Recently got an opportunity to attend the India Gaming Summit 2024 in person. This was truly an insightful first peek into the world of the gamers!
All kinds of gaming professions have been gaining traction over the last few years. On the one end of the spectrum are the elite ESport Atheletes who compete on national & international forums. On the other there are Casual Gamers, playing games on their mobiles & computers for fun, entertainment, and as a recreational pass time.
On a slightly different tangent are the gamers playing Real Money Games (RMG). They play games (like poker, etc) with actual monetary bets & rewards (losses). There is a wide age profile mix among all the different kinds of gamers. From teenagers to senior citizens to home makers to professionals it seems the whole world is busy playing games, not just in their free time. Though preferences for different types of games vary across demographics.
Those considerations and more are the lookout of the other kind of gaming professionals - the game developers. These are the tech & biz folks building gaming companies & startups. They are busy coming up with newer and popular games which appeals to their audiences. Issues of profits, growth, user-base, market capture, freshness & appeal, newer products, marketing, recruitment, etc. are among many of the organizational concerns on their minds.
Fluidity on the taxation front is giving gitters to the whole industry. A consistent and steady policy from the government is the need of the hour. At the same time social & heath issues like addiction, isolation, mental health issue are also serious concerns of the entire gaming industry.
Several technological interventions like compulsory lay off time after a certain period of playing, etc are being brought in. As well as education & health interventions. While there seems to be a general acknowledgement of the issues, individual solutions may differ yielding varying results. A regulatory/ governance model is also needed here. Self-regulatory models while promising may/ may not work. Better is to institute a proper governance framework with checks & balances in place.
Finally, for what makes gaming worthwhile look at the success of Monopoly Go, a digitized version of the children's board game. The game is so popular that it touched $1 Bn in revenues within 7 months of release & doubled that over the next 3 months. With that in mind, keep an eye out on all the action from the gaming world!
