Gaming industry analysts agree that India is one of the most promising countries in terms of monetization of the gaming market. Cash turnover in the industry is growing by 30% every year.
India is known for its catastrophically low living standards. Its population living below the poverty line is in the millions. There is a big gap between low-income people, who make up about 85%, and oligarchs, who make up only 4-6% but considered among the richest members of the world's financial elite. There is practically no middle class in India - it is about 10% of the total population, which is very small. However, over the past few years, India has emerged as an poweful player in the global gaming industry.
According to analysts, India is gradually becoming one of the leading gaming markets. Mostly due to the fact that the country’s population is 1.3 billion people, among whom the largest percentage of young people in the world. And the younger generation, as we know, is the main consumer and developer of the gaming industry.
At the government level, the authorities are engaged in the digitalization of the country, actively developing and maintaining the IT infrastructure, investing public funds in various startups related to game development. Under the supervision of the Prime Minister, the so-called Digital India is gradually being formed. A regulatory framework that will regulate the online gaming sector in the country is currently in development by various Indian ministries. At the same time, statistics show a large percentage of enterprises involved in the development of gaming platforms and game creation. According to an NDTV Profit survey, $400 million has been spent on Web3 games alone in India over the past few years.
Lumikai pays Indian game developers to boost its capital
Lumikai is India's first venture capital fund, which has been actively supporting gaming startups in the country since 2019. The founder of the fund, Justin Sriram Keeling, believes that financial injections into the games industry and support for Indian developers is a very promising area of the fund's work. Justin Sriram Keeling: “When we launched a few years ago, some of the big players in the industry thought we were crazy and wasting money. After all, everyone is used to the fact that India has got a huge number of gamers – more than 500 million but everyone prefers playing for free, so no one is ready to buy games.” However, the country's gaming market is monetizing at speed - it is growing by 30% per year, and its turnover now stands at $3.6 billion.
Large transactions are constantly taking place in the industry, for example, Nazara became the first gaming company to make an IPO with the deal amounted to $600 million.
Serious companies are investing large sums in the development of the gaming market as they have already calculated that India’s rapid economic growth, young audience, digitalization, its own startups and IT developers will bring huge dividends in the future, making the country one of the global leaders in the gaming industry.
