Explainer: WAVES 2025 could be a gamechanger for India’s XR, animation, comic, and gaming industry

A month ago, about 100 Ambassadors and High Commissioners posted in India joined Union Minister for External Affairs Dr. S. Jaishankar, Union Minister for Information & Broadcasting, Railways, and Electronics & IT Ashwini Vaishnaw, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, and Minister of State for Information & Broadcasting Dr. L. Murugan at Sushma Swaraj Bhawan in New Delhi. This high-level meet was not one of foreign policy—it was about the gaming and animation industries in India.

The central government seems to have gone all out to engage the international community ahead of India’s first-ever World Audio Visual & Entertainment Summit (WAVES) 2025. The grand event, which covers gaming, animation, comics, films, and AR/VR/XR tech for these, is scheduled to take place at the Jio Convention Centre in Mumbai from May 1 to May 4, 2025.

“WAVES will serve as a pivotal platform for fostering discussions, collaboration, and innovation for the media and entertainment industry,” said the External Affairs Minister. To do this, unlike other events that highlight global names and top studios, India turned to its indie creators, budding gamers, student animations, and prodigious developers. “Economic and political rebalancing is moving towards cultural balancing. We are not truly global if we are not truly local. WAVES 2025 captures the spirit of this endeavour,” added Jaishankar.

Also Read: Is 2025 the year of Indian gaming? Game devs get ready for GDC; India to host mega summit in Mumbai for gamers

As part of WAVES, a Create in India Challenge (CIC) was launched, garnering overwhelming participation from students, professionals, and entrepreneurs from different cities and institutions—more from tier 2 and tier 3 locations in the country.

One such event under the CIC was the XR Creator Hackathon. The competition saw eXtended Reality (XR) offerings ranging from immersive science labs to cross-platform war games. Among the 2,200-plus participants, five teams were declared winners. One such example was the VR-based platform ‘EduscapeXR’ developed by the students of IIT Kharagpur Vedanta Hazra, Sahil Patel, and Shaurya Baranwal. which “enabled students to perform realistic, immersive experiments in physics, chemistry, and biology using hand-tracking and AI-based feedback.”

Another winner was an ‘Immersive Tourism Guide’ developed by LumeXR that featured a “3D map interface, drone-shot photogrammetry, and embedded video stories, making trip planning more engaging and efficient.” It lets you feel and experience a destination before booking it.

In gaming, Youth Buzz’s ‘The Game of Dimensions’ was the rage. They developed a multiplayer tactical war game. Playable across VR headsets and through mobile, the game is all about immersive gameplay—unifying the experience across platforms and realities.

Out of the 40 finalists from the XR Creator Hackathon, 53 per cent were students. According to the PIB, 66 per cent of the total participants were from Tier 2 and 3 cities, such as Chengalpet, Manipal, and Veraval.

Gaming is now serious business for India

While the XR event saw many gamers, the major move came when India took the champions of its game development event, the Bharat Tech Triumph Season 3 to highlight their indie offering at the official India Pavilion Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco. Indie outlets such as Yudiz Solutions, Brahman Studios, Godspeed Gaming, Second Quest, Over the Moon Studios, Game2Maker, Pariah Interactive, Lysto, Mixar, Little Guru, Mono Tusk Studios, GameEon, Funstop, and Abracadabra were highlighted at the global event. Champions of both the XR hackathon and the game developers contest will share the stage with the finalists of the WAVES Comics Creator Championship and the WAVES Awards of Excellence, where the final winners of each of these under the CIC will be announced.

In its first edition, World Audio Visual & Entertainment Summit (WAVES) 2025 looks to highlight India’s creative acumen as a global hub for content creation, innovation intellectual property, and technological innovations in gaming, animation, and extended reality. The summit is also the first-ever national event that focuses on niche sectors such as animation, gaming, and comics, which so far were on the sidelines in the country when compared to traditional mediums of broadcasting, print media, television, radio, and films.

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