Clicky
National, Back Page

Bangladesh video gaming industry prospects bright


Published : 26 Feb 2023 01:54 AM | Updated : 11 Mar 2023 08:28 PM

The video game industry is now a multi-hundred billion dollar market worldwide. Bangladesh can earn billions of dollars even if it can capture a part of that market. 

To capture that market, world-class games must be developed locally. Along with that, games should be spread all over the world.

Speakers said these things in a seminar titled ‘Game Publishing: An Untapped Potential for Bangladesh’ at the 17th BASIS SoftExpo organized by Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS) continuing at Bangladesh-China Friendship Exhibition Center at the outskirts of the capital. The seminar was moderated by game entrepreneur Sanjar Adnan Alam. 

Robi's VAS official Ahmed Arman said that Bangladesh is now a gaming market worth USD 50 million to USD 60 million which is not comparable to the global market conditions. Its global market is now more than USD 300 billion. Besides expanding the 5G service, we are working to bring a cloud gaming platform. It is definitely being done keeping in mind the gamers of the country’s market. The youth of the country are encouraged to play games. As a result, we have to focus more on game development.”

Project Director of ICT Department's Skill Development for Mobile Game and Application Project Mohammad Anwar Hossain said, “To take gaming as a profession, we need sufficient resources, but the family may not be able to afford it. As a result, even if you know it, it is not possible many times. Again in the case of making a game, every part of the game is designed by one person. But if it can be done by a few people, it will be better. We need to work on gaming in universities to improve gaming. That's why you have to create your own animator. We have trained 28,000 people under this scheme, who have become entrepreneurs themselves with gaming in the country.

Idea project director Altaf Hossain said, “Gaming market has become very important in the country now. Our children play games in foreign countries. We want to capture at least a little bit of the billion dollar market from the global gaming market. In that case, if our youth work, that opportunity will catch us. We have to export the game.” 

Entrepreneur and game maker Arif Mohammad said, “Although there are many young people in the country, they cannot become developers due to lack of training. If the educational institutions come a little forward in these matters and arrange the curriculum accordingly, we will be able to reach the goal very soon.

Later, they had a panel discussion on these issues in the seminar. Almost all the speakers in the discussion agreed that Bangladesh is now one of the potential gaming markets. To capture the USD 300 billion global market, there is no choice but to train the young developers. Youth should be harnessed in game development with proper training.

They said, “In making games, it is essential to hire people who are skilled in making game scripts, animations, designs and use them separately. If we can build an ecosystem, game publishing will be a big market for us and a source of big foreign exchange earnings.” 

They also said that one of the problems in the country is that there is no monetization in the game. As a result many of them are reluctant to publish games in the local market. Apart from this, Bangladeshi entrepreneurs need to eliminate the communication, problem solving gap.

Related Topics