Agate (game company)

Agate under PT Agate International is an Indonesian video game development company based in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia.[1] It was founded on April 1, 2009, by 18 people and continues to thrive today as it has reached over 8 times the size of when it was first founded and has worked in collaboration with several large companies such as Square Enix and Electronic Arts.

The company’s motto is, “Live the Fun Way”, believing that life would be better when fun is around and games are one of the ways of achieving it. [6] Hence, Agate remains active in game and gamification related events, often also being the one holding them.

The company now also branches in serious games, providing gamified solutions to companies either via gamification of systems, advertisement games or training games meant to simulate the work environment. There are many notable companies that Agate had worked for. Few among them are: Microsoft, Samsung, and Coca Cola.

Back in October, 22 and 23, 2011, Agate together with Kummara and AnimartDigi held Indonesia Bermain in Bandung. It was recorded that more than 7000 people attended and hundreds of digital and conventional games were played.

Company History

The founders of Agate met in October 2007 as college students when they decided to make a game with no budget. With no experience on making games beforehand, the game only made it to a playable state before being scrapped. Learning from this experience, the team moved on to make a game for Microsoft’s Dream Build Play competition, titled Ponporon!. The title was showcased on Indonesia Game Show in 2008 and gave new hope to the team which drove them to start a video game company, which was officially founded on April 1, 2009.

Seeing market condition at the time, Agate focused in flash games for a while before venturing to make advergames and service games in 2010. In addition, within that year, the company merged with another game studio named Lucidrine a fellow game studio that had previously worked at several popular flash games such as Valthirian Arc which continues to be an ongoing serial project, now worked on by Agate.  

The company expanded once more in 2011 with the establishment of Agate Jogja in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, along with the addition of a publishing division and attaining partnership with Chillingo. Within the same year, Agate had begun developing console games for the first time in its history, along with venturing into the creation of browser-based social games. In 2012, Agate started a third-party publishing business while their game Football Saga reached its peak of 58.000 monthly users and 10.000 active daily users. Within the year, was also the first ever representative of Indonesia in the annual Tokyo Game Show to appear in its Asia New Stars, an exhibition geared towards introducing emerging game developers from Asia.

In 2013, the company helped co-found AGI (Indonesia Gaming Association) while, in the same year, establishing a partnership with Square Enix to publish and localize Sengoku IXA in Indonesia. And in 2014, formed a partnership with Les’ Copaque Productions to develop a game for the most well-known IP in South East Asia, Upin and Ipin.

By 2015, Agate’s serious game business finally expanded outside of Indonesia and out to the whole of South East Asia catering to companies such as (Need reference here) in the process. In 2016, scored a $1.000.000 USD pre-series A round led by a local venture firm known as Maloekoe Ventures. The company also expands their serious game business further to the company training games business.

In 2017, Agate secured another partnership, this time with the biggest Telecommunications company in Indonesia, P.T. Telekomunikasi Indonesia, Tbk. Had a growth spurt of over 45% the number of employees than 2016 and achieved the title as the leading game company in Indonesia. To date, Agate had created over 250 games and gamification projects.

The Initiative

In 2018, Agate announced the establishment of two new initiatives that have the potential to develop the game industry within Indonesia. Those initiatives are Agate Academy and Agate Developer Partner. Known to be the most sustainable local game company and studio, earning that title certainly wasn’t without its trials and tribulations. From the odd small numbers of professionals compared to the consumers, the wide knowledge gap that exists between local and the global game industry and of course, the diminishingly small numbers of studios and companies that could accept and harbor young talents and workforces of the game industry. These are the hardships that Agate has come to be so familiar with during the 9-years journey. And yet, those same things now become the foundation of why Agate Academy and Agate Developer Partner is established.

Agate Academy

Agate Academy is a nonprofit division that moves in the field of education aiming to improve and nurture future developers and professionals within the country. This division will have many simultaneously proactive activities that will hopefully help the growth of local game creators. Activities such as Agate DevCamp, Agate Lab, Agate Scholar and Agate Invite will hopefully be the inception of many discussions among game developers and the soon-to-be developers. We hope that with the availability of a learning canal among developers, the fresh seeds would grow healthily and steadily, considering the lush potential of the industry’s global growth.

Agate Developer Partner

Agate Developer Partner is also hoped to be the beginnings of a fundamental knowledge-sharing about games and its development. The difference here, however, is that as Agate Academy is targeted for individuals and youthful potentials in the industry, Agate Developer Partner is aimed more towards groups, companies, and studios as a whole that is spread throughout Indonesia.

Agate Developer Partner will have its main objective to share two fundamental points with the game developer groups of Indonesia. The first one being knowledge-sharing, such as expert review that is available online and accessible to the public, as well as exclusive in-depth discussions and advanced course on game business production available solely for members that have joined the program. Comparing to the Agate Academy, this knowledge-sharing of Agate Developer Partner is divulged only to developers that are already considered to be intent and wholehearted about diving into the world of the game industry. The second point is the offer to provide the cash flow. In this regard, Agate is opening the chance to share projects with new developer teams that are in need of revenue to survive whilst working on their respective products. This will also serve to give experience and increase the levels of expertise and skill set to new developers before they start or partake in any larger projects. To that end, there is no expense needed from partners that have joined. This partnership will be free of charge. This is after all incurred due to Agate’s own wish to help the game industry grow further.

The Founders

Agate’s founders consist of 17 people in which during the time of the founding, were all university student.

• Arief Widhiyasa
• Andrew Pratomo Budianto
• Aditia Dwiperdana
• Aswin Juari
• Andhika Estrada
• Beatrice Nauli Pohan
• Charles Haryadi
• Erga Ghaniya
• I Made Teguh Arief Baskara
• Nadia Kusumahdewi
• Nikki Dibya Wardhana
• Ray Suryadipta Susanto
• Riyani Mardikaningrum
• Shieny Aprilia
• Teguh Budi Wicaksono
• Vincentius H.W. Ismawan
• Wiradeva Arif

External links

• Official website