Mobile Mavens

Indian Mavens predict 2016's mobile gaming trends

Quality and creativity on the rise

Indian Mavens predict 2016's mobile gaming trends

Our last correspondence with the Indian Mavens was way back in 2015.

Feels so long ago, doesn't it?

Anyway, we're not here to dwell on the past - and besides, we did that in our last entry - so for our first question of 2016, we're looking forward:

  • What trends do you predict will define 2016, in Indian development and beyond?

 

Shailesh Prabhu Founder Yellow Monkey Studios

Shailesh Prabhu is an Indie Game Designer from India who has been designing games for over ten years. Seven years ago he founded Yellow Monkey Studios and is the recipient of numerous game design and entrepreneurship awards around the world. Socioball, HUEBRIX, It’s Just a Thought are some of his recent games. Shailesh is also an excellent cook, loves playing tennis, gardening and DIY projects apart from sporting facial hair.

Trends come and go. Great games are forever.

I guess that has been my mantra so far, and will continue to be so in 2016 and beyond.

Siddharth Sivaraman Co-founder Dastan Games

As trends go, one of the exciting things I've noticed in some of the gaming events this past year is more indie developers in India taking risks with the kind of games they're making, rather than taking a tried and tested route which seemed quite common here in the past.

There's going to be a slew of unique indie games coming out of India this year and the next, such as Good Robot, Sky Sutra, Bluk, Dullingham Estate, Bird Of Light and many more which is pretty exciting!

Poornima Seetharaman Director of Design Zynga

Poornima has been part of the gaming industry for over 15 years and undertaken roles varying from Game Designer to Producer to Studio head and Entrepreneur.

She has been part of companies like Indiagames (Disney India), Jumpstart, GSN Games etc.

She is currently a Director of Design at Zynga.

She has worked on franchises like BioShock Mobile, How to Train your Dragons, Neopets, and FarmVille 2: Country Escape to name a few.

She is a Women in Games Ambassador and also a Hall of Fame Inductee at the Global WIG Awards 2020, making her the first Indian game developer to receive such an honour.

I would like to second Siddharth here.

The quality of games coming out of India has improved by a large margin and I'm expecting that to increase further in 2016.

Mithun Balraj Founder / Editor The Game Scrawl

Mithun works towards building the indie development community of India and popularizing game culture by providing coverage of local events and hosting meet-ups, game jams and talks.

2016 is going to be the year that Indian games really make a mark.

Agreeing with Poornima and Siddharth, I'd go one step further to say that 2016 is going to be the year that Indian games really make a mark and get people to sit up and take notice.

There are a lot of promising games coming out of independent studios, and once these start making waves and raising the bar, we will begin to see larger studios following suit and becoming more open to exploring new territory.

We've got one heck of a year ahead of us!

Shailesh Prabhu Founder Yellow Monkey Studios

Shailesh Prabhu is an Indie Game Designer from India who has been designing games for over ten years. Seven years ago he founded Yellow Monkey Studios and is the recipient of numerous game design and entrepreneurship awards around the world. Socioball, HUEBRIX, It’s Just a Thought are some of his recent games. Shailesh is also an excellent cook, loves playing tennis, gardening and DIY projects apart from sporting facial hair.

But I don't think quality, raising the bar, or being more creative in a creative medium are 'trends'.

Ankush Madad Co-Founder and Creative Head Dropout Games

The VR industry has been emerging for a while. It's one of the hottest topics in the game industry currently, and has been getting a lot of attention lately.

The market will probably be niche, but I'm sure VR is here to stay for a long time. I'll be attending GDC this year and will be attending the VRDC to experience things firsthand.

Vaibhav Chavan CEO and Founder underDOGS Gaming Studio

7+ years of experience in Gaming Industry. Currently spearheads underDOG Gaming as a Game Designer, Business and Product Guy.

I believe 2016 will have a lot more innovative games, way different from the usual clones of successful games, as indies here focusing on the global market are on the right track in experimenting with their ideas.

What impact will VR have on the Indian market in 2016?

Couple of games already look promising with their trailers/teasers out. Also lot of people seem to experiment with the VR tech and soon we'll see some good stuff on that front too.

Raoul Nanavati CEO BYOF Studios

Here are my guesses on what's going to happen this year:

  • Big game companies from the outside India will start trying to edge their way into the market through other big game companies in India because of the India is the next China story.
  • Long standing favourites of racing, cricket, cards and endless runners will see at least one or two other genres become lasting favourites as Indian users become more exposed to other content pushed by Indian devs and backed by popular IP.
  • A handful of indies will see some success with premium titles in the global markets.
  • IAP monetisation is likely to remain elusive as a viable business model in India for the first half of 2016 at least, save for the obvious genre already proving otherwise.

Chirag Chopra Founder Lucid Labs

I predict that in 2016, we will see more and more Indian indie developers making games for the console and PC market.

We've already witnessed the reveal of games being developed for PS4 and PC (Sky Sutra and Good Robot, to name two) and I believe this is going to be a good start.

Developers are ready to face the challenges and risks attached with tackling such platforms, and the day we see Indian-developed games creating noise on the PSN and Xbox store is not far off.

Looking forward to playing some good 'Made in India' games on my PS4!

Roby John CEO SuperGaming

This will be the year we will see direct carrier billing.

I (hopefully) predict that this year will be the year that we will see direct carrier billing or alternate billing and monetisation come to the App Stores.

And the teams on the list move towards a truly "prosperous" year building games for India in India.

With the opening of payment alternatives we will see a significant change in consumer behaviour as well which augurs well for all of us.

Features Editor

Matt is really bad at playing games, but hopefully a little better at writing about them. He's Features Editor for PocketGamer.biz, and has also written for lesser publications such as IGN, VICE, and Paste Magazine.