JAKARTA, Indonesia, Dec. 19, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- HAGO, the top social gaming app in Indonesia and a subsidiary of Vlight – a leading Singapore-based provider of integrated internet communications services had chosen 5 main winners with a special award from the total of 87 impressive game submissions for the Jawara Game Indonesia Competition. After the three-week-long competition, HAGO under the Vlight Group, together with the support of the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (KOMINFO), the Tourism and Creative Economy Institute (BAPAREKRAF), and the Indonesian Game Association (AGI), carefully selected the winners from a myriad of creatively-designed game submissions with different themes, levels, and purposes that all passed the judging criteria in flying colors. To celebrate the winners and to show appreciation for those who had supported Jawara Game Development Indonesia Competition, HAGO and Vlight held an awarding and press conference event at The Hermitage, a Tribute Portfolio Hotel Jakarta on the 18th of December 2019 where the five shortlisted winners were proudly declared.
Furthermore, this private awarding and press conference was attended by honored guests and speakers including Mr. Semuel Abrijani Pangerapan, Directorate General of Informational Application KOMINFO, Mr. Hari Sungkari, Head of Infrastructure Deputy of BAPAREKRAF, Mr. Luat Sihombing, Deputy Director of Digital Economy Ecosystem Development of the KOMINFO, Mr. Adam Ardisasmita the Vice President of AGI, and Mr. Joshua Qiao, Vice President of Vlight.
As online gaming continues to grow at an accelerated rate in Indonesia, Mr. Joshua Qiao, the Vice President of Vlight hopes to help Indonesian developers to showcase their talents. He further explains that "Our goal is to fuel the creative economy of Indonesia. With our resources, we hope to discover the local talents that are just waiting to be acknowledged and recognized. We hope to inspire and encourage young Indonesians to do whatever they dream of doing and to explore their talent and creativity." The quality of these talents was shown through the massive amount of submissions which resulted in amazing games with high standards.
The first winner or who was addressed as the 'champion' got to bring home a total prize of 60 million rupiah, followed by the first until fourth runner ups who managed to get 40 million rupiah, 20 million rupiah, 10 million rupiah, and 5 million rupiah consecutively.
Tahoe Games, as the champion for Jawara Game Development Indonesia Competition, succeeded in creating a light yet interesting game called 'Cookie Paw Blast' with a theme featuring a cat and fish, a simple yet fun game. Following the champion, the first runner up was 'Treasure Cave' a game developed by Nightspade, the second runner up was 'Slay Z' developed by Melon Gaming Studio, 'Pocong Running' developed by Muhammad Taufik, and 'Coffee Cat' developed by Everlado Sembiring.
Moreover, the competition also gave a special award for the category of games made by students titled The Best Student Game Developer, which was won by ASC Web Dev, a community from Bina Nusantara University. Jawara Game Indonesia will also provide an opportunity for the public to choose their favorite games through the official website of Jawara Game Indonesia in the weeks to come, where the results can be seen on the official Facebook account of HAGO.
The game development competition started on 20 November 2019 and successfully ended on 15 December 2019. Collaborated with local game developers, distributors, creative gaming communities, this competition was aimed to find and create bigger opportunities for local talents that hopefully will further strengthen the gaming industry as well as the creative economy in Indonesia. As a form of dedication and commitment to local gaming industry, HAGO Indonesia will also launch several games by Indonesian game developers next year.
Since the emergence of the gaming industry has captivated a lot of people in Indonesia, Mr. Semuel Abrijani Pangerapan, Directorate General of Informational Application KOMINFO fully supported this kind of competition which could help find hidden local talents and those who couldn't find the platform to showcase their works and what they're capable of. "Through this event, HAGO helps to unlock the potential of local creators and talents who are working in the creative economy. As we all know, Indonesia's main capital is the diversity which eventually enables us to create new products, creations and innovations. With this program, we really hope that more game developers can channel their talents and products through HAGO. Once again, we are very thankful that HAGO has created this meaningful event," stated Mr. Semuel Abrijani Pangerapan.
Moreover, Mr. Luat Sihombing, Deputy Director of Digital Economy Ecosystem Development of the KOMINFO added, "We support HAGO on this because this event is very important and we believe that this is what the game developers need. They need a way to have exposure directly to the consumers. And by joining this event, Indonesia game developer's quality will be better. We're happy that someone has started it and we hope that there will be more opportunities like this for the developers." He hoped that Jawara Game Indonesia could open doors for more game-making competition as game is one of the sub-sectors of creative economy industry.
Mr. Hari Sungkari, Deputy of Infrastructure BAPAREKRAF added, "We know now that the Indonesian gaming market ranks 16th in the world, with its market size in 2017 with a total value of 880 million USD. However, the role of Indonesian game developers has only reached 5% so it becomes our challenge to improve. Therefore, BAPAREKRAF is very committed in helping local game developers and publishers increase market share for local game developers to 10%."
In addition, Mr. Adam Ardisasmita the Vice President of AGI added, "AGI is pleased to support this game development competition by HAGO. Activity like this is very useful for giving birth to new game developers and growing the gaming industry in Indonesia. We got 35 game studio/publishers now as members, all of them has great potential. And we definitely appreciate and acknowledge that HAGO is giving a huge opportunity for local talents to showcase what they can do. We hope this won't be the last." He further explained during the insightful press conference that such competition could help plant the seed of new game developers and growing the gaming industry in Indonesia to be hopefully recognized internationally.
Prior to the Jawara Game Development Competition Indonesia, this year HAGO had conducted several collaborations with companies and institutions, such as AXIS for the offline Lipstick Challenge event, Miniso for Eid Al Fitr event, and Angkasa Pura II for the Airport Week Fest. In 2020, HAGO is further planning to collaborate with companies and agencies to give Indonesian developers the chance to contribute in making games creatively to improve the quality of life.
About HAGO:
HAGO is a social gaming application that targets the rapidly growing urban population in Indonesia. There are two aspects to the ideas that underlie the presence of HAGO - social and games. The social aspect lies in connecting strangers online and helping them to get to know each other so that eventually they become friends. Through more than 40 choices of casual games in the application with more than 30 million users, HAGO helps everyone to not only fill their free time positively but also encourage new friendships for each user, wherever and whenever.
Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20191219/2676490-1?lang=0
