Uncovering India's potential to become a global gaming hub

With India being one of the largest markets for gaming, the sector is poised to see more innovation coming in to make experiences more personalised.

At TechSparks Mumbai 2024, Rahul Tewari, CFO, Games24x7, joined Madanmohan Rao, Research Director, YourStory Media, in a conversation on the future of India's gaming market and game development ecosystem.

"India has over 400 million gamers, and users are looking for more personal and immersive gaming and entertainment experiences. This opportunity will lead to a lot more disruption in the space," said Tewari. "We are seeing that 5G technology could enable cloud gaming, and metaverse and Web3 gaming could become a long-term trend. India is positioned well to capture these trends."

Tewari also touched on how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can make gaming more personalised. "AI can be used for hyper-personalised performance marketing in games. For example, you could create custom collateral on the fly," he explained.

Gaming giants like Games 24x7 are looking to tap into these white spaces by bringing a more data-driven, scientific approach to their growth strategies.

Games 24x7 calls its ethos 'The Science of Gaming'.

"This is a way for us to look at everything through the lens of data. Right from acquiring users, to activating them, retaining them and monetising them, we are collecting data at scale," he explained, adding:

"This data helps us fine-tune customer journeys, as well as fearlessly experiment."

The conversation highlighted that India's massive potential in gaming is evident, but more needs to be done.

In fact, India is the fastest-growing mobile gaming market, with the annual revenue of the overall domestic gaming industry expected to double to almost $6 billion by 2028 from $3.1 billion in 2023, as per a report by WinZO and Interactive Entertainment and Innovation Council.

However, India still needs to build truly world-class games and globalise its offerings.

"We have a large game developer ecosystem as well. The scale is here. Going forward, we need to become more mindful about the gaming content created, and how it is monetised," Tewari said.