In the first stage of the Animation, Graphics, and Game Building (AGG) Industry Report, the AGG research team invited key AGG stakeholders to participate in various Problem Discovery Workshops and share their industry-relevant experiences, pain points and suggest possible solutions to help drive the direction of the research. Stakeholders from small-scale companies, mid-tier organizations as well as industry giants were invited to the workshops. Companies with a high number of female employees were also invited to the workshops to share their unique challenges and insights.
The first Problem Discovery workshop was organized in Karachi at Ice Animations at the Lakson Square Building, and the workshops in Lahore and Islamabad were conducted online to encourage and ensure participation. Yaser Awan Director M-Labs moderated all three workshops with the help of the MLabs research team (Sophia Richards and Nouman Niaz) and the P@SHA team (Fatima Aftab and Basma). Ali Ehsan (CEO – Frag Games) and Fasieh Mehta (Business Ops Lead – Quixel at Epic Games) provided introductory remarks and introduced the project to the participants.
The Karachi problem discovery workshop was held on 26 August 2022 at the Lackson Square Building, Karachi. Notable figures that took part in the workshop included Asif Iqbal (CEO – ICE Animations), Sumair M. (General Manager – ICE Animations), Hassam Bin Rizwan (CEO – Sabaq/Moonshot Animations), Kamran Khan (Founder – Final Act Animations), Amin Farooqi (Co-Founder – Sharp Image), Ahmed Feroze (CEO – Centrick Studios), Masood Hussain (Head Of Production – Talisman Animation Studios) and Muhammad Owais Roy (Founder – Postisland).
The Lahore problem discovery workshop was held on 29 August 2022. Notable figures at the workshop included Atif Gulzar (VP Engineering – Revolving Games), Ayaz Malik (CEO – Tiny Kraken Games), Fahad Suleman (Marketing Lead & Growth Acquisition Manager – Terafort Limited), Faryal Hussain (CEO – Oddsock Concepts), Iqra (Co-Founder – BloomBig Studio), Jawad Amjad (COO – The Game Storm Studios Pvt Ltd), Junaid (Brand Manager Marketing – Mizo), Junaid Mir (Senior Manager – OZI Technology), Nida Nadeem (Business Development Manager – Oddsock Concepts) and Qasim Nawaz (CEO – Stardust Solutions).
The Islamabad problem discovery workshop was held on 9 September 2022. Attendees included Mehran Khan (Art Director – WeRplay), Saad Bazaz (CEO – Grayhat Developers), Toheed Ullah (CEO – TW Games Studio), Shehmir Riaz Bhatti (Founder – Game Bite Studio), Arsalan Khan (COO – Big4Technology), Khaya Ahmed (Writer & Narrative Game Designer – Sumo Digital LTD), Muhammad Tayyab (CTO – Funsol Technologies), Saliha Bilal (Senior Game Developer – GameBite Studio), Fahad Nawaz Cheema (CEO – Spunk Studios), Muhammad Tahir Iqbal (Executive Director – Terafort Limited), Waqar Ahmed (Managing Director – Gaming Doctrine), Abbas Saleem Khan (Executive Producer – Optera Digital) and Moeed Ahmed (Game Manager – Five River Solutions Pvt Ltd).
These workshops will help the AGG research team in designing a comprehensive survey that captures all the relevant industry information. The report will be published in the first quarter of 2023.
Authors: Nouman Niaz (Research Assistant M-Labs) and Sophia Richards (Research Officer M-Labs)
