FarmVille co-creator Mark Skaggs catches the express train to India to make mobile games

Mark Skaggs is a seasoned game designer whose hits such as FarmVille and Empires & Allies reached more than 365 million people. But after seven years at social mobile game giant Zynga, he resigned last fall to his next big thing. And today, he’s revealing that his future lies in making mobile games with an Indian game studio.

In an exclusive interview with GamesBeat, Skaggs said he is joining Moonfrog Labs in Bangalore, India, as a game designer and board member. The move says a lot about how India has a chance to be the next big thing in the $30 billion mobile games market. Its market is relatively small, with revenues last year of about $200 million, but the region is adding more than 100 million smartphone users a year, and they’re starting to play a lot of games. By 2019, it could hit $3 billion, according to former game analyst Atul Bagga.