Hyderabad: With the Indian gaming sector growing at a rapid pace on one hand and costs escalating in China on the other, India is emerging as a hub for gaming process outsourcing activity, catering to top gaming markets such as US and Japan, among others, said experts at the India Game Developers Conference (IGDC) being held as a part of IndiaJoy Expo here on Wednesday.
Around 15 years ago, the average cost of developing a console game was anywhere between $1-2 million, today the same game is developed at around $25-30 million. Around 60% of the cost of development of a game is about its art and animation.It is manpower intensive task and India is doing good in this area,” said Manvendra Shukul, CEO of Gurugram-based game art development studio.
Lakshya Digital. Shukul claimed his studio is able to bring down the cost of art and animation by around
50%. He pointed out that it is crucial for gaming companies to bring down the cost of developing games as the success rates of games is not that encouraging and stands at an abysmal 8-10%.
Lakshya Digital caters to about 15-16 clients from top gaming markets such as US and Japan and has 500 employees working out of its four studios in Gurugram, Pune, Seattle and Tokyo. “The is no dearth of work but talent is a major challenge. In fact, we plan to double our headcount in the next three to four
years,” he added.
However, Rajesh Rao, founder and CEO of Bengaluru-based Dhruva Interactive and Chairperson IGDC feels it is not the cost but the cutting-edge work that Indian players do that is drawing global companies to India. “India does a lot of art…It is about getting scale and talent when they need it.” Dhruva Interactive has 300 people working out of two studios in Bengaluru and Dehradun.
Along with art, India is also doing good in the areas of ‘live operations’ (adding new features periodically after a game is launched to ensure that gamers continue to stay hooked) as a lot of global companies such as Zynga are conducting their live operations from India. “In today’s world it is not about building and launching games but also about keeping it alive, which is called live operations.
India has talent in tech, analytics and art and therefore and all the top gaming companies in India are doing live operations,” said Ravi Kiran P, studio head of Hyderabad-based GoLive Games Studio, that has a presence in Hyderabad, Singapore and Zurich.
The India Game Developer Conference (IGDC) is India’s premier game developers conference. The conference is organized by industry volunteers, with support from corporates and the Telangana government. Now in its 12th year, IGDC is the biggest and the most significant developer conference in not only India, but South Asia. The conference plays a key role in developing the Indian Gaming ecosystem: from helping developers gain valuable insight and pick up new skills to helping developers connect with publishers and investors that they otherwise may not have had access to
