Cover Story

Shifting gears

Indian gaming is going through a paradigm shift as leading global players take note of the domestic market. Gaming peripherals are also picking up. By Kushal Shah

Who wouldn’t love to curve the ball or perform crosses like Ronaldo or hit sixes like the Aussies or vroom like Michael Schumacher; well, if not in real life, one can step into their shoes in a way which is the next best thing to reality through games. Sports aren’t the only option for gaming but there are tons of other genres which can make you feel as if you belong in a particular set up. These experiences can be enjoyed at home or while travelling through various devices—PCs, consoles, through the Internet and on your mobile. Entertainment through gaming has become a way of life for most teenagers across the globe and this is evident from the fact that NASSCOM has pegged worldwide gaming market at $29 billion with a projection of $42 billion by 2010.

Gaming is growing merrily on the global level but the point of concern is where India is headed. According to NASSCOM, India currently contributes a mere 0.25 percent of global revenue by making $48 million a year but the growing popularity of games is set to take this market to $424 million by the end of this decade representing a CAGR of 72 percent. With some of the biggest gaming vendors evincing greater interest in India, we are poised to make a mark on the global scene provided that hiccups on the way are tackled with care. “Although the market is at a nascent stage compared to more mature markets such as Japan, South Korea and United States, it is poised to explode,” says Diptarup Chakraborti, Principal Research Analyst- Client Computing Group, Gartner.

The transition

While the Indian gaming mart is considered to be underdeveloped in terms of gamers and sales potential, it is poised to take bigger leaps to reach an estimated $424 million by 2010. With gamers emerging to reveal their gaming skills and the simultaneous launches of world renowned titles, growth is quite visible. Large companies have already started treating India as an important market for their globally renowned products.

“The Indian gaming industry is currently undergoing tremendous growth. The market today is at an interesting stage where the country with the largest youth population has a small number of core gamers—primarily male teenagers and provides the opportunity to leverage a wide, untapped market of potential gamers,” says Mohit Anand, Country Manager, Microsoft Entertainment and Device Division.

We have moved from vanilla PC gaming to console gaming to light-weight Internet gaming. Having the fastest growing mobile market in the world has ensured that mobile gaming is booming across the country. So much so that mobile gaming is slated to capture about 70 percent of the Indian gaming market.

There has been a paradigm shift in the approach of gamers towards this industry as a whole. Gamers have started taking gaming seriously and started adopting it as means of earning money and have even made it into a career option. Various means of gaming are bringing the world together at the click of a button, especially with the help of Internet gaming. “Gaming which to date been an underground activity is gradually emerging into the limelight purely based on its potential. With many serious players getting into the space in this potential will soon be realised,” says Naveen H, National Manager, Sales– Gaming, Sify Ltd.

Calling Bollywood

The culture of gaming is quickly catching on in the country and with the growing industry and better understanding of games, the kind of gaming titles in demand have also changed. It is true that Indians love to play internationally popular titles such as FIFA, Counter-strike, Doom, and Harry Potter but along with this, gamers are looking for something to which they can relate to. Games based on Bollywood stars and movies are hot property. These let movie fans live the life of characters played by their screen idols. “Indian gamers have not been given much of choice since we have always had the same brands which were famous globally, but what Indians are looking at is something which they love such as films and personalities, something that they can relate to. When people leave a movie hall, they want to do more with it,” says Tony Garcia, CEO, FXLabs. Companies such as FXLabs are partnering with Bollywood movie makers to get these games out in the market.

Apart from Bollywood, Cricket is one thing which is followed in India like a religion. Gaming companies have realised this and have been making specialised cricket games for the Indian audience for a while now. Yuvraj Singh Cricket which will soon feature on the Xbox is being developed keeping Indian gamers in mind.

On the Internet gaming side, the trend is completely divided amongst the type of players. Internet gaming is primarily divided into two segments viz. casual gamers and MMOG (Massively Multiplayer Online Gaming). Explaining these terms, Rohit Sharma, COO, Zapak Digital Entertainment Limited says, “Casual gamers are generally home and office users and they have their favourites in action, sports and racing since these can be completed in a few minutes. MMOGs are usually played from cyber cafes, RPG and fantasy games are a hit which helps them build a huge community of gamers sidelining geographical limits.” With the help of broadband penetration, Internet gaming is taking shape and people visit cyber cafes to play games. For the growth of this segment companies such as Zapak are building Internet cafes especially for Internet gaming. “Cyber cafes earn over 50 percent of their revenues and margins from gaming at present. The average size of a cyber cafe is also growing in those areas with a higher concentration of youth. I have even noticed video parlours that earlier sold CDs/DVDs setting up LAN cafes. Many distributors are moving towards game rentals and hence, gaming as an entertainment option is entering the mainstream,” says Moninder Jain, Director, India & South East Asia, Logitech.

In terms of adapting to the current events and making games that assimilate trends, the makers of mobile games are the fastest. Mobile games consume relatively fewer resources and the number of titles developed is consequently high. Multiplayer games provide high level entertainment on these small devices. “Interactive-real-time content is making the entire mobile entertainment experience quite exciting. The elements of competition and the prospect of winning prizes have worked well in India; not only are the consumers having fun, but they also win some goodies,” says Vishal Gondal, CEO, Indiagames.

Making it real

The shift is not only seen in terms of the games of various platforms and their developers but in terms of computer peripherals that help gamers extract the most from games. Joining the race in this segment are graphic card vendors as well as the makers of gaming peripherals such as joysticks and steering wheels along with those making speakers and high-end monitors. In India, the vendors of peripherals are doing well largely on account of the fact that PC manufacturers have not brought their gaming brands to the country. “HP is still to get Voodoo to India and even Dell staying away from bringing its gaming-specific models here due to which people are moving towards assembling their gaming machines using graphic cards and other peripherals,” says Chakraborti.

In order to offer a better experience, vendors continuously keep a tab on happenings in the gaming world by working along with developers. “We work closely with game developers and PC manufacturers to develop hardware peripherals. Without their support some well known products would not exist. Logitech frequently meets with game developers worldwide to get support for future products built into upcoming game titles,” says Jain.

On the other hand, graphic cards give an altogether different look to a game and grip the user giving him a truly immersive experience. Graphic card vendors are changing their strategies to penetrate this market by tying up with PC manufacturers and bundling their product with PCs and keeping high-end cards for core gamers who are few in India.

So the growth is two-sided, both game makers and peripheral vendors are getting a taste of success and in turn gamers get it good.

Stumbling blocks

Every mode of gaming has a different set of challenges when it comes to doing business in India. Some difficulties are common to all. If PC gaming is taken into account, the problem lies in the lack of PC penetration. The PC market may be accelerating but it is not there yet. The next issue is common to both PC and console gaming—pricing. If one has to deal with the Indian market, vendors of games as well as consoles will have to reframe their pricing strategy. As of now consoles like the Xbox and PS3 are in danger of becoming accessories only for the elite class. If pricing is done right, piracy can be curbed if not eliminated. Companies are not completely to be blamed for high prices; if the government wants to see this industry grow it has to restructure taxes and duties for imported games currently about 37 percent of the cost of gaming products can be attributed to the government’s door.

Another hiccup is that of inadequate devices and low broadband penetration. Both these factors are improving but at present they are proving to be an obstacle to Internet gaming in particular.

Mobile gaming o the other hand has different operational challenges. “One of the most critical challenges is that to ensure games run across all the handsets that are available to consumers currently. There are more than 500 handsets available in the market today, and customising each game to make it compatible with all models is a time consuming and resource-intensive affair,” says Manoj Dawane, CEO, People Infocom (Mauj).

According to Chakraborti, some of the challenges lie in the culture of India which has still not accepted gaming as a medium of entertainment. This nascent market has a long way to go in terms of quality of games, interest levels among the general population, reducing piracy levels, improving broadband and PC penetration, right pricing and sheer revenue generation. Though we will move in upwards of $400 million by 2010, we will still be way short of global figures.