Online gaming is the next big thing across the world and India is among the countries leading this fantasy market. With increased online penetration, the gaming community in India has increased manifold in the last couple of years. As per media reports, the Indian audience is expected to grow from $2.8 billion in 2022 to $5 billion in 2025 at a CAGR of 28-30%.
Online gaming or Internet gaming is something that has crossed all regional and age barriers in India. Be it metro cities or Tier II and Tier II cities, the trend of online gaming is catching on fast. In 2022, India became the largest consumer of online games with a total downloads of over 15 billion. This is no mean feat, and the most obvious reason for this immense popularity are the advanced gaming technologies that are making online gaming more engaging and entertaining. With technology enhancements such as Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, Web 3.0, 3D gaming and Blockchain coming into play, online gaming is fast gaining traction. The space is getting exciting with an exponential increase in numbers of both gamers and game developers. Also, with increasing 5G connectivity gaming in India is growing by leaps and bounds.
The advent of new technologies such as Web 3.0 is revolutionasing gaming in more ways than one. With Web 3, gamers get a lot more ownership than ever before, and this is something they are loving most. It uses the latest Blockchain technology to offer security in terms of in-game asset management and transparency. The use of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and decentralised finance (DeFi) gives gamers the liberty of owning their assets which they can trade anytime across different platforms. So gaming today is not only about entertainment, it is also about adding a safe source of income. Gamers today like the possibilities of creating their own virtual world, which is almost like a comforting second world to them with their own set of fellow gamers, and this is made possible with new-age technologies including Metaverse.
Another gamechanger in iGaming is the advent of Cloud technology. The future of gaming is slowly but definitely moving towards Cloud Gaming or online streaming on remote servers. As the name suggests, Cloud technology comes with unbounding possibilities. With Cloud technology in iGaming one is not constricted to a console or any one particular platform/device. And with companies like Microsoft, Google and Netflix (to name a few) spending billions in streaming games, the road ahead for Cloud gaming is only going to get more exciting.
What has made it more buoyant for the Indian iGaming industry is the coming up of games studios in a big way. Investors are showing keen interest in these studios making technology enhancements possible. As per the India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF) report, the iGaming market size in India is set to reach US$ 8.6 billion by FY27. Even the Indian government has shown the right thrust by setting up the Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming and Comic (AVGC) Promotion Task Force to support the gaming industry with better growth opportunities.
And as we look forward, the gaming industry in India is poised to get bigger and futuristic with every technology enhancement. Aided by a huge youth population, 5G connectivity and the easy availability of smartphones to a larger audience, the iGaming industry is one to watch out for.
(This article is written by Dmitry Belianin, CCO Parimatch International, and the views expressed in this article are his own)
