Although India has lagged in accepting digital mode of entertainment in the past, the recent trends paint a different picture. With the highest number of youth population in the world, the mobile gaming industry in India is set on a vibrant growth curve. The lack of gaming consoles and PCs has seen a compensating growth of mobile games. The number of indie studios churning out games has increased by leaps and bounds.
Now, the business giant, Reliance Entertainment has recently announced that they will be investing in 20 Indian gaming startups. Speaking on the issue to PTI, Reliance Entertainment (Digital), CEO, Amit Khanduja stated “The next 18 to 24 months present a massive opportunity as India is set to become the second biggest smartphone market in the world. The market is at an inflection point and it is a green field opportunity for game developers as domestic mobile game market grows significantly.”
In the recently concluded ‘PG Connects’, organised by Reliance Games, a part of Reliance Entertainment, the company gave away a sum of $50,000 in competitions and as a funding for startups.
The investees not only plan on providing financial support to the young startups, but also assist them in terms of marketing, analytics, technology and man-power, as Khanduja informed, “Currently, indie developers need significant hand holding in design, monetisation, marketing and technology. We see strategic tie ups as the road to success than pure play fund investments.”
According to a FICCI KPMG report, the mobile gaming sector in India is likely to grow into a $763 million industry by the end of 2020, which was $399 million in 2015.
This titanic projection helps us fathom the recent indulgence and interests of major players into the Indian mobile gaming industry. Few years back there were a mere 40 gaming startups, which has spiked to 250 further pointing at the immense prospect of the growth of this industry.
Along with Reliance Entertainment, UCWeb, a Chinese mobile internet company announced a $20 million funding program for Indian startups producing games and apps and ‘9Apps In Dev’, will act like an accelerator. The development was announced by the company at the PG Connects conference and and UCWeb plans to back 100 Indian gaming startups providing each game developer upto $500,000.
With these new developments, its time for indie developers to start developing games that are wholesome in nature and appeals to larger audience as currently there’s a huge prospect in the Indian gaming industry.