We started our journey as Games Studies India Adda, a collective of game enthusiasts, developers and researchers from India. Our journey began in 2020, amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, when people all across the country returned to games as a communal medium to affirm ties and bonds that had been suddenly frozen in a nation in lockdown. Our aim was to seek to uncover, discuss, engage with existing as well as emergent game traditions in India that had shaped and contributed to its rich panoply of cultures, habits and political thought through the ages. Conscious of the importance of ‘play’ in the subcontinent, we choose an important Indian tradition of discourse on games-the Bengali mode of ‘Adda’ (an informal symposium-like conversation with multiple speakers where everything under and beyond the Sun can be discussed). We are excited to be at the cutting edge of games research in India and aim to situate our work firmly within ongoing global research on games and culture as DiGRA’s Indian chapter today.
Digital Games Research Association, India 