Interactive Gaming set to ride the crest with Replay India boost

Interactive Gaming set to ride the crest with Replay India boost - Digpu News

Replay India will look at enabling the growth prospects of the interactive gaming industry in India.

Pune, 25 August 2021: 

The Indian gaming industry is experiencing a boom. The uptrend has seen accelerated action over the past few months due to the stay-at-home situation created by the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Further still, the situation has added charm to the interactive gaming scenario by opening more opportunities to independent game creators in India and platforms to launch on. 

Mr Siddharth Ganji, Producer at Replay Collective, a video production agency specialising in producing engagement-driven content targeted at the millennial generation, is exploring the opportunities thrown open in the interactive gaming arena through his new venture ‘Replay India’. 

Replay India is positioned as a forum for storytellers in emerging mediums such as interactive films/games, VR, AR, etc. The new venture will target disruptive entertainment with a vision to meaningfully push the boundaries by merging technological innovation with effective storytelling. 

“The Indian gaming market is one of the sectors that has benefited significantly in the pandemic with more people staying indoors. There has indeed been a lack of entertainment options too. A report projects the online gaming industry to touch $2.8 billion by 2022 in India. This places India as one of the premier markets for content consumption, and we will see the casual gaming audience increase even more,” Mr Siddharth Ganji said.

It is this area that Replay India would look at getting into. To be unveiled at a webinar that will have experts in the gaming industry weighing in on their experiences, Replay India will ride on the fact that different games have different ways to implement the “interactive” element. The core idea would be to let the character do more than shoot and reload – to really get into the character’s head and make decisions based on the story arcs of each character they interact with. 

Interactive Gaming set to ride the crest with Replay India boost - Digpu News

“The most exciting thing about my projects is spending time with the game developers and being exposed to new ways of storytelling. I produced a 30-minute showcase recently for Annapurna Interactive, which was very well received and shows a bright future for independent gaming,” Mr Siddharth Ganji, who has produced more than 75 titles, from interactive content to commercials to more traditional content like feature films and series, added. 

Interactive gaming: Placing the story above everything else

A significant attribute of interactive gaming is that it places the story above everything else, thereby creating a whole new way of experiencing it. Such aspects open up avenues galore for the gamer to embark on a journey that is not quite possible with a standard linear game.

Interactive games are usually single-player, with the player being more involved in the character and his/her environment. These games would have to be marketed heavily or catch traction by way of the community pushing it forward, which could take some time in India, but it is the way forward, Mr Ganji opined.

Though the interactive sub-sector of gaming is still a small portion of the overall digital gaming industry, it becomes noteworthy because the unified market has been predicted as touching $207 billion in value by 2025. 

Replay India will look at enabling the growth prospects of the interactive gaming industry in a major way. The growth graph in India indicates that this could be among the fastest-growing sectors in the near term. The interactive gaming segment is also set to provide access to experts and resources that would aid in the development of projects.