Online gaming has made a global impact on all markets, reaching more generations and users than ever before. Rising digitization in India is also expected to push online games to tripe their current market size. What can we expect in the near future?
Our New Digital Reality
Digital entertainment shifted up a gear in the past couple of years. Online gaming in particular has become a daily habit for many, ranging from casual gaming apps between daily chores to a professional eSports occupation. The new normal way of experiencing work and play is driven by more realistic user experiences, engagement and, consequently, more paid online services and subscriptions.
The penetration of new technology has helped many desi consumers become part of the transition, with nearly 800 million online users and over 430 million gamers reported in the Union. The gaming industry passed the $2 billion mark and most analysts expect it to triple by 2025, maintaining at least the present growth levels.
Such an unprecedented development quickly engulfed some of the more traditional occupations and social functions – from gamified education and remote work teams to the legal lottery in India, the favorite real-money game for several generations.
Predicting the future of the gaming industry is quite the challenging task, yet some global trends point to what we might see in the coming years. While physical distancing forced many to seek online alternatives to their consumption patterns, a large portion of our society (especially urban communities) had already gotten used to digital lifestyles.
Online gaming has grown together with other digital entertainment segments, outperforming traditional media such as print and TV. Younger generations – Millennials and Zoomers after them – are considered “digital natives”, as they attracted more advertisers, investors and produced ever bigger online revenues.
Games became more immersive, audiences grew from passive to active and genre definitions blurred previous boundaries. Casual games began offering prize pools, fantasy sports mixed real-world events with online management strategies and player wagering, multiplayer gaming made Augmented and Virtual Reality (AR/VR) devices almost mainstream for most hardcore gamers. All along, online gaming became more attractive to women, different generations and social groups.
Experts assure that the Indian gaming industry is ready to make the next step, becoming a global factor. Domestic player markets are a stepping stone to understanding and making a bigger impact on offshore markets as well. Desi gaming studios have the experience, vision and a growing investor support to create fresh and original content which is in universal demand.
Going Online: More Industries Set to Become Efficient
For tech startups – born in the digital age – that might not be a groundbreaking change but many industries are just now experiencing the benefits of transitioning fully to online operations. India’s most popular games, government online lotteries, are still State-run and traditionally paper-based, studies have revealed.
The vast potential of moving online is readily apparent, since the market demographics, complex logistics and affordable technological elements point to at least 80 million lottery players opting for online ticket distribution almost instantly. Traditional ticket sales have been experiencing difficulties not only due to the pandemic but also because of highly competitive offshore and global alternatives.
A definitive online transition for such an influential economic sector can and should be replicated by others as well. This can lead to resource efficiency and more public tax revenues, in the first place. Moreover, it would provide consumers with better protection against black-market operators and unlicensed companies.
Forward-thinking strategies are especially relevant to the dynamic entertainment and gaming markets. But they are advisable and proven highly efficient for almost all contemporary businesses.
