Why gaming is India's "new entertainment frontier"Developers and other experts take us through the challenges they face, and how rising player spending is fuelling more ambitious gamesImage credit: Battlegrounds Mobile India by Krafton Feature by James Batchelor Editor-in-chief Published on Dec. 10, 2024 2018 was a pivotal year for the video games industry in India. Smartphones had already been moving towards the ubiquity they enjoy in the West but the launch of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds marked a significant shift for the market.Real-money gaming titles have dominated the Indian gaming market for well over a decade, and continue to do so, but Krafton's multiplayer shooter demonstrated an appetite for different experiences that went beyond the gambling and casual games that typically rule the roost on mobile."That game really changed perceptions and even the market entirely because before that, gaming had been very polarising," explains independent consultant Sameer Desai, whose previous roles include editor of MCV India and country head for THQ Nordic. "For one thing, it was seen as for kids, but on the other hand it was seen as too violent for kids to play. There were games that were popular before Angry Birds, Temple Run, and so on but PUBG came in and suddenly blew up on mobile."That happened around the same time that smartphones and data became cheaper, so that really helped. All of this created the perfect storm. You also had influencers playing PUBG, creating videos in Indian languages, which hadn't really happened before. All that came together, and PUBG became this poster child for what gaming can be in India." Sameer Desai, consultantPre-2018, gaming was "like the Wild West" in India, Desai continues. PC and consoles were available but the cost of entry for consumers was high, which led most to piracy ("You could just browse PS2 games in a store like vinyl records," he says). The arrival of Steam helped somewhat, but the market never grew to the size seen in other markets."It was also a very urban phenomenon because only people who had the disposable income could get into gaming," Desai adds. "It was a luxury, but now gaming is becoming a hobby and people are even looking to make careers out of it."Sharmilee Daru founder of 4WD Gaming, a leading PR agency in India describes the country as "a mobile-first market" but an emerging one with a taste for Western-developed games."A lot of international titles do work here as well, but local developers are now coming up with their own titles, whether they're AAA, casual, or across various categories," she says."There is no doubt the market here is growing. The games industry, the esports industry they're all booming. Gaming is India's new entertainment frontier. I believe revenues will keep building, the number of gamers will keep growing, and we'll see more companies making more games."Daru cites two reports exploring the potential growth for games in India. First, Niko Partners predicts the Indian games market will cross the $1 billion revenue mark next year. Secondly, a recent Lumiaki report forecasts that Indian games revenues will reach $9.2 billion by FY 2029, indicating rapid growth in spending."There is no doubt the market here is growing. The games industry, the esports industry they're all booming. Gaming is India's new entertainment frontier"Sharmilee Daru, 4WD GamingThis has been largely enabled by the introduction of the Unified Payments Interface in 2016. This mobile payment system links directly to the users bank account, and can be integrated into all apps, including games."The openness [to spend] was always there, but it was the modes of payment. Indians are not very comfortable using their credit or debit cards online," Desai explains. "The moment we had UPI, it made it much simpler. Even Western games like Valorant allow you to easily buy in-game using UPI you barely leave the game, it's very seamless. Valorant is now said to be making $2 million a month in India which might not sound like much, but here that's a lot."It still remains an issue on consoles, you can still only pay on card on those, whereas Steam also has UPI built in now. [But] the player counts were there even though the revenues were not. The moment that changes is when India will really start propelling the industry."What do Indian gamers play?While player spending is expected to rise, little of that revenue is expected to go directly to Indian games companies. The vast majority of popular games are from overseas titles like Valorant, Clash of Clans, Candy Crush Saga, and Free Fire by Singaporean dev Garena. Sharmilee Daru, 4WD GamingBut the success of PUBG or Battlegrounds Mobile India, the version developed specifically for this market has inspired a wave of developers to make their own midcore shooters, such as the upcoming FAU-G Domination a deathmatch game set in India and developed by Mumbai studio Dot9 Games. And Daru is confident that a domestic game will make its way to the upper echelons of the charts."There are great numbers of gamers, but the real revenue percentage increase will happen when there are local games getting in there and users start spending on these games," she says."I hope there's going to be a local game that does well soon. India is nearly there. You never know which game it could be, but once a great game makes it to the top, the entire ecosystem will benefit."Indian gamers' tastes are varied. Anime is hugely popular across the nation, so naturally Genshin Impact and MiHoYo's other titles have been a hit. On the other hand, Japanese RPGs are less popular and genre flagship Final Fantasy didn't really take off in India until it moved to real-time combat. Cricket video games are also massive even more so than in Australia, according to one panelist at India GDC 2024.India's console and PC players are significantly fewer than mobile users. Indie developer and analyst Rishi Alwani says the "numbers aren't where they should be based on the population" and estimates console and PC only represent 10% of the Indian market. But this crowd is increasingly aware of what is popular in other markets and seeks out those titles; for example, Black Myth: Wukong was popular among console and PC players in India."PUBG became this poster child for what gaming can be in India"Sameer Desai, consultantDesai adds: "Any games that are not heavily into narrative will do just fine in India without localising it. That's why PUBG, Valorant, and Fortnite do so well. Even games like God of War, you'll see YouTubers translating the story into Hindi for those who want to play it, so some IPs still do well even though they're story-based games."Real-money gaming such as casino-type games where players hope to win cash prizes still dominates the market. However, there has been a noticeable shift towards midcore and action games like the aforementioned shooters. Alwani says there are two factors behind the rise of midcore games."First, we have cheap data," he says, referring to how costly it used to be to download larger games. "It's relatively easy for someone to download a 1GB file because data prices are relatively low."Secondly, smartphone prices have trended lower and even if you're spending the same amount, you're getting more bang for buck. We're seeing a lot of devices [where] you have enough storage. If you look at a game like BGMI or Free Fire, which are at least 1GB downloads, you don't have a problem with that."Despite the small audience for console and PC players in India, many indies still target these devices in the hopes of reaching a global audience. Chirag Chopra is founder of Lucid Labs, a studio that has previously specialised in premium mobile games but is now moving towards console, PC, and even virtual reality. Western games light on narrative, such as Valorant, have proven to be popular in IndiaWhile it is much easier to make games for these platforms today, he notes that getting attention for them is increasingly tough especially as there isn't much of a traditional games media scene in India."It's all about cold emailing [global sites], getting in touch with folks like you and just asking, 'Hey, would you like to write about us?'" he says.This also increases the pressure for Indian indies to attend international events like GDC and Gamescom, but the costs of doing so can be prohibitive."As an indie, bootstrapped studio with hardcore frugal values behind us, we don't visit a lot of events," Chopra says. "We only visit them when we have a set agenda, like meeting publishers or platform holders. If it's just to showcase [the game], for us it doesn't make sense because we can't afford to be at the event just for those purposes."Finding the fundsChopra adds that securing finance from Indian investors and funding programs can be difficult because most of them "don't get games.""The challenge is to tell them why this is a multi-billion industry, and that's been going on for three, four years. It has been improving, but not at a rate you would expect." Chirag Chopra, Lucid LabsSimilarly, there is little in the way of government support for games companies compared to other markets, with Chopra reporting there are no "direct channels between your studio and government." But various Indian games developers are working to change that."We've realised that the problem is not that the government doesn't want to support us, but [that] they don't know how this industry functions," he explains. "We need people working directly with them, not only bridging the gap but translating all the jargon into a language they understand."That's why progress has been slow. It's not like Europe where you can show a prototype to Creative Europe and get a grant. Those kinds of things don't exist here, but chances are they might very soon."Chopra also observes there aren't many Indian success stories for studios to learn from. Alwani adds that developers who do produce a hit are known to share their lessons, either via LinkedIn or local events such as India GDC, but by and large there's a lack of deeper knowledge to help grow the development scene."If you gave everyone $10 million, or even $50 million, chances are they wouldn't know what to do with it," says Chopra. "Just getting the money is not the only thing we lack. There are no AAA studios here, there are no AA studios. The ones we have are mostly into mobile, live ops, and all that. How do you even make a AAA open-world game? It's not as simple as just setting up enough people."Desai notes that major games publishers do have some presence in India. EA has premises in Hyderabad, but it's mostly for testing and live operations. Rockstar's studio in Bengaluru is said to provide much of the GTA developer's art assets, while Zynga's office in the same city handles both art and live ops."The challenge is to tell [the government] why this is a multi-billion industry, and that's been going on for three, four years. It has been improving, but not at a rate you would expect"Chirag Chopra, Lucid LabsUbisoft, meanwhile, has two studios in Mumbai and Pune which handle a mix of production, quality control, and business support, as well as auditions and filming of dancers for the Just Dance series.And Desai believes these companies lay the foundation for future growth in India's development scene."Eventually, I think people who work in these studios will branch out and create their own games, like what has happened in other markets," he says. "We're probably five or so years away from that happening."Another challenge India's games industry faces concerns the talent pipeline. Various developers tell us there's little to no universities or colleges that offer games-specific courses. Those who can afford such an education often study abroad, and those that can't are self-taught thanks to the abundance of tutorials for Unity, Unreal, and so on.There is also increasing support from ID@Xbox and PlayStation's India Hero Project means indies have more opportunities to work directly with platform holdersTargeting IndiaWhen it comes to releasing games in India, there are several things publishers need to know. Firstly, as we highlighted, this is a mobile-dominated market with a very small console/PC presence. Secondly, pricing requires a very different approach."A $5 purchase for someone in London is not the same as for someone in India," says Chopra. "For us, a $5 purchase probably means the entire game. Localised pricing is a no brainer. There's a reason why both Apple and Google came up with a three rupee purchase ($0.03) [for in-game transactions]." Rishi Alwani, Masala GamesDesai agrees, noting that games that are $70 in the West are more likely to be $40 in India."That's important to follow," he adds. "A lot of publishers don't follow that, they use the same pricing for the whole world. That's an easy thing to fix."With 23 languages spoken across India, localisation might seem like a daunting task but all the developers we spoke to assure us that English penetration is so high that this is not essential. Nor is culturalisation, although it is appreciated.India is considered to be a country within Asia-Pacific, but Desai warns publishers that the market is so diverse and different to other APAC nations that any strategy they typically apply to the whole region won't necessarily work. Instead, he advises adopting India-specific policies."We have 28 states," he says. "When you cross borders from one state to another, often the language changes, the cuisine changes, the way people dress, what festivals they celebrate it really is like multiple countries. But we've all been bundled into one and companies are like 'Well, this is India.' Actually, there's a lot of diversity within the country. Which is why India can't fall under APAC, because there are at least five cultures here so it does require a different approach."Correction: This article previously quoted Desai as saying Valorant was generating $2 million per year in India. This has been corrected to per month