Taskforce for the Animation and Gaming Sector : How Will it Benefit?

After all these years being largely neglected, the union budget 2022 has surprised the animation, visual effects, gaming, and comic (AVGC) sector with its announcement of setting up a promotion task force to recommend ways to employ youth and build the domestic capacity of the AVGC for serving Indian markets and the global demand. This move is highly lauded by the gaming and the animation fraternity. It might seem that the move came all of a sudden, but this space was largely under the government’s growth radar that led The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) in 2020 to announce that it will establish AVGC Centre of Excellence (CoE) to make gamification and animation industry a major export for the country and a wealth generator. Currently, as per the joint report of the confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the BCG, India has less than 10 percent of the global market share in VFX and animation.

Animation and gaming – a wealth generator

China is the undisputed leader of the gaming world, but we cannot deny the booming Indian market as well. Over the past few years, global game publishers have gone beyond the Chinese market to outsource animation technology from the Indian game development firms to reduce costs and meet the game launch deadlines. The global game projects have been driving the demand for skilled professionals for game development in India, not forgetting the contribution of lockdowns and mobility restrictions.
Besides, low labour cost what makes India an excellent market for outsourcing animation technology is its vast base of English-speaking workforce. Understanding the English language is a prerequisite in the industry to lip-sync the animated media to the audio dialogue. It is a skill that the Indian workforce possesses in abundance. Karnataka, especially Bangalore the startup capital of India has witnessed the entry of many global gaming majors who have tapped into India’s talent pool for offshore production. The Karnataka AVGC Policy 2017-2022 aims to develop Karnataka into a leading global AVGC hub in terms of export revenues, projects, and employment by strengthening the ecosystem.

To talk about the demand in the domestic market, India is showing a high level of appetite in animation and VFX content to power immersive experiences such as augmented reality and virtual reality especially in edtech. Films, web series, and gamers are enthusiastic about creating immersive and engaging visual effects, and realistic animation. The opening theme of Hansal Mehta’s ‘The Scam 1992’ makes it quite evident about the creativity the animation and VFX industry has added. Besides, the availability of low-cost internet access, penetration of mobile devices along the growing popularity of streaming video and playing games is giving impetus to the development of animation and VFX content.

India is a young country with two-thirds of it under the age of 35 which makes the country adequate with millennial consumption and therefore is poised to become the world’s leading market for gaming. A study from BCG says that there are around 300 million people who play games on mobile. According to the BCG-Sequoia India report, 2021the Indian gaming industry is generating $1.5 billion in revenue and is expected to become triple by $5 billion by 2025.