Tech Innovations & Internet Affordability Fuelling Gaming Market in India 

Tech Innovations & Internet Affordability Fuelling Gaming Market in India 

eSports Industry in India is still at the nascent stage as it is not a massive industry if we look at the global benchmarks. But it is at the forefront of many industries across the world and has high potential if we look at the young population and increasing trend of gaming in the country. The growth of the PC gaming market is majorly propelled by the increased sales of PCs in tier I and II cities of India and it’s affordability. Availability of low-cost internet allows teenagers to connect online and play popular games and compete globally.  Growing roots of advanced gaming cafes across major cities in India is another major growth driver for this industry to grow at a good pace. Moreover, technological advancements in gaming sector i.e. Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR) are expanding the popularity of gaming among people as it gives a real-time experience to them. Leveraging these enormous opportunities, leading brands are planning big for the Indian gaming market. India has become a prominent destination for gaming organizers to organize big gaming events such as India Gaming Show, Indian Gaming League, ESL Gaming, and etc. The curve of the Indian gaming industry chart is relentlessly moving in an upward direction. By gathering crucial opinion from all stakeholders, DT has come up with Gaming growth opportunities story to educate technology partners about it’s potential in years to come.  

Growth of eSports in India

Indian gaming Industry has gradually picked up the momentum and today we are seeing customers specifically asking for gaming PCs which cost much more than the conventional PC. E-sports and exposure to global gaming events and LAN gaming is enhancing the gaming experience for Indians. “The Indian gaming industry has been continuously evolving over the past few years and availability of better PC hardware for gaming has definitely helped to bring more people to PC gaming. While the factors like Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR) will push the boundaries even higher. In addition to this, The Indian gaming industry has been advancing from casual to serious gamers thus we see a massive scope by reaching out to the bulk of untapped gamers across Tier I and Tier II cities. Our range of Nitro and Predator gaming product cater to the budding gamer to hardcore professional PC gamers. Our range of gaming products have propelled Acer to be the No.1 PC gaming laptop brand in 2018 and this is a testament to the faith our customers have shown to us,” said Chandrahas Panigrahi, CMO and Consumer Business Head, Acer India.

In India, there are gamers today playing different genres of games and aspiring to become professional athletes. According to Vishal Parekh, Marketing Director, Kingston Technology & HyperX India, “The pool of professional gamers are dramatically expanding as the emergence of premium gaming tournaments has allowed them to compete for unprecedented prize pools and create a sustainable revenue stream. While the Prize pool of Indian tournaments cross way beyond INR 5 crore, globally tournaments are a good benchmark which offers prize pools which are way bigger than other forms of reputed international sporting events like IPL & FIFA. Key endemic brands like HyperX have made their support clear with their investments in terms of money, energies & direction. We, in fact, helped introduce India to Worldly professional eSport events like ESL India Premiership (2016) and DreamHack (2018) and extending their supports to gamers. By empowering gamers from all gaming genres with exceptional gaming peripherals, HyperX is closely working towards enhancing their gaming potential to compete professionally.”

“Indian e-sports industry is gaining momentum in the past few years along with global widespread of battle royal genre based games like PUBG and Fortnite. Esports has become a global phenomenon not only to professional game teams but also to hundreds of millions of fans via their mobile phones, tablets and computers” stated Sunil Grewal, Director, GIGABYTE Technology (India) Pvt. Ltd. “AORUS as a premium gaming brand powered by GIGABYTE also sees the steady growth in hardware demand in gaming motherboard, GTX / RTX graphics card and gaming peripherals in India as gamers and fans in India are increasing significantly in the past years. GIGABYTE as the worldwide leading manufacturer in the gaming hardware is very excited to be one of the growing factors in E-sports industry and will work more closely with the community to benefit the community and industry in India.”

“The E-Sports/Gaming Market in India is growing rapidly. By 2020, India’s mobile games market alone will be worth over $1 billion. India is poised to become one of the world’s leading markets in Gaming Sector. Currently valued at $890 million, the Indian Gaming Industry is estimated for the annual growth rate of 14.3 percent with mobile gaming taking the lead at 71% share. The proliferation of inexpensive smartphones and high-speed internet is a primary catalyst for this rapid growth of the gaming industry here followed by the World’s largest Young population. Though the Industry (ESports) has very strong potential; one of the reasons why it shall be recognized for Olympics too, but still it’s in a very nascent stage in India, as against the other countries” says, Mukesh Chaudhary, Head, India & SAARC, Rapoo.

Manoj Pansari, Chairman & Managing Director, Astrum Holdings Ltd said, “eSports as an industry is poised for healthy growth over the next three years. A survey has predicted a 5.3% growth rate for the Asian eSports market, while in the Middle East the growth will be as high as 9.4%. This growth and explosion are driven by none other than the young people of today. The growth is attributed to the factors like the improved internet speed, smartphone penetration, government digital push and highest youth population. These factors put together e-sports in India in the right territory for growth. Voot, Hotstar, Youtube and Twitch are keeping the eSports’ passionate new generation engaged.”

“In India, e – Sports grew between 2012 and 2018, when smartphones became the primary mode of internet usage, enabled by an increased internet penetration and volume of budget devices. This rise in internet and mobile volumes have contributed significantly to the evolution of online gaming consumption/ e-sports in India” added Sudip De, Managing Director, Doel International Pvt. Ltd.

“The Gaming industry has grown rapidly in the last five years. Awareness and the public’s willingness to participate has taken a massive leap in terms of numbers. The infrastructure for the industry is also in place to support this growth. The primary factor at this moment is undeniably the growth of mobile gaming. It involves a resource which is readily available to almost all Indians i.e. a Smartphone. The evolution of gaming café’s has also contributed to the growth of this industry as they provided the infrastructure to support said growth. For many, acquiring a gaming PC is not something that they could afford; Gaming café’s helped to bridge that gap. Free-to-play games have also driven more people to try gaming as it reduces the cost of participation. Games like Fortnite, Apex Legends and PUBG mobile have paved the way for the evolution of such a format” concluded Himanshu Jain, Co-Founder & CEO, Acro Engineering Company.

Mujahid Rupani, Co-founder and C.E.O, Cobx Gaming added, “The Indian e-sports industry has come a long way from where it began. From being a leisure activity to becoming a serious business opportunity the industry has flourished beyond imagination. This growth of the industry can be attributed to the development and innovation in various sectors like technology, telecom, etc. The need to go beyond the boundaries of their own sector has helped the e-sports industry grow. For e.g., today due to affordable internet options and packs people are able to play high-end games on their phones. Adding them to the gaming population. Taking advantage of the easily accessible internet connections PUBG penetrated deep into the Indian terrains. Even people from tier 2 and 3 cities were spotted playing it. Thus, exposing more and more people to this segment. In coming days too, with AI and other technologies in place and with the growing interest of both endemic and non-endemic brands the e-sports industry will level up with traditional sports.”  

Green, Chang-Ching Lin, Regional Marketing Manager, MSI commented “MSI had led the gaming hardware industry in over 100 countries in the past decade. India is always our main focus in the SEA region. With the growth of popularity and engineering talents, more and more global technology brand has started its business in India. This may bring a huge profit for all of the brands in this ecosystem, including MSI. We have held abounds of gaming event at least 3 times a month in the past. We aim to provide more esports opportunities to all people and let everyone enjoy it. With a few years’ experiences in India, we found the attendee keep gaining in each month. And even more big tournament including DreamHack, ESL One … appear in India. The gaming industry is growing extremely fast in India.”

“There has been tremendous growth in the gaming segment in the past few years. In fact, desktop growth is predominantly because of the gaming uptake due to higher affordability and accessibility to various gaming solutions. Also with professionals increasingly getting into the gaming, the demand is shooting up globally and in India” stated Rajesh Goenka, Director, Sales and Marketing, RP tech India.

Future of eSports in India

“Gaming is a very compelling brand of entertainment in India and, with the current rate of technological innovation, there’s a huge potential for this industry. Newer hardware technology developments are engaging consumers with a more interactive and cinematic experience which has taken gaming to a completely new level” said Chandrahas Panigrahi, Acer India. “We foresee massive opportunities in the Indian gaming market as India has world’s largest youth population, thus is poised to become one of the world’s leading markets in Gaming Sector. The Indian esports market is projected to become five-fold by 2021. In the coming years, India will need to realize the rapid growth to play on par with the global market and such a reality is already here with eSports being the major buzzword among the next generation of gamers from India.”

“The fact remains that India got to professional gaming stage much later and comparing Indian Gaming to the world isn't right yet. Looking at the social landscape, full integration of gamers into mainstream existence may take some time but the initial building blocks are already in place. High engagement quotient of this interactive platform has attracted a healthy number of youngsters aspiring to become professional eSports athletes. Due to the rising popularity of eSports tournaments, the industry is witnessing increased participation from casual as well as serious gamers leading to the cultivation of a competitive environment. It is expected that by the time eSport will become an official discipline in Asian Games 2022, India will have increased participation. We see huge growth in Indian gaming scenario as people are rapidly transitioning from casual to serious gaming willing to invest in gaming technologies to upgrade their performance.  Gaming solution providers have identified the immense potential of Indian gamers have and purposefully working towards nurturing their growth” commented Vishal Parekh, Kingston Technology & HyperX India.

By 2020, the current E-sports audience will be over 200 million and exceed $1.5 billion in USD in revenue by 2020 with an annual growth rate of 32 percent in the worldwide market.  With growing technology infrastructure, internet and gaming media along with parents accepting E-sports as a career, we believe that E-sports will grow in India” said Sunil Grewal, GIGABYTE Technology (India) Pvt. Ltd. “We observed that more people interested in high-end PC and seek for premium graphics cards. AORUS are engaging activities and offline events to bring the latest technologies and products to gamers. By 2020, we foresee more international gaming events will come to India.  In 2018, Dream hack first hold in India, and ESL just finished the tournament itself in Mumbai in 2019.

Mukesh Chaudhary, Rapoo added, “There is a huge potential in the gaming market in India. India already leads the world in mobile game downloads and gaming companies are working upon to effectively monetize this large group of gamers. Globally, eSports is already a big phenomenon considering the US, Korea, China and many European countries. Indian esports Industry is emerging and the The Indian gaming market is forecast to grow to $1.1 billion in 2020 whereas the global revenue is likely to increase to $151.7 billion in 2021.”

“With the ecosystem growing and evolving every year, we see a bright future for gaming in India. Gaming in India is an incipient industry and has a long way to go. We hope to see more professional players, more streamers and more parents supporting their kid’s dream. We shall see more companies and brands invest their time and resource in the gaming industry” said Manoj Pansari, Astrum Holdings Ltd.

Sudip De, Doel International Pvt. Ltd. stated, “In India, eSports is slated to become A USD 1 Billion Revenue generator. With the advent of AR and VR, we have seen this vertical grow at a massive speed.”

“We are very optimistic about the future. It has taken a long time but now, everything is now in place and the time is right. This industry at its current state presents a great opportunity to invest. It is the newest frontier of entertainment that takes place in the digital realm and at the global scale. By the year 2020, we expect the Indian gaming industry to take center stage in the global esports and gaming arena. In terms of revenue generation and also in terms of competitive talent” added Himanshu Jain, Acro Engineering Company.

Mujahid Rupani, Cobx Gaming commented, “The future looks promising for the industry with more and more innovation be it in terms of new games or technological advancement flowing in. As mentioned a lot of brands are taking a keen interest in this industry now like Yes Bank, Monster Energy, Flipkart, Sony, etc are now sponsoring large scale tournament. In terms of investment, a lot of big names like Reliance Jio, Nazara Technologies, Route Mobile, Ronnie Screwvala, etc have invested huge money in this industry. Recently, Times Internet/Group invested in a gaming company. Breaking the stereotype of only endemic brands being interested in this industry. With this growing popularity, we are sure that we will soon ditch the 17th rank and speed up in the coming years.” 

Green, Chang-Ching Lin, MSI stated “India is surely becoming one of the biggest markets in Asia. As previously mentioned, more tech brand and gaming event come to India, it’ll be a peak for growth in 2020 with these coming. The research also points out that India is expected to reach 310 million gamers in by 2021. We can see that many Indian players have good skills. With more opportunities coming, we will soon see India pro teams among tier 1 teams. However, though there’s an enormous opportunity in the gaming field. Gaming brand should find out more method to fulfill the entertainment that all the gamers expect for. MSI always produce the most comprehensive product line. MSI is working on providing the most comprehensive entertainment for the gamers.”

Rajesh Goenka, RP tech India said “Indian Gaming industry growth will be faster than the global growth because of our base is relatively smaller.”

Key Challenges to Face

“Esports in India is still in the developing stage and the market at this point is posed with a lot of challenges. One of the major challenges in India is that the domestic market is still dominated by casual gamers.  With lack of resources as well as infrastructure, gaming developers in India often remain isolated from the latest technologies and development kits that are likely to be witnessed in India gaming industry during the forecast period” says Chandrahas Panigrahi, Acer India. “Additionally, the knowledge of people towards e-sports is also at its nascent stage, so along with developing the platform for promoting esports, people also need to be educated at the same time on its various possibilities. For a vertical to grow, challenges form a very important part as once its been overcome the scope is enhanced and the market becomes ripe for its growth.”

“The number of professional gamers is increasing in India but there is still a dearth of world class eSport athletes as little progress has been made in creating a development pathway or formalized training, which has led to a lack of education around eSport athletes. The lack of contribution of endemic brands in empowering the eSports athletes is also a major issue that needs to be resolved as soon as possible” commented Vishal Parekh, Kingston Technology & HyperX India. “Lack of initiatives to institutionalize a Government body to fuel the growth of gaming is also the reason behind the slow progress of gaming. However, few brands like us, are taking purposeful efforts to strengthen the ecosystem for gamers by creating more avenues for gamers to enhance their gameplay. Lack of world-class gamers which exist in India can also limit the growth of the gaming industry and hence we have contributed to the growth of the Gaming infrastructure by sponsoring and helping nurture world-class teams which go towards developing the Indian gaming community. We are all passionate about gaming and extend our support to gamers by empowering them with top-notch peripherals.  In association with CII, HyperX is closely working to improve the domestic gaming scenario.”

Sunil Grewal, Director, GIGABYTE Technology (India) Pvt. Ltd. stated “The major challenges for E-sports to grow in India are lack of infrastructure, internet stability and unavailability of Indian game servers. The stable internet and local game server help the gamers to have much better gaming experience in U.S.A, Korea, European and South East Asian countries.”

“Youngsters, who are the major percentage of those who like to play games, are often not aware of various gaming products that are available in the market. Also, the lack of adequate gaming infrastructure and the high cost of gaming software are also major deterrents to the growth of the industry. Piracy is also rampant in India-coupled with that, high duties and taxes have also pushed up the cost of gaming consoles. Another challenge is to build the brand of individual esports teams when they are not rooted in their community in the same way as traditional sports teams. These have been some of the constant challenges from the time of inception for E-sports in India” added Mukesh Chaudhary, Rapoo.

Manoj Pansari, Astrum Holdings Ltd. said “The major challenge at the moment is Lack of Infrastructure. Right now, the Gaming system is not mature. Except some few publishers, there are no big publishers that locally has a presence in India. Also just like other sports, e-sports does not have academies to help budding Gamers develop their skills. Overall, there is a lot to catch up and the industry is still in its nascent stage.”

Sudip De, Doel International Pvt. Ltd. commented, “However, the average gamer(s) remained at fractions of the developing and developed global counterparts the development ecosystem has evolved in line with the exponential growth of consumption. However, Investments in gaming companies continued to remain low. In the recent past, India has seen large in-roads of online entertainment with global online video companies entering the market. These companies have contributed significantly to the Indian consumption and spend behavior.”

“The gaming industry in India has faced many challenges. Although most of them have been overcome but some still remain. The stigma around gaming as caused many misconceptions around the gaming industry. It is imperative that the source of such issues are addressed and rectified. Which is why we plan to hold more inclusive events to engage people and let them know more about the positive impacts of gaming” stated Himanshu Jain, Acro Engineering Company.

Mujahid Rupani, Cobx Gaming said, “There are no major challenges as such, only that the industry is very dependent on infrastructures which are improving now. Here when we say infrastructure is are talking about the FTTH and FTTP. In metro cities these technologies are already available however, now they have been deployed in tier 1 and tier 2 cities. Hence, better infrastructure will lead to speedy awareness of the industry. Gaming is still considered to be a casual activity when it is much more than that. There is a lot more career option in this industry compared to traditional sports. It will help in creating more and more job opportunities.” 

“As a gaming brand, we not only produce the devices but also aim at turning the concept of Gaming into E-Sport. However, E-Sport culture is not only built by gaming content or hardware. People rely on the internet for competing and having interaction with each other. Once it raises speedy internet penetration, more residents in different cities can experience the joy of e-sport. We are hoping to see more E-Sports tournaments as well. Practice and experiences make it perfect” added Green, Chang-Ching Lin, MSI.

Rajesh Goenka, RP tech India commented “CPU supply and supply of inferior gaming laptops by some vendor are the major challenges in the current scenario.”

Evolving Growth Opportunities

“Changes have been occurring rapidly and dramatically in India’s digital ecosystem. India, with 1.3 billion people and two-thirds below the age of 35, the world’s largest youth population, is poised to become one of the world’s leading gaming markets. Historically, games did not gain a foothold in India due to the lack of access to gaming consoles and PCs, and the low social acceptance of this entertainment medium” added Chandrahas Panigrahi, Acer India. “This is all changing now as the Indian games industry is at the cusp of a major transformation as gaming is now seen as a lucrative and viable profession. As the eSports explosion continues, the need for gaming PCs in new form factors is driving demand. The fusion of allied sectors like game development, animation & designing is also very important not only from Make for India point of view but also from Make in India prospective. Interestingly, we have huge youth workforce which can help in development a co-creative ecosystem around gaming.”

“Emergence of premium gaming tournaments is acting as a driving force behind the changing face of the gaming industry and professional gamers are the key stake holders inspiring new age gamers to follow their path of success.  Fueled by the desire to achieve excellence in the gaming tournaments, aspiring gamers are sharpening their gaming skills and upgrading themselves with the latest technology. Gaming tournaments and such allied events, also offer a platform for brands and technology partners to showcase their best-in-class range of products, which would further fuel growth in this industry” said Vishal Parekh, Kingston Technology & HyperX India. “Ever growing prize pools is also a motivation for gamers to shift their focus from casual gaming to serious gaming, and better utilize available infrastructure like Gaming Cafes. HyperX is taking cautious efforts to develop a better infrastructure for gamers by collaborating with gaming cafes and tournaments. Rising competitive environment has pushed gamers to practice harder and enhance their skill sets. We see a bright future for Indian gamers, pool of professional gamers will expand and soon there will be an increase in participation from Indian gamers in the global tournaments like Dreamhack and Intel Extreme Masters.”

“Gamers are looking for better gaming experience through advanced PC hardware including motherboard, graphics card, monitor and peripherals. AORUS has become one of the favourite gaming hardware brand among Indian gaming community through our development and engagement with gaming community. We strive to meet the demand from gamers and also encourage the industry partners to engage in this growing sectors to making this pie bigger in India” said Sunil Grewal, GIGABYTE Technology (India) Pvt. Ltd.

Mukesh Chaudhary, Rapoo commented “Yes, the scope and opportunities are many.Due to growing support in the form of Cafes, Tech Partners, Brands coming with exclusive range, eSports will rival the biggest traditional sports leagues in terms of future opportunities, and between advertising, ticket sales, licensing, sponsorships and merchandising, will bring tremendous growth areas for this nascent industry.”

Manoj Pansari, Astrum Holdings Ltd. added “The booming opportunity in digital gaming has prompted investors and companies to keep a keen eye on India and be a part of the next big game that's about to sweep the market.”

“Consumers are steadily gaining confidence to adopt digital payments and online content for entertainment services. Increased trust and perceived value of online entertainment is likely to provide the necessary impetus to online gaming going forward. Indian developers have seen an influx of investments and this is expected to improve further. Motivated with the evolved consumption, latent potential, sufficient capital and skilled manpower, Indian developers are expected to focus on the local market. The focus in near term will continue to be on developing games for mobile devices” said Sudip De, Doel International Pvt. Ltd.

“As mentioned earlier, the time is just right. There industry audience are maturing and are willing to spend more. This makes this opportunity more lucrative than ever before. India is potentially the biggest market that the world has ever seen. Many people who have become avid gamers with PUBG mobile are looking for ways to scale up their gaming experience. As PC gaming can be expensive, Gaming cafés have been instrumental in enabling gamers to have a fulfilling PC gaming experience at a fraction of the cost” stated Himanshu Jain, Acro Engineering Company.

Mujahid Rupani, Cobx Gaming commented, “With respect to brands, technology partners and gaming cafes, the growth of the esports eco-system will profit them tremendously. The growth of the e-sports industry will generate more and more content not just for the OTT platforms but also for satellite mediums too. Thus increasing its reach. This increasing reach will give rise to more people opting gaming thus increasing the demands of gaming cafes. Also with more people indulging in gaming, the demand for gaming devices too will increase. This entire process will result in more number of platforms for people to showcase their talents in the form of tournaments. Brands with the young audience as their TG can use this medium to reach out to them and spread awareness about their products or services. End of the end making it a win-win situation for all.”

Green, Chang-Ching Lin, MSI said “MSI is keep committed to providing gamers and content creators with innovative gaming rigs and an open community to share collective gaming wisdom. Since India has the top potential of becoming one of the biggest market in SEA. Beside gamers, more and more content creators, including animators, gaming developers, VR designers, will play an important role in e-sport ecosystem. We have cooperated with abounds of technical partner, channel partners in gaming field for nature the talents. Moreover, we held more than 100 campus event not just want to get a deep bond with gamers but also want to help build them a better gaming environment in future.”

“Almost a decade back, many gaming cafes like zapak.com, Sify gaming cafe etc. failed because they were way ahead of time. Today there are more than 300 Gaming cafes in India which are running successfully and growing month over month. With globalization, the awareness is very high and global Gaming brands like Nvidia, Logitech and Asus are investing in the country. This will further fuel the growth of Gaming cafes in the near future” concluded Rajesh Goenka, RP tech India.

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