Karnataka Plans eSports Olympics, Gaming Accelerator by 2024

Karnataka has all that is needed to ensure that we become the gaming and the animation capital of not only this country but also of Asia,” said Shri Priyank Kharge, Minister of Information Technology and Biotechnology, Government of Karnataka, during a special address at the second edition of the Indian Gaming Convention (IGC). The two-day convention is being organised by the Internet and Mobile Association of India, on October 14-15, at the Taj Palace, New Delhi.

“Bengaluru and Karnataka are the fourth largest technology clusters in the world. We run over 27 centres of excellence. We are setting up a centre of excellence specifically for gaming and I also am extremely keen to host India's first government-sponsored eSports Olympics to ensure that we remain the leaders in this sector and be the most disruptive innovation capital in the world. We will also have a gaming accelerator by the end of this financial year,” he added.

The theme for IGC 2024 - India—the Next Superpower in Gaming, reflects India’s journey to being a global leader in gaming. Meta is the Title Partner of the convention.

Speaking on the scale of India’s gaming sector, Shri Kharge said, “The global AVGC market is estimated to be more than $366 billion with animation and visual effects constituting 46% share and gaming 54% share. The country boasts as the world’s second-largest gaming community, comprising 42.5 crore gamers, and from 2020 to 2023, the online gaming segment in India experienced a rise of 28% which was a market size of 16428 crores in 2023 and in the next four years, it should double.”

Kharge shared that India had close to 1400 online gaming startups in 2023 and 430 crore gaming apps downloaded in 2023 while in-game purchases and deposits contributed 8370 crore through UPI transaction volume in India.

“The new AVGC policy that we have announced recently ensures that more IPs come out from Karnataka. We are developing skills for the sector, we are incubating and nurturing leadership for the sector. We have a physical space for ideation, innovations and inventions for startups for the sector and we want to create as many IPs as possible from the state of Karnataka. We run a program called Elevate which is very unique to Karnataka where we offer a grant of 50 lakh rupees to the startups. Last year, we funded close to around 30 startups that are in the AVGC sector. Overall we have funded close to around 983 startups,” he concluded.

Among major partners of IGC 2024 are, Gold Partners –Salesforce and Veve; Silver Partners – Google Cloud & Bureau; Lanyard partner – Moloco; GameTech Enabler – Singhtek, and Knowledge Partner – PWC.