Casual, fantasy, pro: 2020, a year when online gaming hit the jackpot

The numbers were driven by an increase in mobile phone usage as well as greater internet penetration

Acute economic distress forced several businesses to fold up in 2020, while many reeled under the pressure of the pandemic and barely survived. There was, however, one industry that not only thrived but also saw the entry of new competitors and investors: Online gaming.

Online retailers, over-the-top (OTT) services, hand sanitiser manufacturers and food delivery aggregators were all beneficiaries of the pandemic, but little could match the staggering success of gaming platforms, which, aided by protracted lockdowns, attracted record traffic.

“We have seen great traction over the past few months, growing from 40 million users to over 70 million users,” says Sai Srinivas, CEO and co-founder, Mobile Premier League (MPL), adding that some of the popular gaming titles on their platform saw a 400 per cent increase in terms of the number of games played.

Others popular platforms reported similarly stellar figures. Loco, the live streaming and esports app, saw a 20 per cent jump in users during the lockdown months. EWar Games, having launched early in the year, managed to accumulate over 500,000 users in the first five months itself. Overall, gaming apps registered an average user increase of 40-50 per cent during the first half of the year.

These numbers were driven by an increase in mobile phone usage as well as greater internet penetration. “Even if we leave the pandemic aside, this segment was always bound to grow. The recent advancements in cloud computing have helped online gaming, and the likes of poker and rummy have always been household games in India,” says Debashish Bhattacharjee, chief marketing officer at gaming firm Pocket52.

Casual games such as ludo and rummy — “skill-based” and, hence, legal in most states — emerged as huge hits, primarily due to the cash prizes on offer as well as their popularity among the older generation, which finds them easy to play and understand. That partly explains why 2020 saw Ludo King, with over 500 million installs on the Google Play Store, become the most downloaded Indian game ever.

Fantasy games weren’t far behind. In a barren year for sport, the Indian Premier League’s sensational 13th season served as a catalyst for these platforms, many of which cashed in on fan sentiment through aggressive advertising and by signing marquee brand ambassadors. “The fact that the industry’s leading players were the title sponsors for some big-ticket events led to more people trying out these apps,” says Amit Purohit, founder, Fantasy Akhada, which launched in January 2020 and played host to over 200,000 users during the year.

With traditional means of entertainment out of bounds, hardcore gamers turned to esports — video game competitions that aren’t only fun but are also accompanied by an added social element. “Because of the circumstances, parents were okay with kids playing video games. That’s a massive step in a country where the gaming industry, for the longest time, had a negative reputation,” explains Ishaan Arya, co-founder at The Esports Club. The awareness and acceptance has increased greatly in the past nine months, he adds, a welcome trend that saw their viewership shoot up from 100,000 a month to over a million.

Some of that momentum, however, was punctured by the government’s decision to ban the massively popular PUBG, or PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, a kind of staple for esports companies, on grounds of national security. The decision, say industry stakeholders, was a significant jolt, one that came with heavy sentimental value. But, as EWar Games Founder Parth Chadha says, the ban helped reinforce the sense of community among gamers. “As people switched to other titles — mainly Call of Duty and Free Fire — they realised it wasn’t just a single game leading this surge, but an entire community.”

Real-money games grappled with challenges of their own, desperately having to fight the notion that they were encouraging “gambling”. The controversy meant that the Advertising Standards Council of India had to step in and issue clear guidelines for companies promoting such games. But in a sector with a largely vague regulatory framework, the move was received well. Says Purohit: “This was an indication that we are moving towards clear guidelines. That is so much better than uncertainty.”

That is also perhaps a sign of the growth that may yet follow. According to KPMG, India is the largest emerging market by gaming app downloads (three billion annually), and the fastest-growing mobile gaming market. With over 400 gaming start-ups in India, Maple Capital Advisors reckons that the industry will be valued at $3.75 billion by 2024. Further, the number of gamers is projected to grow from 320 million to 470 million in the next two years.

“Gaming and game streaming is the future of entertainment because entertainment is all about immersion — games take us to a place and allow us to experience that with other people,” says Anirudh Pandita, founder of Pocket Aces, the digital entertainment company behind Loco. “We are not just a mobile-first country, but a mobile-only country, so the time our players spend on games will be far higher that anywhere else.”