The Indian mobile gaming market can potentially explode on the back of localised games

India has immense linguistic diversity with 23 official languages, and 122 major languages . There is an increase in demand for local, regional language content. All over the world, including China, Vietnam, Korea, Japan and in Latin American countries, users prefer to consume gaming content in local languages as against English. In India, that is not an easily available option, and there is a dearth of high quality local language content. The latest technology and content is simply not available in local languages , and this presents a big opportunity for content creators and developers.

Last year India has 220 million local users, with a player base of 180 million. This is a vast market that needs catering to. Game developers stand to benefit by localising games for the Indian market. A survey conducted by Gamesbond shows that 43 percent of developers who distribute their games globally, localise the content. 10 percent localise their products because of demands from the publisher. 47 percent of developers do not localise their games.

Considering the high demand for content in local languages, as well as a lack of options for consuming rich interactive experiences in local languages, there is an immense opportunity for game developers, to tap into newer markets.

While Indus OS does offer some degree of localisation, and is the second most popular operating system in India , the content is not available in a uniform quality in all the major languages. Developers can craft high quality localised games that will be incredibly attractive to a starving market.

Making the gaming content available in localised language is one thing, but there are also thematic and technical expectations from the vast, undertapped market in rural India. The demand is for Indian themes and Indian games, such as bollywood, sports or gambling.

The games stand to do better if they have low system requirements, have a small download size suitable for downloading over spotty 2G connections, and if the games can be entirely played offline.