With WAVES event, government seeks global role for India in entertainment industry

The World Audio Visual & Entertainment Summit (WAVES) aims to boost India's media and entertainment industry with global participation.

The Union government has kicked off the four-day World Audio Visual & Entertainment Summit (WAVES) on May 1, as part of its push to make India a destination and hub for the media and entertainment industry. The event has been articulated as a major priority for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and a constellation of industry bigwigs, from top Bollywood celebrities like Aamir Khan and Amitabh Bachchan to the global heads of firms like Netflix and YouTube have been roped in to advise on the event and participate in its promotions. 

Follow WAVES inauguration event updates on May 1 here

The event comes as India works to boost its strengths across a variety of entertainment sectors: Minister of Information and Broadcasting Ashwini Vaishnaw pointed in March at a WAVES introduction event to the massive post-production industry in India: “Most of The Lion King is made in India,” Mr. Vaishnaw said, referring to the Moving Picture Company (MPC), a British visual effects firm that until this year employed over 1,500 people in Mumbai and Bengaluru.

VFX work requires several skilled employees, who play a key role in processing footage from big studios in Hollywood. Much of that work is already done by thousands of workers in India. While MPC shut down its India offices due to financial issues stemming from Hollywood labour strikes that dried up its work pipeline here, the talent remains available for the taking, and other studios have taken up projects. 

VFX is part of a broad umbrella that the government is focusing on; the 2022–23 Union budget introduced a task force to promote the Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming, and Comics (AVGC) space. 

One participant in WAVES’s video game booths will be Masala Games, the developer behind the 8-bit animation game Detective Dotson, a lighthearted deduction game set in Mumbai. The game was developed partly through assistance from developer grants from Microsoft, and the government no doubt hopes to have many more like it come out from India, where major gaming studios like Ubisoft already have a large presence to develop and maintain major releases.

The scope for domestically made games is “tremendous,” Shalin Shodhan, Masala Games’ founder and CEO told The Hindu. “With [video game marketplace] Steam clocking in over 130 million users last year and India Steam users growing by 150%, we’re fortunate to have launched Detective Dotson when we did.” The government could have a key role in promoting more local games like Dotson, Mr. Shodhan said.