Indian gaming landscape: Entry, revival and escape

By Kewal Krishna Bhoi Last decade was a decade of twists and turns for the Indian Gaming Industry. The industry which was doing extremely well in early 2000s came to stall in the wake of global recession of 2008 which forced a great initiative like Zapak Gaming from an entertainment giant Reliance to exit the market and many more companies back in early 2000 share the same story. Nevertheless, post great recession India has picked up faster growth track and standing out among all the emerging economies. The sign of revival trend in Indian gaming is also picking up very fast with growing demand in the Indian market. Recent announcement by Flipkart and Amazon to enter online gaming events, is giving a positive sign about the industry and resulted in revival of companies like Zapak, AMD in the country. Apart from revival of the companies several new companies have lined up their entries to entertainment. And this queue is expected grow further due to rapid growth in mobile phone users & internet penetration in the country. We have seen Zepetto Gaming from Korea, entering the market with their free to play, micro transaction, FPS game “Piercing blow” and team Zepetto looks very aggressive in their efforts to fill the void which was created by Valve after discontinuing Counter Strike 1.6 which has a huge gamer & fan base in the country. I believe they have done a lot of market research and see huge potential in Indian market. As per FICCI KPMG report on gaming industry, the gaming industry is expected to grow at a CAGR of 14.3 percent and will be a Rs 45 billion market by 2019.  Gamers at PBMT These positive signs have also brought back old players and the recent announcements of Gaming events like Indian Gaming League and ESL India premiership by Nodwin gaming followed by Flipkart’s FGOC, is helping in redevelopment of the gaming ecosystem which got vanished in wake of global crisis. Gaming at community level is also reshaping itself by creating space for globally popular phenomena “Esports”. Recent initiative by Asus to sponsor a team called “Beyond Infinity” is also fostering the entire gaming ecosystem where publisher, hardware manufacturer and gamers can prosper to attain new heights. Gaming is at very early stage in India and industry have to go through its own learning curve. And the development of strong value chain and ecosystem is very important for the industry. The fusion of allied sectors like game development, animation & designing is also very important not only from Make for India point of view but also from Make in India prospective. Interestingly, we have huge youth workforce which can help in development a co-creative ecosystem around gaming. According to NASSCOM report, the no. of PC gamers in the country is 5-7 million with 1-1.5 million hard core gamer population. But one of the key challenge still lies ahead of the industry i.e. perception about Gaming in the society. The perception has certainly improved a lot compared to decade back situation but still we have long way to go to make it mainstream and acceptable for the society. The way gaming community has evolved, is also commendable. India has become a hub of coders and game developer. The gaming community has given us lot of self-made entrepreneurs. The all industry needs to do is recognize them and showcase them in front of society. And I believe if such things happen gaming itself become mainstream by 2020. I believe gaming is need of the hour to solve social issues like drug addiction, illiteracy and more importantly unemployment in the country. Country needs a plethora of opportunities from all sector to create jobs of rapidly growing youth population of the country. Most amazing part of the story is that game developers from India are already global developers of game companies like Virtual Infocom which was established by serial entrepreneur Arijit Bhattacharyya already has that capability. Astonishingly this company has developed an ecosystem in itself. They nurture the local talent and shape them into world class game developers through their own training facilities and infrastructure. A lot has been done and said it’s the high time, we start recognizing this local pool of talent and provide a platform where they can showcase their skills. Gamers are ready, developers are ready and most importantly we as a nation are ready. There is only missing link which we have to build is the platform, a series of networking events. And if we explore the globe, there is abundance of such initiatives. We need to observe the other global platforms how they function and what values they add to society and industry. One such event is happening this week at Los Angeles convention center. Its ESA’s E3 expo.E3 is one of the world’s most premier trade show for computer, video &mobile games and related products. At E3, the video game industry’s top talent gather at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Every year, it connects tens of thousands of the best, brightest, and most innovative professionals in the interactive entertainment industry. This year event is being hosted from 14th June to 16th June and for three exciting days the leading-edge companies, ground-breaking new technologies and never-before-seen products will be showcased. E3 is also exploring opportunities in emerging markets like India. And it will be worth waiting for E3 expo, to see what they have for emerging markets or for that matter India. And it’s great to see Indian Gaming industry taking part in exhibitor events like Computex which took place last week in Taipei. More participation in such events will boost our learning and will make us learn and innovate from global players. I see very interesting future ahead for Gaming industry and stars have already started shining for the industry. The recent announcement of 6 point agenda by our honourable PM Narendra Modi at US congress includes increasing broadband connectivity across the country, will open new opportunities and market for the industry. All we need are sincere efforts and right mentorship for our young gaming community and if the industry will work together in right direction then it won’t take long to fulfil the Indian Gaming dream.