Investors Eyeing Indian Gaming Industry. Thank Smartphones! To fight the international competition, Indian gaming startups are diversifying the different genres of gaming through unique storylines, bold innovations, and inventive design skills.
By Nidhi Singh
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The youth population of the world is hovering to become part of one of the world's leading gaming sector. The mobile gaming industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. From the past few years, mobile games have become the entertainment of choice not only for young people but also for few people who are now imagining their career in the gaming industry.
As per CII-TechSci Research report, India's mobile gaming market is projected to top $400 million by 2022, driven by growing adoption of freemium and virtual reality games in the coming years, a report has said. Freemium business model basically works on providing free of charge services but money is charged for advanced features.
The report further stated that the number of mobile gamers in the country is also expected to grow substantially from 198 million in 2015 to 628 million by 2020 and further to 1.16 billion by 2030.
As the gaming industry is growing quickly, there are many startups that are trying something new to develop these games. To fight the international competition, Indian gaming startups are diversifying the different genres of gaming through unique storylines, bold innovations, and inventive design skills.
The gaming startup segment has seen some investment activity in the past few months. Gaming startups like 99 Games, Play Simple Games and Flixy games have received a large amount from investors.
The Mobile gaming industry is among the bright spots for investors focusing on India, where the youth-dominated population has a major role in making mobile games popular.
Foreign investors are wooing Indian Startups:
Udupi- based 99 Games Online Pvt. Ltd raised an undisclosed amount of funding last month from a Japanese investment firm Dream Incubator. The investment firm looks forward to build games for the Indian market with its debut investment in India. The startup has already raised $9 Million to date from quality institutional investors -Kalaari Capital and Ascent Capital and Dream Incubator.
99Games Online Pvt Ltd was initially a part of Robosoft Technologies Pvt. Ltd, but later it went forward to become a single entity.
Another Bengaluru-based mobile gaming startup Flixy games received a funding of $425000 last year from Rebright Partners, a Japan-based venture capital firm. Founded in March 2016, Flixy Games is a mobile game publisher specifically focused on the Indian market. With the funding, the startup aims to provide a high-quality gaming experience to the Indian consumers.
eSports League To Develop the Indian Digital Gaming Content
Mobile gaming firm Nazara Games is looking to launch an esports league in India with an investment of INR 136 crore. Nazara is the leading mobile games publisher in emerging markets of India, Middle East and Africa .The Mumbai-based company further plans to setup an Indian esports ecosystem over the next five years.
Indian entrepreneur Ronnie Screwvala is also rumoured to be investing 80-100 to start an Esports league called UCypher. UCypher aims to bring first of its kind tournament that will see teams fighting the battle over PC, console and mobile games' league.
