Hyderabad, November 4, 2023: The 15th annual India Game Developer Conference (IGDC) wrapped up at HICC Hyderabad after three days of gaming extravaganza. With over 4,000 attendees, including game developers, investors, and gaming enthusiasts, and an expo featuring more than 100 gaming companies, IGDC 2023 was a resounding success.
The conference featured 200+ expert speakers from 20 countries, conducting over 125 sessions on various aspects of gaming technology, design, and production. Industry bodies, including Invest India, Start-up India, AIGDF, Primus Partners, and MESC, organized round table discussions.
Special sessions by conference partners like Unreal Developer Day, Xbox Discovery Day, Unity Dev, and Google Dev ran in parallel with the main event.
IGDC 2023 commenced with the launch of the ‘Lumikai State of India Gaming Report F723’ in collaboration with Google, predicting the Indian gaming market to reach a valuation of $7.5 billion by FY28.
Day 2 featured the IGDC Awards 2023, where games like ‘Sojourn Past’ by ReDimension Games and ‘Indus’ by SuperGaming won top honors. A record 150+ games entered the competition.
IGDC’s Director, Sridhar Muppidi, emphasized its international significance, stating it’s now one of the world’s top five Game Developer Conferences. Over 70 investors expressed interest in the gaming sector during IGDC, and numerous incubators and funding initiatives were announced.
The Investor-Publisher Connect, IGDC’s flagship networking initiative, saw a record number of entries, with over 130 applicants and 1800+ curated meetings between gaming studios, startups, investors, and publishers.
The BYOG initiative (Build Your Own Game) attracted over 700 participants who submitted 170+ games for evaluation.
Day 3 of the conference focused on the emerging Esports sector, with engaging panel discussions and talks.
Mr. Rajesh Rao, Chairman of IGDC, highlighted the substantial growth of the gaming industry, especially in the Indian market, where women constitute 41% of the gaming community, and 66% of gamers are from non-metro regions.
IGDC 2023 featured nine parallel sessions covering various topics, including AI, Web3, Art and Design, Technology, Production, Business & Product Management, Applied games, Emerging trends, and Career opportunities.
Unreal Engine powered the event, with Nazara Technologies as the diamond sponsor and KRAFTON India as the platinum sponsor. The Government of Telangana served as the State sponsor, while Google Cloud and Unity were Silver Partners. Prytania Media was the experience Partner, and Reliance Games co-Sponsored the After Party. Microsoft Xbox and Winzo were bronze sponsors, and the Government of the United Kingdom was the Country Partner. The awards partner was Arsht-Rock Atlantic Council, with Lakshya Digital as the diversity and inclusion partner, and Peak XV as the Speaker Lounge Sponsor. Elevation Capital, TapNation, Audiomob, Payoneer, 88Games, Adjust, Agora, NCore Global, Liftoff, Moloco, SocialPeta, and RedApple Tech were among the associate sponsors, while Funcell, Apptweak, and Yesgnome were Supporting partners.
