IGDC Awards Celebrating excellence in Game Dev

IGDC Awards 2024- Celebrating Excellence in Game Development

14th November 2024- Awards Ceremony
IGDC Awards, presented by the India Game Developers Conference, honors outstanding game developers and studios across various categories. Nominations undergo rigorous evaluation by an international jury comprising leaders from different sectors of the gaming industry.

Award Winners & Runner ups – 2024

Game Name	Studio Name	Position
PC/Console Game of the Year
The Palace on the Hill	Niku Games Studio	Winner
Fears to Fathom – Woodbury Getaway	RAYLL STUDIOS PRIVATE LIMITED	Runner
Mobile Game of the Year
Once upon a merge	TheAppGuruz	Winner
Dream Cricket 2024	Dream Game Studios	Runner
AR/VR Game of the Year
Sportsverse	Zudo Labs (Yudiz Solutions Limited)	Winner
Hammer Heads	DopaMind Games Studios	Runner
Upcoming Game of the Year
Winds of Arcana: Ruination	Brewed Games	Winner
Detective Dotson	Masala Games Private Limited	Runner
Indie Game of the Year
The Palace on the Hill	Niku Games Studio	Winner
Kamla	Mad Mantra Games	Runner
Student Game of the Year
Shotgun-Tact	Studio Noori	Winner
Sangam	National Institute of Design	Runner
International Game of the Year
The Star Named EOS	Silver Lining Studio	Winner
Best Gameplay Game of the Year
Fears to Fathom – Woodbury Getaway	RAYLL STUDIOS PRIVATE LIMITED	Winner
Best Visual Art Game of the Year
Once upon a merge	TheAppGuruz	Winner
Popular Choice Award
The Demon’s Exorcism	Snow Star Games
Women in Game of the year
Shruti Verma
Laxmi Khanolkar
Hal of fame
Rajesh Rao

IGDC 2024 Awards

Nominees – Game of the Year

PC/Console

Brocula
Fears to Fathom – Woodbury Getaway
Project F
The Demon’s Exorcism
The Palace on the Hill

Mobile

Wizard World: Magic Merge
Dream Cricket 2024
Once upon a merge
Hospital Rush
Shri Ram Mandir Game

AR/VR

Get the Duck
Hammer Heads
Spacey’s Adventure (Mobile AR)
Sportsverse
SubmergedVR

Upcoming

Detective Dotson
Last Day Lockdown
Where Did My Hair Go?
Winds of Arcana: Ruination
పల్లెటూరు-Palm Sugar: A Village Story

Student

DISENGAGE
Sangam
Shotgun-Tact
Slunkey
Warbound

International

Footgun: Underground
Hollywood Animal
TerraScape
The Star Named EOS
Toy Tactics

Indie

Hospital Rush
Fears to Fathom -Woodbury Getaway
Kamla
The Demon’s Exorcism
The Palace on the Hill

Best Gameplay

Dream Cricket 2024
Fears to Fathom – Woodbury Getaway
Project F
The Palace on the Hill

Best Visual Art

Once upon a merge
Dream Cricket 2024
Fears to Fathom – Woodbury Getaway
The Palace on the Hill

Arjun Varma

Xbox

Arjun Varma

Xbox

Arjun Varma is the India Lead on the Strategic Markets Team at Xbox. His role is to connect and engage with game developers and studios across India and help them bring their games to a global audience via the Xbox platform. Based in Bangalore-India, Arjun has 15+ years of experience and has worked previously with LinkedIn and Meta (Facebook Gaming) in community building and strategic partnership roles.

Sean (Hyunil) Sohn

KRAFTON, Inc. India

Sean (Hyunil) Sohn

KRAFTON, Inc. India

Sean possesses extensive experience in banking, finance, investment, and gaming. Under his leadership, KRAFTON has actively supported India’s startup landscape, investing over $170 million, with plans to invest another $120 million in the coming years. He has been instrumental in solidifying KRAFTON’s gaming portfolio in India and creating a thriving esports ecosystem in the country. Under his guidance, BGMI has become the country’s most loved mobile game. He has also helmed the launch of other titles such as Road To Valor: Empires, Bullet Echo India amongst others. Sean has played a pivotal role in introducing the KRAFTON India Gaming Incubator (KIGI) in October 2023. Prior to leading the India division, Sean was the Head of Corporate Development at KRAFTON, Inc. and was responsible for KRAFTON’s mergers, acquisitions, and strategic investments. An avid gamer himself, Sean takes keen interest in developing new titles for KRAFTON’s global and Indian audiences.

Paavan Nanda

WinZO

Paavan Nanda

WinZO

Paavan Nanda is the CEO and Co-founder of WinZO, India’s largest social gaming platform with over 200 million registered users. Paavan is continuously looking for creative ideas to grow the interactive gaming ecosystem and create memorable gaming experiences for its users. He has established a $50 million developer fund at WinZO to fund and promote gaming, game technology and web3 projects around the world.

Inderpal Singh

Moonfrog Labs

Inderpal Singh

Moonfrog Labs

Inderpal has over 12+ years experience in the gaming industry and leads Moonfrog in its vision to build superior gaming experiences. With a passion for product, engineering and being an avid gamer himself, he has been instrumental in Moonfrog’s success in becoming a market leader for games like Ludo & Teenpatti, which are India’s leading games in the board & card game genre. Other than playing games, he is a sports enthusiast, loves watching Cricket & enjoys cycling in his free time.

Saumya Singh Rathore

WinZO

Saumya Singh Rathore

WinZO

Saumya Singh Rathore is the Co-founder of WinZO, India’s largest vernacular social gaming platform with over 200 million registered users. Saumya is one of the tech industry’s few female founders. In 2021, she received the ‘Women Entrepreneurship Award’ from BW Disrupt, a Business World platform that promotes young entrepreneurs with disruptive ideas. Keenly interested in generating memorable gaming experiences, Saumya is always on the lookout for novel ideas that can grow the interactive gaming ecosystem. She has established a$50 million Developer Fund at WinZO to fund and promote gaming, game technology and web3 projects around the world.

Roby John

Super Gaming

Roby John

Super Gaming

Roby is the CEO and CoFounder of SuperGaming, a 180 person games studio based in Pune,India and supported by investors like A16Z, Bandai Namco, 1UpFund and SkyCatcher.
SuperGaming is building Indus, a Battle Royale Shooter themed in an Indo-Futuristic setting that folks have called the “Wakanda of India”.
Indus has been in development for 3 years and soft launched recently in India.

Kartik Prabhakara

Aream & Co.

Kartik Prabhakara

Aream & Co.

Kartik is the co-founder of Aream & Co., a premier boutique investment bank specializing in gaming and interactive entertainment. Under his leadership, Aream & Co. has successfully executed over 55 transactions, totaling more than $32 billion in deal value within the sector. Prior to founding Aream & Co., Kartik served as a Partner at CODE Advisors and was a Director in the Technology Investment Banking division at UBS. With two decades of experience in mergers & acquisitions and the technology sector, Kartik is a seasoned expert in navigating complex transactions and driving strategic growth.

Sudhir Kamath

Nazara Technologies

Sudhir Kamath

Nazara Technologies

Sudhir Kamath is the Chief Operating Officer of Nazara Technologies. Nazara is India’s only listed gaming company, with interests in multiple gaming studios, esports, sports content, and adtech. Nazara had a successful IPO in 2021 and has consistently grown revenues while maintaining strong profitability. He is a Computer Science graduate from the Delhi Institute of Technology and a post-graduate from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. He is an established leader who has built high-performing teams across businesses and brings deep operating expertise, an entrepreneurial mindset, and a wide network of relationships in the gaming world.