KRAFTON India Launches KIGI Academy With IIT Madras

KRAFTON India has launched the KRAFTON India Gaming Incubator (KIGI) Academy with IIT Madras to develop game development talent through industry-led training. Its first cohort will have 30 students in a fully funded, six-month program covering coding, UI/UX, game design, art, and product development.

Anuj Sahni, KRAFTON India's head of the KRAFTON Incubator Program and director of publishing, stated that the initiative aims to bridge academic education with practical game development. He added that students will gain experience across the process, “from ideation and design to development, user experience, and publishing.”

KIGI Academy Puts Students Through Game Production

The program starts with a 16-week on-campus phase at IIT Madras, where students will use Unity, focus on mobile gaming, and complete weekly collaborative builds.

10 students will then enter an eight-week residency at KRAFTON India's Bengaluru headquarters, gaining production experience and creating a final vertical slice game. Industry mentors will introduce KRAFTON's global development standards, while exceptional participants can receive full-time roles.

Applications are open through the IIT Madras placement portal to third- and fourth-year bachelor’s students, dual-degree students from all years, and postgraduate and master’s students from any engineering discipline. No prior game development experience is required.

Selection includes screening and personal interviews.

KRAFTON Brings its Korea Model to India

KIGI Academy draws from KRAFTON Jungle, launched in Korea in October 2022 as a project-based residency covering development from prototype to public launch. KRAFTON aims to train 1K developers annually there, with Jungle operators mentoring KIGI participants.

The Indian curriculum adapts that approach for the country's mobile-first gaming market, which had 511M gamers and generated $1.04B USD in revenue in 2025, according to Niko Partners.

The partnership also gives KRAFTON access to a talent pool already familiar with technical development, while IIT Madras adds an academic setting to the company’s hands-on training model. With game development still requiring skills that traditional engineering courses do not always cover, KIGI Academy puts that gap at the center of the program.