Animation, gaming industry gets a new address: Pune

PUNE, MAY 4: • Chetan Deshmukh was the animation and special effects expert for Hollywood films Chicago and Shanghai Knights. He recently shifted base from the US to Pune to start the firm Tool Box.
• Jesh Krishnamurthy worked with some leading companies in animation and gaming in the US, Canada, Germany and the UK for 13 years before he decided to start his own studio, Anibrain. He did so four months ago after shifting base to Pune. He is now working on some Hollywood films from here.

• Girish Dhakephalkar works with Realtime Worlds, a gaming company based in Scotland. He is interested in making games for the Indian market with Indian content and after studying the market in India, he finds Pune the ideal place to work.

Theirs are not isolated stories as Pune fast emerges as a hub for the animation and gaming industry. In less than one year, about 30 companies and studios dealing in special effects and animation have sprung up in the city, along with a string of training academies.

The arithmetic is simple: while it costs around $400,000 to make a 30-minute animated film in the US, in Pune it can be made for one-seventh the amount.

“What the IT industry achieved in 11 years in Pune — a business of $5 billion per year — the animation and gaming industry is expected to achieve in six,” says a study by the Maharashtra Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture (MACCIA). It has already started talking to some real estate developers to start Special Economic Zones for the industry.

According to Nasscom, the Indian animation industry was estimated at $354 million in 2006 and is expected to reach $869 million by 2010. The Indian gaming industry was estimated at $48 million and is expected to cross $424 million by 2010.

It’s not just the offshore gaming and animation studios which are Pune-bound. Anirights Infomedia, a Reliance Entertainment company, has also joined the rush.

According to Anand Khandekar, Chairman, Animation and Gaming Committee, MACCIA, Pune has all the right ingredients because of its history and culture, combined with its IT strengths and its educational institutions.

Dhakephalkar adds another factor: “Pune’s proximity to Mumbai, which is the entertainment hub of the country”.

“A company like Electronic Arts, one of the largest companies in the gaming sector with a turnover of $50 billion, is thinking of shifting its base to Pune. This itself tells the potential of Pune to grow in this sector. It has made us start our institute here,” says Ashok Kolaskar, Managing Director of the DSK International Institute of Industrial Design, Animation and Gaming, set up in collaboration with Supinfocom Group of Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Valenciennois (CCIV), France.

... contd.

Ads By Google

Message*	Maximum characters allowed

Name*		Email ID*
Subject*		Country*

TERMS OF USE:
The views, opinions and comments posted are your, and are not endorsed by this website. You shall be solely responsible for the comment posted here. The website reserves the right to delete, reject, or otherwise remove any views, opinions and comments posted or part thereof. You shall ensure that the comment is not inflammatory, abusive, derogatory, defamatory &/or obscene, or contain pornographic matter and/or does not constitute hate mail, or violate privacy of any person (s) or breach confidentiality or otherwise is illegal, immoral or contrary to public policy. Nor should it contain anything infringing copyright &/or intellectual property rights of any person(s).

I agree to the terms of use.