As technology has advanced, the thrill and enticement of playing games have only increased, with a more visual stimulus, creativity, and satisfaction.
A game is fundamental, a set of rules in which with constraint you can achieve an objective. Games can competitive or cooperative. The human species at present, conservatively spends more than three hundred billion hours, per year. With the world’s second-largest internet population, a large number of people in India have already been shifted from traditional board games towards the online gaming spectrum.
Online Gaming
With one of the world’s largest youth population, India is on the path to becoming one of the world’s leading markets in the online gaming sector. The advent of India’s online gaming industry can be dated back to the 2000s when console and PC gaming brought several middle-income group Indians on digital gaming platforms.
Gamers across the globe are playing video games an average of eight hours and 27 minutes each week said the report. Indian online gamers spend 8.5 hours a week. Indian video game players spend an average of eight and a half hours each week playing, with over 60 percent claiming to have played games for three consecutive hours or more.
The market value of India’s gaming industry was around 90 billion Indian rupees in the financial year 2020. Values at USD 890 million, the Indian gaming industry is estimated for an annual growth rate of 14.3% with mobile gaming taking the lead at 71% share. The growth is driven by the rising younger population, higher disposable incomes, the introduction of new gaming genres, and the increasing number of smartphone and tablet users.
With the skyrocketing consumer base and e-commerce solutions in place, the Indian game developer ecosystem will have more than enough opportunities to innovate and provide compelling content with relevant social and cultural context, which is the key to engaging the Indian consumer.
A report showed that video game playing rose to a new level across the world, with consumers’ playing time up 14 percent over last year. Social interactions, improved game performance, and latency-free environments are expected by Indian gamers, as it gives them an opportunity to connect with gamers across the world and remain engaged for longer durations. Gaming companies have their task cut out for them, as they have to match up to the transformation in the Indian landscape and meet the fast-paced growth in demand.
More than half of the gamers around the globe claimed that they have made new friends through online games during the outbreak of COVID-19 when not everyone was allowed to leave their homes and social distancing was mandatory (still is). Furthermore, the report suggested that one in every three wants to interact with other players.
India chronicled about 365 million online gamers in the financial year 2020. This number was estimated to reach 510 million by the fiscal year 2022. Overall, India ranked the highest in terms of the growth in online game downloads on app stores with a growth rate of 165 percent between 2016 to 2018.
From 2020 to 2021, the average for binge gaming in India has increased from 4.1 hours to 5.5 hours, and it is being attributed to the pandemic, as people are forced to stay home for long hours.
E-sports has taken India by storm. E-sports is a part of gaming that’s competitive where various genres of games are played competitively against other players on different platforms. India is already taking strides to become the biggest market for Esports. COVID 19’s knock-out punch to the world economy has led the whole world on its knees again. Almost every industry and business had to lay off their employees.
But this wasn’t the case with the gaming companies. In fact, the COVID times haves actually been gold for these companies. Paytm first games register 5 million app downloads amidst COVID lockdown. While casual games like ludo and rummy grew 4 to 5 times.
As compared to the global markets, India encompasses a miscellaneous consumption pattern and gaming behavior.
Decoding the Indian Online Gamer
| Description | Market Characteristics | Research Output |
| Triggers for initiating online gaming | Friends are considered as a key trigger for initiating online gaming | Around 48 percent of gamer(s) |
| Reasons for continuing to play online games | Stress relief/ social interaction are key reasons for continuing to play online games Stress relief/ social interaction are key reasons for continuing to play online games | More than 75 percent of gamer(s) |
A heavy gamer engages in gaming over a wide range of genres and spends an average of over 30 minutes per day on online gaming. Studies have shown that more than a quarter of young (below 24 years) comprises the high share of heavy gamer(s) as compared to the other age groups, which are predominantly casual gamer(s).
Opportunities for interactivity and social engagement are likely drivers for video game adoption with the majority (64 percent) of global gamers saying they started playing video games in the past year.
Gamers in India are among those who are most likely to consider upgrading their console.
By Mayank Vashisht | Technology Journalist | ELE Times
