Hasta La Motion!

Have you ever wondered, what goes into the making of a ‘Temple Run’ or a ‘Flappy Bird’? Well, what if you actually get to make a game yourself! Think no more…

To build a robust and sustainable game developers ecosystem in the country, the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) Gaming Forum in collaboration with MindBox, India’s leading Creative Education initiatives by ARK Infosolutions are jointly organising ‘GameJam Titans’.

The ‘GameJam Titans’ is a game development competition; set to be held across six cities in India (Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune and Delhi respectively) beginning from 22 August to 28 September 2014. The winners shortlisted from each of these cities will get an opportunity to showcase their game on the sidelines of the NASSCOM Games Developer Conference (GDC) to be held in Pune between 13 and 15 November 2014.

Speaking on the initiative, ARK Infosolutions CEO & director Rishi Khemka says: “We are overwhelmed with the encouraging response we have received from schools, colleges and their students for our ‘Game Jam Titans’ competition. We, at MindBox, believe in creating such platforms for students to express their individuality in more innovate and creative ways. We are pleased to provide young students this creative platform and promote the game development culture in India.”

The ever increasing mobile user base with data connectivity is creating opportunities for game developers across the board. Recognising the growing opportunity, NASSCOM Gaming Forum and Mindbox aim to tap the potential of young gaming developers through this competition. The competition is open to colleges, schools and professionals who will be developing games at the venue for a period of 48 hours; so they will be briefed on the theme for the game on Friday evening, and they will have the whole of Saturday to complete their games and submit them, for the jury to take a look at them on Sunday.

NASSCOM Gaming Forum Chair Rajesh Rao adds: “The gaming industry in India has proved its capability in terms of delivering quality products and has the potential for acquiring a large domestic as well as international market. The sector is poised to grow at an exponential level in the years to come and will continue to capture the imagination of users and developers alike. Through this competition, we aim to engage with the youth and encourage them to take up game development as a career as it is a growing domain.”

More than 50 schools from each region will participate in these competitions, which will provide an opportunity to students not only to identify their own creativity and life skills, but also compete at this large platform. School teams will be given a theme (a week prior to the competition) on which they will develop a game and present to the jury on the final day.

The Indian gaming services have moved up the value chain with more end- to-end offshoring work in terms of development coming to India. NASSCOM Gaming Forum recognizes the gaming industry as a significant user of technology which can further showcase India’s well established credentials in the IT Industry space. The competition will aim to further build the gaming ecosystem in India and promote it as a viable career option amongst students. Students participating can get registered at www.gamejamtitans.com for GameJam Titans. NASSCOM Gaming Forum also plans to provide expert training to registered students for GameJam Titans on Unity Game Engine.

On the partnership with NASSCOM Khemka reveals: “The Video Game industry (also referred to as interactive entertainment industry), is the M&E sector involved with the development of video games. It encompasses dozens of job disciplines and employs thousands of people worldwide with Revenues bigger than Hollywood. With the Smartphone & Tablet penetration in India, game development for social, casual & mobile games is a very bright & prospective opportunity as a job profession as well as an entrepreneur. Here even 2-3 people can come together and develop a game that can make huge money with the audience base that they can reach out to. So with the association of NASSCOM and Game Jam Titans, it will excite and give young students a creative platform as well as grow the game development culture in India”

Those interested in taking part in the competition can head over to the Game Jam Titans website and register. The NASSCOM Gaming Forum will also help provide some training to students taking part in the competition in using the Unity engine.

AnimationXpress.com completely supports this novel initiative and will be on the ground at all the six cities; with the students, developers and professionals grinding it out for those 48 hours to create some really awesome games. So hope to catch all you junkies out there on the ground! Over and out for now!