Game Industry Optimistic Local Developers Can Dominate the National Market

The game industry has grown rapidly in Indonesia in recent years. However, Indonesian game developers are still unable to host the local game market.

Indonesian-made games only control 0,4 percent of the domestic market. This data is published in the book Economic Map of the Indonesian Game industry which is the result of collaboration between the Ministry of Communication and Informatics, LIPI, and the Indonesian Game Association (AGI).

CEO & Co-Founder of Digital Happiness, Rachmad Imron explained, Indonesia is an open market. This situation makes local developers have to compete with imported games from China, Japan, South Korea, to the United States.

According to Rachmad, the game industry in Indonesia is 20 years behind its competitors. Indonesian developers lost in terms of skills, techniques, to production and promotion budgets.

However, Rachmad is optimistic that Indonesian game developers can compete in the domestic market in the future. Because, the local market continues to show a positive stretch every year.

"We see that the community's enthusiasm is quite large for local products," said Rachmad recently.

Local game developers are faced with tough challenges because Indonesia is an open market for the game industry. However, this situation should not stop Digital Happiness from fighting. Moreover, there are still gaps that can be exploited to compete.

“We are trying to explore local content, because it is impossible for us to compete in the production and market budget. From a technical and experience standpoint, we still have to keep up,” he said.

TOGE Production's founder & CEO, Kris Antoni assessed that Indonesian game developers have the potential to compete with global developers. According to him, developers can rely on the richness of Indonesian culture in making games.

“It will be a new value, something unique and unknown to outsiders. This can be appointed by Indonesian developers," he said.

The same thing was conveyed by MDI Ventures representative, Aldi Hartanto. He explained that Indonesian culture can be a strength for local game developers to compete.

According to Aldi, the lack of funding is also one of the obstacles for Indonesian game developers to compete. Currently, not many investors support local developers. "They see how tough the competition in the game industry in Indonesia is," he said.

The Business Matchmaking Coordinator of the Indonesian Ministry of Communication and Information, Luat Sihombing is optimistic that Indonesian game developers can compete in the future. The government, he continued, has carried out several programs.

“One main thing, we think we have to help local game developers to be able to improve in terms of production quality, business, to the company. So we collaborated with AGI to hold IGDX," said Luat.

The Indonesia Game Developer Exchange (IGDX) will be held again this year in October-November. IGDX 2021 has three main activities, namely IGDX Business, IGDX Conference, and IGDX Academy. This event is expected to encourage the Indonesian game industry to be able to compete globally. This is because local game developers receive training and learn directly from global game industry players.

IGDX Business is a business matchmaking activity. At this event, Indonesian game developers can meet publishers, global game studios, governments, foreign game developers, as well as local and foreign investors through digital platforms.

At the IGDX Conference, Indonesian developers had the opportunity to learn from a number of speakers, such as government leaders, well-known figures in the national and international game industry, investor representatives, and other industry representatives.

Meanwhile, IGDX Academy is a mentorship activity. Indonesian game developers will receive training from experienced mentors from within and outside the country.