Gaming startups India

In June last year 24 year old Arvind Yadav from Jaipur posted an idea for a game on Kickstarter. He was looking to raise $3, 500 to develop a role playing game based on ancient India. To everybody’s surprise folks on Kickstarter gave him over $36, 000 to make it happen.

As entry barriers to game development come down, developers like Yadav are looking to make their fortune. Although nascent (and with a few ups and downs), game development in India is slowly making progress.

Historically India has been more of an art outsourcing hub for console games rather than game development. But with recent success stories like the $160 mn acquisition of Bash Gaming and the coming of mobile app stores, the Indian gaming industry has a lot to look forward to.

Entry Barriers are coming Down

Until the opening up of mobile app stores, game developers did not have an easy publish platform to release their titles easily. “The entry barrier for indie games have come down to a great extent due to the mobile app stores, ” says Lalit Patel, the co-founder of Bash Gaming.

Remember the recent craze about Flappy Bird? A simple game with simple controls that went viral. Mobile platforms have a very low entry barrier and highest reach compared to all other gaming platforms. Due the low session lengths, games need not have a lot of depth and detail. They are also much easier to develop and publish.

Console has the additional challenge of requiring large upfront investment and very experienced teams. Mobile games, however, can be brought out far more quickly and it’s a lot easier to publish your game.

Mobile games also have the advantage of attracting even to the casual gamer and has better reach as compared to consoles.

Kinshuk Sunil, of Hashstash Studios, which is making waves with its new game called Circulets says

It is easy to be successful with an extremely simplified game in the casual space on mobiles than any other platforms, riding on this huge number of audience.

Where Is The Indie Game Development Scene Going?

From a handful of obscure studios that began game development as early as 1999, Indian gaming industry has come a long way. There are more than a hundred gaming studios in India. One of the first gaming success stories was Indiagames, which started off with a 5 member tam and went on to get acquired by Disney for about $100 million.

Similarly, the recent acquisition of Bash Gaming by GSN Games for about $160 million, was another milestone for the game development community.