associations like Nasscom have started organising annual game developer summits. (snip)

In a fast-changing industry, Kinshuk says, the challenge is to create something different at every point. “There are so many new players, therefore the challenge is to create an identity. In two years, we would love to be the Google of Gaming”, he said.

Hashtash is right now developing a psychological thriller game based on Indian characters and aims to release it on mobile app stores in a month.

I will just make some corrections to what I am quoted about:

  • First of all we are Hashstash.
  • In 2 years, we would love to be a notable gaming company in India. Within 5 years the biggest gaming company in India. And in a span of 10 years, the Google of gaming. Somehow the article got that timeline a little skewed.
  • We are working on three games right now: One is an extremely casual mobile game, one psychological thriller, another based on mythical figure influencing world culture. We will in time work on games with Indian characters but with a global appeal.
Read the Full Article on Economic Times
  • Nandeep

    Some noteworthy points. It will be challenging to see how we resolve the hurdles in path of game development in India over time.