Abstract The Indian gaming industry is growing rapidly and is attributed to low-cost android devices as well as

an overall smartphone and internet penetration increase. The mobile gaming industry is growing the

fastest and the majority of the Indian people prefer to play games on mobiles, smartphones, or tablets.

Even though the trends are currently changing, Indian game developers struggle to monetize their

games. This is mainly due to low credit card penetration and lack of established digital payment

solutions, an absence of widespread 4G and Wi-Fi, and an ingrained unwillingness to pay for digital

content. Therefore, the majority of all mobile game revenues come from in-app advertisement, in-

game product or brand placement, and incentive based advertisement. Indian game developers also

struggle with talent crunch, funding, few learning opportunities, piracy, and high cost and

maintenance. They also tend to neglect core development in favor of monetization strategies. The

people of India are becoming more interested in game development as more people attend game

development events and game development institutes are emerging. The rapid growth has also

attracted top international and high quality game studios such as Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, and Zynga.

Introduction There are currently 1.3 billion people living in India. This makes India the second largest country by

population. Out of these 1.3 billion people, 264 million people are considered to be gamers. According

to Newzoo’s insights they will spend roughly around $818 million on games in 2017. This makes India

the 17th largest games market in the world.1

Nearly 90% of Indian gamers prefer to play games on mobiles, smartphones, or tablets.2 Some of the

factors as to why Indian gamers prefer mobile phone gaming are larger screens size in low-cost mobile

devices, increased compatibility of games with mobile screens, and the mobility factor. However, as

the casual mobile gamer becomes more experienced and familiar with the whole gaming experience

they tend to move towards bigger screens and more prominent and powerful equipment such as

laptops or computers. Aside from the massive segregation, diversity, consumption pattern, and gaming

behavior, the average Indian gamer is below 24 years old, male, and discovers new games through

friends and family.

The Indian gaming industry is expected to grow and reach a market value of $1Bn in 2021. This growth

will be driven by an increased internet and smartphone penetration, increased disposable income,

comprehensive rise in digital payment user base, launch of new technologies, increase in local

developer base, and focus on development of content with local themes, Indian languages and global

standards.3

Since almost every Indian gamer prefer to play games on mobiles and smartphones a lot of the growth

and revenue will come from this side of the industry. App Annie and NASSCOM gaming forum

published and released a report regarding India’s mobile gaming industry during NASSCOM Game

Developer Conference 2016. The report concluded that India broke into the worldwide top five for

mobile game downloads in 2016. Across both mobile marketplaces (iOS App Store and Google Play)

the number of mobile game downloads have doubled and the amount of time spent playing games

have increased by 30% since 2014. The report also concluded that India’s mobile gaming market was

expected to grow further and at the end of 2020 generate $1.1Bn in revenue. This current growth is,

according to the report, attributed to the low-cost android handsets that have driven a widespread

1 Newzoo, "The Indian Gamer," https://newzoo.com/insights/infographics/indian-gamer-2017/. 2 KPMG and Google, "Online Gaming in India: Reaching a New Pinnacle," https://assets.kpmg.com/content/dam/kpmg/in/pdf/2017/05/online-gaming.pdf. 3 Ibid.

smartphone adoption.4 According to Rajesh Rao, the emerging market and rate of change is not

proportional to the years that are going by. “For every one year, you see two years' worth of

maturity.”5 This expected growth gives both local and foreign game developers and publishers great

opportunities to expand their businesses and acquire new users.

This text has been written to show people with an interest in game development and Indian culture

how games are being made and what type of business strategies should be adopted. The basis of this

text constitutes of news articles, webpages, and blogs related to game development in India. A lot of

the information comes from interviews with actual game developers that has been living in or currently

live in India. The focus of this text has come to be on mobile gaming and mobile game development in

India due to the emerging market and current growth in these aspects of the Indian gaming industry.

The ability to make money Downloads and the sheer amounts of users are one thing, but in order to make money, game

developers have to monetize their games and products (e.g. in-app purchases, pay per download, and

subscription services). The process of doing so in India has been troublesome for many years and

depends on:6

1. India's low credit card penetration and lack of established digital payment solutions.

2. An absence of widespread 4G and Wi-Fi that makes file size critical.

3. An ingrained unwillingness to pay for digital game content.

The low credit card penetration and lack of established technology is a problem for game developers

in India. In 2016, the network operator Idea Cellular introduced carrier billing which meant that people

were able to pay for mobile content and in-app purchases through their network operator without the

need of a credit card. However, according to local developers, this had only a small impact on their

revenue streams and suggested a universal integration instead.

A couple of years ago in India, players did not have the necessary devices or the connectivity required

to play or even download games. The development ecosystem has, however, evolved in symbiosis with

the current exponential consumption and India is moving towards better technology and a more stable

and reliable coverage of widespread 4G and Wi-Fi connections. Even though many Indian gamers today

have access to high end mobile devices with the ability to connect to 3G and 4G networks,7 almost

two-thirds of gamers still access games through budget or value phones with limited processors and

storage capacity.8

The unwillingness to pay for digital game content and the “[a]vailability of free substitutes and

perception of high pricing are limiting the realization of revenues through gamer(s)”9 To combat some

of these problems, Google Play introduced lower pricing tiers specifically for the Indian Market.

Currently, the lowest price for anything in Google Play is Rs. 10 (USD 0.15). Even though this is still

much cheaper than anything on the US market, 10 Rupees, by Indian living standard is still a lot. India's

last definition of poverty line was Rs. 32 per day (USD 0.48 per day) in rural areas and Rs. 47 per day

4 Matt Suckley, "Indian Mobile Gaming Revenues Will Reach $1.1 Billion by 2020," http://www.pocketgamer.biz/asia/news/64418/indian-mobile-gaming-revenues-will-reach-11bn-by-2020/. 5 "The Story Behind India’s First Games Company and the Industry’s Rapid Rise," Pocketgamer 2016. 6 "The State of Play for Mobile Games in India in 2016," http://www.pocketgamer.biz/feature/64670/the-state-of-play-for-mobile-games-in-india-in-2016/list/. 7 Ibid. 8 KPMG and Google, "Online Gaming in India: Reaching a New Pinnacle". 9 Ibid.

(USD 0.7 per day) in urban areas.10 In many cases, the country’s economic inequality forces poor people

to spend money on necessities instead of games. Rajesh Rao, founder of Dhruva Interactive, argues

that the threshold could be even lower and suggests games and digital content for two to five Rupees.11

Furthermore, due to the poor buying habits in India, the ad revenue generated from Indian users is

much lower compared to other countries. This makes it difficult for small and indie studios to fund

their existence through the Indian market alone unless they are backed by venture capitalist with

money to spend. In order to sustain as a game developer in India it might be wise to somehow target

both the global and the local market.

These trends are however currently changing. Payment methods are now more skewed towards

credit/debit cards and Indian gamers are more prone to pay for digital content. Only one percent of

paying gamers prefer the older carrier billing option. In addition to the changed mentality towards

online payment, new affordable technologies and better, more efficient and reliable infrastructure and

connectivity are on their way. This in turn, leads to an increased smartphone and internet

penetration.12 This ultimately means that the monetization barriers are becoming less and less of a

problem in India as each day passes. However, India is still a very diverse country and the people are

in need of options depending on who you are, where you live, and how much you can afford to spend

on games.

Currently, the revenue and monetization model in the industry can be divided into two categories of

payers – Ecosystem and Gamers.13

Ecosystem – Revenue from the ecosystem comes from in-app advertisement, in-game product

or brand placement, and incentive based advertisement.

Gamers – Game developers can also be paid by the users through purchase or pay-per-

download, freemium upgrades, in-app purchases, and subscription.

Today, monetization is primarily dominated by the ecosystem and its advertisers and publishers. In

India, upwards of 80% of all mobile game revenues come from ads.14 However, as the market grows,

the monetization strategies are expected to move away from the ecosystem and towards a more

western based monetization model with freemium games with upgrades and in-app purchases instead.

Design for monetization Hrishi Oberoi explains that Indian game developers are paid either via advertisement (ecosystem) or

in-app purchases (gamers).15 Games in the top 10 region with returning players are estimated to make

$1500 to $2000 per day in advertisement alone. However, as soon as a game falls out of top ten the

revenue stream from advertisements are heavily affected and could fall down to $100 to $300 per day.

On the other side, top 10 grossing games who utilize an in-app purchase monetization strategy can

make $1500 to $7000 per day on in-app purchases. Games in the top 100 usually make around $200

10 Shailesh Prabhu, "Breaking Down the Billion," https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2016-11-02-breaking-down-the-billion. 11 Matt Suckley, "The Story Behind India’s First Games Company and the Industry’s Rapid Rise," http://www.pocketgamer.biz/asia/interview/64442/rajesh-rao-on-the-state-of-indias-industry/. 12 KPMG and Google, "Online Gaming in India: Reaching a New Pinnacle". 13 Ibid. 14 Simon Aubrey Drake, "Indian Mobile Game Devs Have Unique Creativity, but Are They Ready for the Global Market?," http://www.pocketgamer.biz/asia/comment-and-opinion/63087/the-creativity-of-indian-mobile-game-devs. 15 Matt Suckley, "How to Design Effective Mobile Game Monetisation for India," http://www.pocketgamer.biz/asia/mobile-mavens/65682/how-to-design-mobile-game-monetisation-for-india/.

to $300 a day. In order for game developers to obtain substantial revenue they have to adopt an

aggressive monetization strategy similar to Clash of Clans or Candy Crush Saga.

According to Joel Johnson few game studios in India have managed to generate any significant revenue

from in-app purchases within mobile games.16 But those who have, have focused on social casino

games. Because of this, game developers in India are more focused on trying to achieve high amounts

of downloads in order to generate ad revenues through the ecosystem instead.

Some of the more common strategies adopted by the top grossing games in India are special offers

and discount on in-app purchases and different formats within the game to keep the game feeling

“refreshed”, so players have more fun and spend more time playing. Furthermore, a good way to

circumvent the barriers of online payment is to have a way of sharing in-game currencies with friends

and family. Hesitant players can therefore in exchange for “hard” currency still spend money on in-app

purchases and so forth.

To put everything into perspective, being the number one grossing game in India will generate a lot

less money than being ranked number one in the top grossing charts in many other countries. In the

US and on iPhone devices alone, Candy Crush Saga is expected to make $973,403 per day from the

game and its in-app purchases.17 Even though viable and sustainable revenue streams can be

established in India, it is only a fraction of what is possible compared to other countries.

Problems and issues developing games in India India is a large country with billions of people with cultural, religious, political, and social differences.

Gamers, their gaming preference and behavior, the infrastructure, and the technology available is

different depending on where you are in India. Games that work really well in tier 1 cities might not be

successful at all in tier 2 cities or the more rural parts of India. “[I]n India the whole country changes

every 200 miles: new language, new city, new culture”18 Developers who aim to really captivate the

Indian people have to understand, not only the Indian culture, but also the local cultural differences

and their uniqueness and develop or localize games with this in mind in order to be successful. This

might be easier said than done since India has over 122 different languages and 22 of them are treated

as official national languages.19 The people of India might be many, but the segregation and vastly

different living habits and living conditions makes the gaming market difficult to navigate, and

ultimately, succeed in.

Indian game developers and game studios often struggle with:20 21

Talent crunch – It can be difficult for gaming companies to find talented people interested in

game development. Those who are, tend to move to more lucrative business or join game

studios abroad instead.

16 Ibid. 17 ThinkGaming, "Candy Crush Saga," https://thinkgaming.com/app-sales-data/2/candy-crush-saga/. 18 Matthew Handrahan, "“Making a World-Class Game, but from India - That's the Number One Goal”," https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-01-18-making-a-world-class-game-but-from-india-thats-the-number-one-goal. 19 Prabhu, "Breaking Down the Billion". 20 Vinay Dora, "Do You Want Game Developers to 'Make (It) in India' ?," https://yourstory.com/2014/09/game-developers/. 21 TechSciResearch and Confederation of Indian Industry, "Emerging Trends in Paint India Gaming Industry," https://www.techsciresearch.com/admin/gall_content/2017/6/2017_6$thumbimg114_Jun_2017_074442683.pdf.

Funding challenge – Indian game developers are often isolated from the latest technologies

and development gear due to limited resources or infrastructural constraints. Developing

games costs money and finding enough funding to develop a game and convince those who

contribute that it is a good idea and a quality product can be challenging.

Neglecting core development – Game developers tend to focus more on monetization

strategies than good and entertaining gameplay. This can obviously become a problem in the

long run.

Few learning opportunities – Game development have a steep learning curve due to lack of

educational content available in India.

Prevalence of piracy – Piracy and pirated games are common in India which makes it difficult

for game developers to make money when “free”, equally good games are available to the

public.

High cost and maintenance – New, high-end PC games with beautiful graphics require

expensive and powerful computers. The Indian gaming industry and its consumers are not yet

ready to spend that kind of money on high-end equipment and costly products.

Opportunities, NASSCOM, and internship The Indian game industry and its associated parts is currently evolving and emerging from its previous

form of fragile infrastructure and unreliable technology and it is clear, that the people of India are

becoming more interested in game development. The game developers’ conference NASSCOM is

“India’s largest, and best known, confluence of game developers, publishers and decision makers in

the ecosystem.” The game conference is a “platform for developers and studios to share their

perspectives and showcase their best work.”22 The conference cover a wide range of subjects such as

indie games, game design, game art, production, marketing, VR, tech, and board games etc. The

conference also arrange publisher and investor meetups for game developers attending the event.

3000 people visited the conference in 2017, which is a 68% increase in attendees since the year before.

The emerging market has not only captured the eyes of the people, top international and high quality

game studios are moving or setting up new development centers in India. Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, and

Zynga have all started new studios in India and could potentially be an alternative career path with

great growth prospects for people living in India.23 Additionally, India has, currently, well over 100

institutes offering game development, game design, and 3D art courses from basic to expert levels

with new institutions emerging all the time. Despite the previously discussed problems with game

development in India, this trend, of not only a growing market but a large base of trained personnel

and the emerging opportunities for ordinary people to participate and to learn about game

development shows that India is ready to enter the global market once and for all.

The University of Skövde believe that India has a lot to offer as we have tied connections with five local

game studios in an attempt to show, but also hopefully educate interested students in Indian culture

and its gaming industry and development process.

Supersike is a game studio located in the central parts of Delhi and they have developed games since

January 2013. They lunched their first title, yet another bird game, in May three months later. The

game became the runner up in Square Enix Game Development Contest, India. Since then the company

22 NASSCOM, "Digitising India," http://www.nasscom.in/sites/default/files/NASSCOM_Annual_Report_2016-17.pdf. 23 Manvendra Shukul, "India: A Growing Market for Game Development Outsourcing," https://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech-deck/india-a-growing-market-for-game-development-outsourcing/.

has developed and released several more games with their latest being One More Pass, currently

available for download in the iOS App Store.

All in a Days Play is a 10 member organization operating from Mumbai and have been in the game

development business for over two years. It is an indie start-up with 17 million downloads across iOS

App Store, Google Play, and Amazon App store.

Xigma Games was founded in 2015 and is currently a small two person indie studio in Bangalore. They

won The Very Big Indie Pitch in 2015 with Super Nano Jumpers. The game was also a showcase

nominee for Casual Connect in San Francisco in 2015. They were also a finalist in The Very Big Indie

Pitch 2016 with their newly released minimalistic color based puzzle game Rubek. They are currently

working on their latest game, The Bonfire: Forsaken Lands.

Holy Cow Productions is an independent game development company in Bangalore and are both

focused on video game development and outsourcing services. Their newly built studio offers seats for

20 in-house developers, a soundproof audio/recording room, 2 meeting rooms, director’s office,

kitchen and a rooftop chill out area. They have released games like Bot Rods, The Bad Dream Brigade,

and Zenith.

Studio Oleomingus is a two person game design studio located in Chala and is run by Dhruv Jani and

Sushant Chakraborty. They practice at the intersection of Post-Colonial Literature, Speculative

Architecture and Games by creating stories that seek to understand how spaces, histories and

languages respond when expressed within interactive mediums. Their latest projects include an

ongoing installation at the When is Space exhibition at Jaipur called An indivisible margin of Error and

a small experimental game recently released on steam called A Museum of Dubious Splendors.

Table 1. Internship information and contact.

Company Webpage Location Supersike http://www.supersikegames.com/ Delhi All in a Days Play http://aiadp.com/about/ Mumbai Xigma Games http://www.xigmagames.com/ Bangalore Holy Cow Production http://holycowprod.com/ Bangalore Studio Oleomingus http://oleomingus.com/ Chala

We believe that this could be a unique opportunity for interested students to work closely related to

actual game development. This, for instance, could be an excellent moment for students who struggle

to find a thesis subject and a way to spice up the text with some Indian flavors. Or, learn more about

India as a gaming culture by embracing new and exciting challenges. Nevertheless, we believe this

would be an adventure you will never forget, filled with games, unique culture, and endless

possibilities.

References Dora, Vinay. "Do You Want Game Developers to 'Make (It) in India' ?"

https://yourstory.com/2014/09/game-developers/. Drake, Simon Aubrey. "Indian Mobile Game Devs Have Unique Creativity, but Are They Ready for the

Global Market?" http://www.pocketgamer.biz/asia/comment-and-opinion/63087/the-creativity-of-indian-mobile-game-devs.

Handrahan, Matthew. "“Making a World-Class Game, but from India - That's the Number One Goal”." https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-01-18-making-a-world-class-game-but-from-india-thats-the-number-one-goal.

KPMG, and Google. "Online Gaming in India: Reaching a New Pinnacle." https://assets.kpmg.com/content/dam/kpmg/in/pdf/2017/05/online-gaming.pdf.

NASSCOM. "Digitising India." http://www.nasscom.in/sites/default/files/NASSCOM_Annual_Report_2016-17.pdf.

Newzoo. "The Indian Gamer." https://newzoo.com/insights/infographics/indian-gamer-2017/. Prabhu, Shailesh. "Breaking Down the Billion." https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2016-11-02-

breaking-down-the-billion. Shukul, Manvendra. "India: A Growing Market for Game Development Outsourcing."

https://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech-deck/india-a-growing-market-for-game-development-outsourcing/.

Suckley, Matt. "How to Design Effective Mobile Game Monetisation for India." http://www.pocketgamer.biz/asia/mobile-mavens/65682/how-to-design-mobile-game-monetisation-for-india/.

———. "Indian Mobile Gaming Revenues Will Reach $1.1 Billion by 2020." http://www.pocketgamer.biz/asia/news/64418/indian-mobile-gaming-revenues-will-reach-11bn-by-2020/.

———. "The State of Play for Mobile Games in India in 2016." http://www.pocketgamer.biz/feature/64670/the-state-of-play-for-mobile-games-in-india-in-2016/list/.

———. "The Story Behind India’s First Games Company and the Industry’s Rapid Rise." Pocketgamer, 2016.

———. "The Story Behind India’s First Games Company and the Industry’s Rapid Rise." http://www.pocketgamer.biz/asia/interview/64442/rajesh-rao-on-the-state-of-indias-industry/.

TechSciResearch, and Confederation of Indian Industry. "Emerging Trends in Paint India Gaming Industry." https://www.techsciresearch.com/admin/gall_content/2017/6/2017_6$thumbimg114_Jun_2017_074442683.pdf.

ThinkGaming. "Candy Crush Saga." https://thinkgaming.com/app-sales-data/2/candy-crush-saga/.

Author:

Marcus Hellkvist