India Is All Game
Games and gaming have always proved to be an escape into another universe for people. Gaming and books function on a similar level where they transport the users into another universe, only with games being more visual, interactive and engaging. This space has never been more attractive to users — by extension, making it that much more valuable for brands to have a presence and interact with users. There are new avenues in gaming that provide a plethora of opportunities in reaching the consumer, and we will have a look at the same through the course of this article.
Gaming Landscape in India
Games and gaming have always been popular among certain audiences—primarily teens and young people. It has always provided an escape medium into an alternate universe where the user can basically be anything they fantasise about. As such, it has endured for a long time and will continue to be popular throughout. Gaming has a core audience across the globe that inspires absolute fandom, with people gearing up to have their presence felt and showcasing expression through gaming.
In India, the audience behaves slightly differently. Outside of the core gamers, who are recently getting the opportunity to monetise and amplify that ability, the main aspect is the leisure gamers—more commonly casual gamers. This aspect of gaming during free time is very dominant in the Indian ecosystem, as it serves as a distraction. The aspect of leisure time looks very different for men and women in the country—below is what leisure time looks like based on industry reports.
New technology has always been a boon for gaming, and technology here doesn’t just refer to what goes into the game but the overall infrastructure within the country, which helps boost the availability and accessibility of games.
This is amplified by the fact that India is a mobile-heavy market. A majority of the traffic online happens through mobile phones, and this same medium is used by people across age groups. As an extension of the same, mobile is a medium through which a majority of the gaming audience accesses games. It is the easiest means to receive access, circumventing the whole process of having to purchase expensive consoles and PCs just to have access to games.
(Growth in internet subscribers in India (in millions of users). There have been a number of seminal events in the last decade that have led to spikes in digital access.)
India is among the fastest growing markets in the world. Today, it is the largest mobile gaming market by number of app downloads, and this is just set to grow further in the near future. It is hoped to be one of the most profitable markets in the world.
The advent of cheaper availability of the internet in the past decade, combined with increased smartphone usage in the country, means that the journey of gaming has only begun.
Pandemic’s Impact On Gaming
While gaming was already on the rise, it got an even higher uptick in downloads and usage after the global crisis. Reports suggest that the time spent on playing games increased by 40 per cent during the lockdown.
Overall, game usage went up dramatically. There was a sharp increase in the download of mobile games, along with the engagement within games rising during the lockdown.
The kinds of games that people played also depended on the time when they were able to access them. During the sports season (especially during the IPL), there was a large increase in fantasy gaming, as people got their stakes in creating teams and trying to win big. Outside of sporting events, the games that got a high increase in usage (but not regularly) were casual games, as people looked for games that could provide them with engagement overall.
Game Classification In India
Redseer Analysis
The majority of games are also split based on usage type. The majority of games consumed are real money games—something which is not uncommon considering the content consumption pattern of our country (majorly in sports). The next biggest pie goes to the hardcore gamers, which also features games that are present as part of the whole esports segment. Then there are the casual gamers and mid-core gamers. Often, there are games which cater to multiple genres on the same platform, which makes classification pretty fluid.
On the basis of this, we can broadly classify the gaming audience in the country.
We have the core gamers—these are gamers who might or might not get into the competitive side of things, but have gaming as a passion. These are the people one would generally find playing the latest AAA+ titles available (like Elden Ring) and are very passionate and knowledgeable about the gaming ecosystem.
Following that are the Competitive Gamers, who are mainly into the whole esports scenario of gaming. A lot of this happens via mobile gaming (as reflected through the overall usage of the country too). They focus on constantly playing and replaying to improve their expertise in the game.
There are the niche gamers, who are gamers but have their own specific types of games that they prefer to play. Whether it be people who prefer Nintendo games (Pokemon, Zelda) or the more indie games, they form a smaller subsection of the same market.
Then there are the staking gamers, who are rapidly increasing in number.These are gamers who focus a lot on real money games (whether it be based on a sport (Dream 11, among others) or on other activities (Rummy, Poker, among others). These gamers generally have their monetary stake in the games and, hence, are engaged and active gamers, also consuming the sport with keen interest.
Finally, there are the casual gamers, which make up most of the gaming audience in the country. These are leisure gamers who prefer to play a game or two when they are in-between things. Arcade games are generally more popular with this audience segment.
A lot of audiences fall into multiple levels listed above, depending on the time, availability, and the game in question.
Making Gaming A Level Playing Field
The gaming industry has been the latest to come under the scanner for a lack of adequate and appropriate representation of women—let alone the spectrum of genders. The conversation has heated up even more because of the incredible growth the industry has seen with female gamers. And no, this isn’t just a global phenomenon.
India is already one of the leading consumers of gaming and is estimated to become a top market very soon. The numbers are staggering—the Indian online gaming market is projected at USD 2 billion by 2023, up from USD 1.02 billion in 2020, and is expected to grow to USD 4.88 billion by 2026.
The role of women gamers in this growth is encouraging – not just in numbers, but in the quality of impact they are driving. Studies have put the female smartphone gamers' segment at 43 percent last year, with a sharp surge during the pandemic.
If that’s not impressive enough, take on board the huge popularity and following some of the top female gamers have garnered-Monika Sherlock Jeph, Shagufta Xyaa Iqbal, Pooja Khatri, and Saloni Panwar are a few of the immensely popular gamers in India, and perhaps worldwide. Saloni was the first woman to represent India at an international esports tournament in Thailand, a key milestone from the perspective of Indian women gamers being seen and recognised on the international stage. These front runners have also paved the way for gaming to be seen not as a niche activity for women, but as a promising career option with substantial prospects, inspiring a generation of female aspirants.
Add to that the fact that female gamers in India span age groups, marital status, life stages, and even gaming genres! So, there is no typical (or stereotypical) Indian woman gamer.
So what does the gaming industry need to do to be able to cater to this growing consumer segment and truly leverage the power of this opportunity?
Breaking gender stereotypes
Current estimates put female character representation at about 5 per cent. The recent surge in female gamers will probably impact this number significantly (18 per cent of games launched in 2020 featured female characters), but the base being as small as it is, calls for deliberate effort. Within that small representation, there are heightened gender stereotypes, objectification and hypersexualisation, and unrealistic depictions of body proportions. Beyond gaming, this depiction can negatively impact women’s self-perception. These stereotypes can contribute to attitudes that validate violent behaviour against women in real life by facilitating the acceptance of the rape myth and shifting the blame for any sexual assault from the offenders to the victims.
More importantly, narratives built around real women hardly exist. Popular female characters are contradictions-an embodiment of strength on one hand, while being sex symbols catering to the male gaze on the other hand (remember Lara Croft).
The representation of women needs to improve, qualitatively and quantitatively, and you need women to write the stories, create the characters, and build the narratives for that to happen.
Environments For Women To Be Themselves
Abuse is targeted at both men and women in the gaming world, but women are more likely to experience harassment and exclusion. In fact, female gamers often resort to gender-neutral identities to be treated without bias or to be taken seriously. Each one of the successful female gamers mentioned previously has spoken about experiencing heckling, bullying, and sexist remarks.
A systemic evaluation of the rules of the game becomes even more important with the rising number of female gamers. This has been a topic of debate for a long time, but bringing women into the conversation to regulate behaviour and weed out bullying and sexual harassment will encourage more women to join in. And the industry will be richer for it.
Money Talks
The large and captive audience of women also creates tremendous opportunities for brands and marketers. A recent Inmobi report says that 52 per cent of the top ten apps downloaded by women are made in India, and more than 75 per cent of those women are committed gamers. The commercial value that women can generate will be a strong incentive for the gaming industry to change for the better and make the right kind of room for women. In the immersive and large world that the gaming world offers, the challenge of creating relevant, contextual, and non-intrusive campaigns could be quite exciting.
True Representation Across The Board
As of 2020, 84 per cent of leadership positions in the top fourteen global companies were held by men, and outside of the top positions, there were just 24 per cent women. In India, of the top ten gaming start-ups, just one has a female founder.
This composition needs to change for the gaming industry to become a true home for the large women's gaming community. Multiple collectives across regions are working on improving things—the "Women in Games Ambassador Program and #RaisetheGame" are two such initiatives, where an array of stakeholders are trying to create a more diverse and inclusive workspace. Senior appointments, specifically in DEI, have been seen in recent times to acknowledge this need, and start on the journey.
Bringing women to the decision-making table—as funders, founders, leaders, creators, gamers, and advocates—is the only and most sustainable way to ensure the future viability of the gaming industry.
When you talk to avid gamers, you realise that gaming is not just about the mindless execution of people in an imaginary world, or even developing certain kinds of skills. It offers the opportunity to tell stories, explore new worlds, and influence thinking. Imagine battling unconscious biases, educating people about underrepresented communities, and taking forward the narratives of diversity and inclusion through gaming! This is an incredible opportunity for people in business to expand their influence on culture through an already integral component of popular culture, and it would be criminal not to leverage it. Diversity, equity, and inclusion can be not just a lens but an inspiration for the gaming world.
Esports Gaming In India
Esports (or electronic sports) refer to sporting competitions involving video games, which generally happen in a multiplayer setting. It has slowly started to take over the Indian market, being promoted massively and having competitive matches streamed across platforms like Youtube and various streaming platforms (mainstream and gaming platforms included). The esports industry has been around for a while, but it is recently getting more mainstream acceptance as more developers and investors have started to have their presence in the same for the Indian market.
Additionally, with people now aggressively being present in esports, companies are luring in brands, showcasing the ability to reach more audiences, while offering better access and engagement. This is enabling better connections, with the medium on its way to becoming a favourite with brands.
The most common genres of esports in India are MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena), RTS (Real Time Strategy), sports and FPS (First Person Shooters). Games like PUBG, Garena Free Fire, FIFA, and Fortnite are very popular. More people are getting into the gaming aspect of s-Sports due to the perks involved in terms of prize money. It is estimated, according to industry reports, that in less than 5 years, the prize money in esports will surpass IPL prize money. This makes it attractive to gamers, and by extension, to brands, to have their presence felt.
An additional factor is that esports are practically indistinguishable from traditional sports. Players are monitored, there is rigorous training and teamwork involved, participants are actively using skills to circumvent opponents to get a chance to win. There is a large element of skill involved. A culmination of this is the fact that esports is an official category in the Asian Games, which treats it akin to a traditional sport.
Advertising Opportunities In Esports
There are different ways for brands to have their presence in esports.
Being a rapidly developing niche that is slowly getting mainstream, it is natural for a lot of brands to try to have a presence in this ecosystem. A primary target being considered is younger audiences and tech-savvy people. This audience will only grow as the country's largest OTT platforms stream some of the most prominent esports tournaments, allowing for seamless consumption by the masses.
The prominent categories having a presence in esports are also indicative of the kind of audience that brands are hoping to target. We tend to observe a lot of technology brands having a presence in the category, along with platforms that have their own gaming wing (PayTM, for example). As the overall audience continues to increase, we will see greater presence from different sectors, even in esports.
Real Money And Fantasy Gaming In India
It’s evident looking at the data that there has been a drastic rise in gaming in recent times. One of the biggest contributors to this fact is real money and fantasy gaming, which is going from strength to strength in the country.
We have seen a massive rise in the adoption of these games in the country, as people start to have a personal stake in the games involved, making them completely involved both in the game and the sport, cementing the symbiotic relationship that exists between the two.
Real money games basically refer to any games where actual money is being bet on any particular activity. These are games where there is a certain element of personal skill involved in the whole activity (these are games like Poker, Teen Patti, and Rummy, among others).
From a pure cultural viewpoint, RMG has always been a part of the Indian culture, just not in the current digital format. It has always existed as a game that would happen during social occasions—where people got together to play and gamble with each other. The fact that this culture existed made the adoption of RMG easier, where the medium shifted from physical to digital.
Interestingly, within the RMG market, casual card games are growing at the fastest pace, with age-old favorites like rummy and poker being an all-time favorite.
Fantasy Gaming is essentially the transition from playing sports in the nearby gully to an online medium.Fantasy gaming basically involves people selecting their virtual teams through the selection of actual players. The outcome of Fantasy Gaming depends on the actual performance of the players selected by the user in their virtual team.
Fantasy gaming has been around in various forms for a while, but the most popular one (before the advent of cricket-based fantasy games) was the Fantasy Premier League, which is the official fantasy gaming wing of the English Premier League. It did not have an entry fee to join (it still doesn’t) but it was the first time that fantasy gaming as a concept was popularised in the country.
The increase in popularity means that people are shifting players are shifting to multi-game platforms to keep up! There are a lot of platforms now which offer a variety of games instead of focusing on a single game—to keep existing audiences hooked onto the platforms and as a means of attracting new audiences to the platform.
Perception
When brands first started entering the market, it was more geared towards convincing consumers of the validity of the platform—the fact that they could win real money on the platform. From then till now, as the category has matured, it has ranged from talking about the wide range of features available on the platform to talking about prize money. Consumers are now convinced about the category; the game lies in getting more and more users to try and be present on the platforms.
There are different tonalities and complexities involved in positioning these brands, even depending on the purpose and who we are trying to communicate with. For example, recently, with the government, there was a push to consider these as skill-based, esports games, which was viewed with confusion by the gaming audience. However, the communication varies from skill to game reading ability to the prize in question.
Because of the transient nature of the medium, the concept of loyalty to one game doesn’t particularly exist. Users tend to gravitate to different apps to try out, especially if they are on a losing streak or are present across platforms, even if they are winning, in a bid to hedge their bets and maximise their earnings. So, the potential probability of winning makes them shift to different apps regularly. This makes it necessary for RMG and Fantasy Games to be extremely aggressive on advertising spend, as they need to increase overall market share while also constantly looking to get new consumers on the platform. This is also the reason for the increased usage of celebrities everywhere – to try to increase the preference and legitimacy of the brand to the consumer.
A Point Of View On Fantasy Gaming
Generally, fantasy gaming involves three main segments of the audience:
- The Sports fanatics
This is their way of expressing how they get the game the best. They are mainly showcasing their knowledge of the game here.
- Casual fans
These players add an element of fun competitiveness among social circles and tend to keep interest in the game going.
- Money minters
They are not particular about the game. For them, it’s about winning. These audiences tend to enter the maximum number of teams in different contests and try permutations and combinations to maximise their chances of winning.
Why Has Fantasy Gaming Captured The Indian Imagination?
It makes the most boring game extremely interesting.
For example, think of a low-scoring game of cricket. Say Mumbai Indians got Chennai Super Kings all out for 87 in the first innings, and in the second innings, it’s already on 67/0 in 8 overs. Typically, this is when non-fantasy gamers get distracted. They would stop paying attention or make other plans or switch to other content. But a fantasy player remains glued to the game because it has an impact on his game. Who scored the remaining 20 runs? What if there’s a wicket or a maiden. Every action on the field has a direct connection to the action on your phone screens, especially if players from your fantasy eleven are in action. As a result, interest in the live match is maintained until the final ball.
Fantasy gaming is also successful in converting traditional haters of the sport into taking an interest in the sport. For example, I recently convinced someone who doesn’t like cricket at all to make a team on Dream11. My pitch to them was the big jackpot money they could win if their combination were to play well on the day. It’s been two IPL seasons since then. The person hasn’t won the big jackpot amount but continues to play regularly now. He takes an interest in the sport, will ask me about my score, try to follow me to see who’s playing well and who isn't, and so on. One of the biggest motivators for them to stay was the taste of their first win. The big jackpot contests make winning possible for 60 per cent of the participants, which means 60 per cent of the people will win some money (or get back the entry fee). This is a form of win, and when someone experiences that first, it makes staying back and trying again easy.
And if you come across anyone in your known circles who wins a disproportionately large amount, that too gets a lot of naysayers to try.
It helps me forge new friendships and connections.
Most fantasy platforms allow for private contest groups. This has led to the formation of new social groups, new connections, and, in many cases, reconnections.
People in professional set-ups form a WhatsApp group where they circulate the contest code before the match, which anyone can join. Similarly, groups on college campuses, cousins, school friends, etc., are formed too.
Many people also join groups as a +1. For example, if a friend of mine from school is interested in cricket and fantasy, I could add him to my college fantasy group, allowing him to forge new connections. You may ask, simply by adding someone to the group and playing a fantasy game, how can one forge connections? The answer to that is that forging happens when the live match is on. People banter in the group. They appreciate those who’ve made a bold choice which is paying off, make fun of those who make a stupid choice, some blame those who’ve made the key player their captain if by chance they underperform (panauti laga di), and so on. As the game is coming to its climax, the banter increases, especially if different people from the group are in the running and their standing on the table changes after every ball. Strangely, after the game is over, people also congratulate the winners, saying, "well played," "great thinking," etc.
In an interesting case, fantasy games also help dilute tensions between hostile or cold relationships. Think of a boss and junior or a father and son, a friend’s father and me, awkward in-laws and people who otherwise don’t talk much but have a strange formal relationship. They too find a way to ease tension and forge an informal connection. Fantasy gaming, thus, has its own form of social capital.
Has rekindled my interest in the sport.
Indians love sports, especially cricket. There are generations who’ve grown up on their cricket. However, a lot of people, over a period of time, lose touch with the game. The reasons are plenty – life gets in the way, losing touch with the game and being unaware of the new set of players (feels different) etc. Fantasy games help people find their way back into sports.
Conclusion
There are quite a lot of opportunities present in gaming for brands. It’s just a matter of getting creative with it. Unlike most media, a simple presence (like how overall advertising happens) will not work. There has to be a connection between the activity, the brand and the narrative that it wants to showcase. It is only with this overall combination that brands can have an effective presence in gaming.
From sponsoring entire esports teams to organising tournaments to gaming influencers to video presence via streaming entities, there is ample scope for brands to take over and have a strong presence across the ecosystem. It is also a very interesting way for brands to reach out to audiences who are close to reaching viewer fatigue with regular commercials and advertisements. Gaming is the new frontier, and more and more brands are becoming more aware of the massive opportunity involved in it.
