Understanding and Disrupting the Indian Gaming Market
Over the past decade the telecom world has seen some of the major transformations in terms of technology. The number of users of smartphones around the world from 3.6 billion in 2016 to 6.2 billion at the end of 2021. This rise in smartphones has been ignited by the evolution of the telecom spectrum from 2G to the recent developments in 5G technology. This advancement of technology in the telecom sector has helped the rapid growth of the gaming and eSports industry.
The gaming industry around the world has grown approximately three-fold between 2012 and 2021. The global gaming market generated a revenue of $180.3 billion in 2021. The gaming industry is classified into three different types 1) Mobile Gaming 2) PC Gaming 3) Console Gaming with mobile gaming contributing the highest revenue over the rest. The mobile gaming includes games downloaded, installed through app stores like Android or Apple and played through smartphones or tablets. Console games include games played through consoles like Xbox, Nintendo, PlayStation etc. PC gaming includes playing through browsers or boxed/downloaded games.
According to the number of gamers around the world, though Asia-Pacific region holds the highest number of gamers close to 1615 million, the growth rate has been stagnating for a period now. The Middle East and Africa market has the highest growth rate with 10.10% followed by Latin America with 6.20% in 2021.
ESports
Esports also called as electronic sports is transforming online gaming into spectator sport. The spectators watch teams or players compete against each other in virtual mode. The players can stream themselves playing games or can join other teams to compete and win cash prizes. These eSports encourage fans to interact with the players through social media, live-streaming platforms or in-person tournaments.
Gamer Persona
Given the context of the industry, it felt imperative to identify the customer segments in the markets and understand them not just by their consumption behaviour, but also in the context of their culture. Thus, the market study was done through identification of ‘Gamer personas’ — the clustering of players according to their demographics, motivation, culture. The demographics include the classification of players on the parameters of age, income. The motivation converges around the games they play and how they play them, and the culture involves the ideology, beliefs of their respective society.
The gamer personas are used by gaming companies to capitalize on lucrative, untapped gamer markets and to reflect on the gaming market’s present environment.
Gamer Demographics in India
The age wise classification of the Indian gaming market is the most classic representation of the global gaming market dominated by young people below 45 years. The Indian gaming market is dominated by the age group of 25–34 years covering 41% followed by 18–24 and 35–44 age groups. The overall contribution of people above the age of 45 years in India is just 4.7%.
The income wise contribution to the Indian gaming market shows a linear relation between the income and the number of players actively participating in gaming. According to CMIE the income groups are as follows
1. Low Income — ≤ Rs. 2,00,000
2. Medium Income — Rs. 2,00,000 to Rs. 10,00,000
3. High Income — ≥ Rs. 10,00,000
Around 38.9% of the overall gamers in India belong to the high-income class whereas the low-income group are confined to just 28.7%.
The motivation on how to play the games also plays a major role in the segmentation of gamers. The Indian gaming market is purely dominated by the mobile gaming over the console/PC gaming and the trend is expected to continue in the near future. Also in future, the mobile games are expected to grow rapidly whereas the console/PC gaming is expected to stagnate around 100 million for the next four years.
Psychographics
The culture in a particular region can be studied by the Hofstede model of cultural dimensions, which is used to understand the culture, ideology, and behaviours in a country based on five parameters:
1. Power Distance Index: It shows the degree to which the less powerful members of a society accept and expect that power is distributed unequally.
2. Individualism: Preference for a loosely-knit social framework in which individuals are expected to take care of only themselves and their immediate families.
3. Masculinity: Preference in society for achievement, heroism, assertiveness, and material rewards for success. Society at large is more competitive.
4. Uncertainty Avoidance: Expresses the degree to which the members of a society feel uncomfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity.
5. Long Term Orientation: Shows focus on future and involves delaying short-term success in order to achieve long-term success.
Culture in India
Indian culture involves a high power distance index indicating a stronger belief in hierarchal decision making, but is flexible to an extent where society accepts individualism and collectivism. People are still judged on success, brand label. People can work with lesser risk situations and still believe in innovation. The society respects the rich past culture and also believes in modernization.
From Figure 5 we can see that the number of mobile gamers in India in 2021 are 174.9 million whereas the console/PC gamers are around 79.8 million.
The relatively low amount of console/PC gamers in India are mainly due to the following reasons
Persona for Indian console/PC gamer:
X belongs to medium-high income range, lies in the age group of 18–34 who has an eye for technology and other trends, either independent or in a hierarchy approving family. Does it for self happiness or for public appeal.
The relatively high amount of mobile gamers in India are mainly due to the following reasons
Persona for Indian mobile gamer:
X belongs to low-medium income range, lies in the age group of 18–44, socially conformative, hierarchy accepting, has restricted propensity to spend on income, casually makes decisions.
Market Dynamics
The gamer persona for mobile gaming is a clustering of low-medium income group which represents the majority population in India. Also the mobile gaming is accessible and can be played by anyone irrespective of their age with minimal technological expertise making the Mobile gaming segment in India the mainstream market with a gamer base of 174.9 million players.
On the other hand, the gamer persona for console/PC gaming includes grouping of people from medium-high income group and relatively younger people below 35 years of age who are individualistic and independent from their families. This segment of people converge to a gamer base of just 79.8 million people in India.
Apart from these two markets, there is a small overlap between the two markets. Players who are into console/PC gaming can also have the option of playing mobile games, whereas mobile gamers who are transitioning into console/PC games do not always lose their interest in simple, hassle-free mobile gaming.
Market Disruption
· The first question would be why the market disruption is required and the answer to that is to expand the niche console/PC market into the mainstream Mobile market and to bridge the gap between them to increase the revenues through the merged mainstream market.
· The primary concern that comes across while expanding the niche market is the high cost of entry for the console/PC gaming and the subsequent costs of downloading or purchasing different games on consoles in India.
· The market disruption can be done by bringing down the cost of entry and also by making advancements in the technology.
· Bringing the price of consoles or PCs down will surely increase the number of gamers in the console market.
Advancements in technology like cloud gaming, coupled with equally innovative business models such as subscription-based gaming, increases the engagements of streamers/gamers and audience around the world.
