OS Studios names Ishaan Arya as India country manager

BENGALURU: OS Studios is not sending a suit to crack India’s gaming boom, it is sending one of its own. The global fan experience agency, born out of gaming culture itself, has appointed Ishaan Arya, a veteran of gaming, esports and live events, as country manager for India, handing him the job of building out the agency’s new hubs in Bengaluru, New Delhi and Mumbai from scratch.

OS Studios, part of the Project Worldwide network, recently landed in India to roll out its signature Fan Z playbook, designed to close the experience gap for brands trying to muscle into South Asia’s fast-moving gaming, esports and live events scene. The expansion rides on the existing infrastructure and production muscle of sister agency George P. Johnson India.

John Higgins, chief executive of OS Studios, framed the appointment as a statement of intent rather than a hire. The future of gaming, he said, will be shaped by the communities that care about it most, and few markets embody that better than India. Building something meaningful in this space means being part of the culture rather than peering in from outside, he added, and Arya understands that better than most, making him exactly the kind of leader the agency wants steering its future in the country.

The agency arrives with a serious global résumé to back the swagger. OS Studios has delivered experiential and broadcast campaigns for Call of Duty: Next, the League of Legends Fanfest at Worlds, Major League Rugby, Ultimate Sevens, the Red Bull Basement World Final, Red Bull Homeground 2025, TikTok LiveFest EU 2025, Riot Games’ Arcane season 2 launch campaign and the NBA 2K League, among others.

In his new role, Arya will run all operations, drive strategic brand partnerships, and scale up the agency’s local capabilities across the region. Rasheed Sait, chief growth officer for India and South Asia at Project Worldwide, did not mince words about the gap Arya is being hired to close. Brands are pouring money into Indian gaming, he said, but genuine fan experience too often gets treated as an afterthought. Alongside GPJ India’s experiential footprint, he added, OS Studios intends to set a new standard for fan engagement in the region.

Arya brings more than a decade in the trenches to the job. He co-founded the esports outfit The Esports Club and, most recently, served as vice president of partnerships at Nodwin Gaming, where he led Comic Con India.

Arya himself zeroed in on the same gap his new bosses keep flagging, calling the divide between brand intent and authentic community engagement in India a massive one that remains unresolved. He said he was thrilled to use Project Worldwide and GPJ India’s operational strength to build culture-defining experiences for brands and fans alike.

His appointment signals a deliberate push by OS Studios to embed hyper-local expertise into its global framework rather than parachute in outsiders. Under his leadership, OS Studios India will offer a full suite of services: brand strategy and activation blueprints for non-endemic brands looking to integrate authentically; live event operations for large-scale experiential gaming and community activations; end-to-end broadcast production covering world-class live streaming and event coverage; creator management to cultivate and scale local gaming influencer campaigns; and community building to develop and sustain engaged fan bases around brands and intellectual property.

India’s gaming economy has no shortage of brands waving cheque books at it. What it has lacked, on this telling, is someone who actually understands the crowd on the other side of the screen. OS Studios has just bet its entire India strategy on the idea that Arya is that person, and the country’s gamers, not the boardrooms, will be the ones who decide if the bet pays off.