With the gaming industry in India breaking out of shackles, the bigger, international players are eyeing India as a potential market, as everybody seems to be wanting a slice of the success story in this ecosystem. Albiet the country’s potential in the sector is still only beginning to flourish, the prospects have already brought in names like Riot Games and Yozoo Games.
However, one of the latest players to enter the Indian scene is the largest gaming company in terms of revenue, worldwide. Tencent has fairly recently initiated operations in India and has been pushing their titles Arena of Valor and PUBG Mobile throughout. We spoke to Tencent Games India GM Aneesh Aravind about the company’s operations in the country and their plan going ahead.
“We plan on publishing and operating multiple games in India and learning from each of them to understand the market better. We believe that India is at the cusp of a lot of growth in the gaming market right now. The vast experience in developing and publishing in a large number of countries also helps us to adapt and understand the audience well. Further, we want to fine tune our products to fit the market and develop it further,” says Aravind.
With the focus on gaming and esports on a steady rise in the country, the company will further look forward to collaborating with gaming companies in different aspects, be it game production, esports and more. “There are a few companies in the Indian gaming market that are trying to build up the gaming community and we are very interested to associate with them,” adds Aravind.
With the data explosion in the recent years, mainly through the advent of Reliance Jio, the number of downloads and consumers of mobile games have evidently skyrocketed. Hence games like PUBG Mobile and Arena of Valor, which require a constant flow of internet to play along, might just be at the sweet spot.
When asked on why the time was chosen by Tencent to enter the country, Aravind says, “We believe that Tencent has entered the market at the right time, setting up a dedicated game operation and publishing organisation in India to focus on its specific needs. We have an amazing product portfolio in gaming and can deliver very high quality games that are apt for the Indian audience. We also believe that Tencent, with its vast experience in creating and publishing games, can help develop the market and the gaming ecosystem in India.”
Game operations, game production, marketing, esports etc. are among the few main functional capabilities that the company is looking to build here in India and are also in the process of doing so.
With the push for dedicated servers for its games in the country seemingly concrete, Tencent currently has three products that have been published in India – Arena of Valor, PUBG Mobile and Crossfire Legends.
The organisation seems to be keeping a keen eye on the Indian milieu on what is to be done next from their side. As Aravind concludes, “In the near future we are looking at a spectrum of games in different genre to bring to the Indian player, which includes very casual games, mid-core as well as hardcore games. As the needs and interests of the gamers keeps changing, we are continuously looking at what kind of games would really appeal to the Indian players.”
Recently Arena of Valor found its place in the Asian Games of 2018. It will be the first time esports titles are included in the event. The aforementioned game will be joined in the league beside other titles such as Pro Evolution Soccer, League of Legends, Hearthstone, Starcraft II and Clash Royale.