India's leading video game developers and publishers, including Nazara Technologies, Ludo King maker Gametion, and FAU-G: Domination creator nCore Games, are setting up a new industry body for greater representation, after the Centre introduced the new gaming legislation earlier this month.
The Indian Game Publishers and Developers Association (IGPDA) will aim to provide a unified voice for India’s interactive entertainment industry, focusing on innovation, collaboration and policy inputs.
The association will aim to promote original Made-in-India IP, retelling Indian stories in gaming, skill-building across the AVGC (Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming, Comics) value chain, and enabling India to produce globally competitive AAA titles, an industry parlance for big-budget, high-quality games.
IGPDA members will include game developers, studios, publishers and platforms, as well as partners such as technology and tools providers, academic and training institutions, investors, and other ecosystem enablers.
"For the first time, India’s developers and publishers have a unified voice. With the IGPDA, we can chart a future where Indian studios build iconic IP that competes globally. This is about more than games - it’s about creating a cultural legacy for India," said Vishal Gondal, a gaming veteran and founder of nCore Games.
Nitish Mittersain, CEO of Nazara Technologies said "Nazara’s vision has always been anchored on IP-led growth. The IGPDA aligns perfectly with this mission, ensuring Indian creativity thrives globally and creates sustainable long-term value."
Through a proposed partnership with the Maharashtra government, IGPDA aims to make Mumbai the global games hub by attracting gaming companies to the state through policy support.
The association follows the setting up of Indian Institute of Creative Technologies (IICT), a newly established Centre of Excellence, backed by the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (I&B), Government of Maharashtra, FICCI, and CII.
The institute, being established along the lines of the IITs and IIMs for the media and entertainment sector, is expected to serve as a global centre of excellence for education, research, innovation, and skill development in the AVGC-XR sector and will be located at the Dadasaheb Phalke Film City in Mumbai's Goregaon suburb.
"Our focus has been to drive strategic investments, foster global partnerships, and accelerate transformative infrastructure and technology initiatives in Maharashtra under the visionary leadership of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. We welcome this proactive initiative from the Indian games industry," said Kaustubh Dhavse, Chief Advisor (Investments & Strategy) to the Chief Minister of Maharashtra in a statement.
In a recent interview with Moneycontrol, Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had said that the government plans to promote game-makers through IICT by providing "better technologies, better tools, and better access to tools."
The industry body stated that India’s video gaming market has already surpassed $1 billion in revenue in 2025, yet more than $800 million annually flows to foreign titles that have no presence in India and invest nothing back into local talent or intellectual property.
IGPDA plans to address the disparity by empowering domestic studios, scaling up esports, and building cultural exports for a global gaming market.
"Video gaming is the biggest creative industry; it’s bigger than movies, books, music, and theatre combined. India gets very little of the pie. Much of our gaming industry presently is mobile-game-dominated which has a large number of users but not enough revenue," said Amish Tripathi, co-founder of Tara Gaming, a studio developing games for PC and consoles.
"The market is also dominated by Chinese games. But with our own games, based on our own culture, we could actually bring revenue into the country and also export our culture. IGPDA will supercharge this effort to make India a gaming superpower,” added Tripathi, who is also the author of the popular Shiva Trilogy novels.
India is the fastest-growing games market in Asia, both in terms of revenue and gamers, according to Niko Partners, a market research and consulting firm that covers video games, e-sports, and streaming in the continent.
The country's mobile, PC and console gaming market is expected to reach $1.4 billion in revenue by 2028, growing at a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.1 percent, excluding revenue from real-money games or exports.
Other members of IGPDA include Aeos Games, Reliance Games, SuperGaming, nCore-backed Dot9 Games, and underDOGS Studio.
Last year, several gaming industry veterans including former Nazara Technologies CEO Manish Agarwal, Lakshya Digital founder Manvendra Shukul and YesGnome co-founder Sridhar Muppidi had banded together to set up an association called Game Developer Association of India (GDAI).
The association was an extension of the country's oldest community-run game development conference, the India Game Developer Conference (IGDC), started in 2008.
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