The More You Penetrate, The More You Educate, The More Awareness Comes: Krishnendu Guha, Adda52.com

Online gaming, eSports and Poker have recently started flourishing in the country. The pandemic being one of the reasons why this sector has experienced a sudden boom. 

Adda 52 is one of the online poker sites in India, which has been in this industry since 2011. 

Recently, they have launched their brand campaign, which was termed as skilled job, with the objective to emphasise that everybody has some life skills already present in them. So, people from any walk of life, already possess that skill. 

Speaking more on the overall sector and trends with Krishnendu Guha, Chief Revenue Officer, Adda 52.

Excerpts:

2011 was an era when the internet was starting. So now with the rise of internet, availability of 4g and when 5g is also coming into action. How has the rise of online sports among the youth changed?

With an excellent internet infrastructure, the narrative around the online gaming industry has evolved to a great extent. We see increased participation in real money gaming with fantastic enthusiasm shown by the players from different walks of life. This was not the case a decade back, as people had no idea about real money gaming and its potential.

The rise in internet penetration is certainly supporting the online gaming industry tremendously. Online games like poker are not native to India. But gradually, people are becoming more comprehensive about accepting online gaming just like any other sport. There is a lot to explore in the field of online gaming, as it is not only transforming into more than just a leisure activity but also a means to earn money. With the introduction of 5G and better communication access, the real money gaming industry is all set to take a long leap in the coming few years.

India is going to be the one of the largest markets for online gaming, how does it possess employment opportunities? Is there a huge potential to create employment for the gaming industry? How is it going on or if it totally works on artificial intelligence?

In 2011, the question popped up in a survey asking the Indian audience about their interest in online gaming or about them being a major contributor to the industry. Certainly, the responses will be limited to one or two, but today post the pandemic era and in the world of high-speed internet, it is fine to say that the survey would reveal more than 50 per cent of the population of India is engaged with online gaming.

With the evolving gaming sector, the industry has opened up employment opportunities for many who want to follow their passion and convert it into their profession. With a viable and cordial ecosystem, the advantages such as an independent source of income, the feasibility of work hours and others, that the industry brought to the people engaging in online games is something that should be applauded. We are positive that the gaming market will further grow to an extent that online gaming will soon become a full-time profession for many people in this country and will feel proud of the same.

How have the marketing tactics changed pre-covid and post-covid?

During the initial days, online games or sports were not recognised much. As mentioned, with Poker becoming an immersive leisure activity and real money gaming booming in the country, the marketing tactics have also changed to resonate with the demand. Now, people are recognising online gaming–be it rummy or poker as a game of skill, with luck not being an important factor in the real money gaming forte. This has led to more and more users joining online gaming platforms. This has further encouraged us to think more creatively and reach out to newer platforms for promotions and further widen our visibility across new markets in Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 cities.

With the emergence of 5g technology, how would the gaming industry evolve with great internet speed? How do you see the future?

Currently, in India, 4G is not available across the nation due to infrastructural challenges. 5G will further help in raising the bar. The aim should be to penetrate deeper within tier 2 and 3 cities and make sure that we have the infrastructure in place to support the internet. Once that is done, 5G with speed will make the internet experience brilliant. The challenge with 5G is you will require a different kind of handset that supports the technology, as it cannot be made available on the current devices. Now, a lot of us don't change phones frequently, but there will be people who will do that to upgrade themselves, and these are mostly the people who are probably into the full-time gaming profession. I'm assuming in the next two years once 5G gets settled, it can unleash its full potential because then you have the VR coming into the picture and your entire AI-based gaming will be more prevalent because it will not be the constraint then.

What is the situation of professional gaming right now in our country? Are there competitions or are there eSport competition in the Indian market? 

When you say professional gaming, you mean people who have turned professional in the gaming industry with their passion and years of determination. Now, there are eSports professionals in our country as well, earlier mostly it was outside India. But now I think eSports has started developing and penetrated well in the Indian market. And there are some Indians, whom you will see are into eSports professionally. But if I talk about poker, yes, I have seen a lot of people who have dropped their high-paying conventional jobs to foray into this industry. One of them was an investment banker in Dubai, and he was earning well, but he left everything and switched to this. Another person was a like full-time employee of a reputed MNC in a very senior post, he left the company and became full-time poker gamer. It's their sheer passion that motivates them towards poker and achieving their dreams. First, you get that independence, and you're no longer bound by anything. You can play whenever you want to play. The money is good when you get into a full-time profession.

But still, a certain section of society has not accepted or understood the online gaming industry. What is the dire need to accept online gamers who engage in online gaming activities?

A couple of decades back professions like doctors, engineers, or government employees were viable career options, but today the scenario has changed completely. People are actively taking up unconventional career paths and are making way more money than professionals who are still pursuing conventional careers. For example, a skill-based sport like poker which was earlier played by people mostly during the festive season is now being played professionally round the clock on real money gaming apps. If you ask 10 people, at least 3 out of them would say they know poker and would most likely have an account registered on a poker site. Today, anyone can make a six-figure income stream or even more by playing online games. Poker, as opposed to most card games, is a game of skill and therefore an individual will have to invest his/her time to undergo the grind and obtain that knowledge as well as the mindset. Yes, the game is now being recognised as a skill-based game, and the more we penetrate, the more we educate, and the more awareness comes, the more people will start playing the game. 

What is the ratio of people having an account and people actually using it? Because what happens, people mindlessly make accounts everywhere. How much are the registered people? And how much are the people who are actually using it?

In this era of smartphones, people are very particular about the apps they keep on their phones due to the limited storage available. So, if a person is going on to the app store and is downloading a particular application out of all the thousands of apps available, then there is obviously some utility that the consumer is driving out of it. A user might not use that application daily, just like you don’t shop on any ecommerce platform daily. So, if you ask me, every user who has downloaded the app is our user.

What kind of competition does exist in the market for you? Who all are the competitors in your area?

Any site or application that has poker is our competitor. That being said, there are a limited number of applications that offer only poker as a service like Adda52 such as Poker Baazi, Spartan Poker, and Poker Stars. Apart from this, there are some other multi-gaming platforms also which offer poker as an offering of their portfolio, like MPL and Paytm.