East, west, home's best

The Indian videogame scene is about to explode – and the India Game Developer Conference has been preparing the country

The Indian game industry knows how to party. As we walk out of the Hyderabad Convention Centre and into the balmy evening air, the sight of pools, palm trees and gleaming trays of biryani is usurped entirely by the noise. Dance music pounds from the IndiaJoy Music Festival stage, in front of which hundreds of revellers – many of them business moguls and game developers – jump and sing. Confetti cannons go off, it seems, roughly every 30 seconds. The VIP bar glitters with guests in silk suits and sarees. We are in jeans.

The glamour of the India Game Developer Conference is a far cry, then, from the many western counterparts we’ve attended. The largest developer conference in South Asia, its 11th year connected over 3,000 delegates from 24 countries, and boasted over 200 speakers giving talks across eight tracks over a two-day period. Its halls buzzed with visitors to over 200 stalls – at which we spotted all manner of games, hardware innovations and apps, with significant square-footage for viral video app TikTok – and hosted ten major events, including the aforementioned music festival, VFX Summit, InfluencerCon and the finals of Rainbow Six: Siege’s India Series.