The gaming industry in India is going through a phase of unprecedented growth. With a total strength of 30 Crore players and 300 game development companies, India is proving out to be one of the best gaming destinations in the world.
According to a KPMG report, the Indian gaming industry is estimated to be worth more than 4400 Crore by the end of 2018 which is expected to climb up to 11,900 Crore by 2022-23. The number of gaming companies also went up to 300 companies from just 10 companies in the last decade. With data becoming cheap, gamers do not mind downloading huge game files such as PubG. Rajesh Rao, Chairman of India Game Developers Conference considered to be one of the earliest players in the Indian gaming industry observes that the number of both casual, as well as serious gamers, is adding up on an everyday basis.
As the gaming industry is growing at a Compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22 percent in terms of revenue and the number of players growing daily at an exponential rate, the industry is starting to face key new challenges such as player-to-player money conversion and the most pressing challenge of talent acquisition.
The term player-to-player money conversion refers to the in-game purchases that the gamers make such as – skins, weapons, avatar borders, battle emotes among many other in-game purchases made available to the players. The problem in India is that only 1-2 percent of the players are serious gamers and make such purchases. The gaming companies rely heavily on these in-game purchases that they offer, for profits and income.
A more serious issue befalling the gaming industry is that it is not getting the right talent that it needs. According to Rajesh Rao, there is not enough training happening in the educational institutions. Many of the fresh IT graduates have never developed a game in their lives. The situation is so stark that the industry is even willing to help the educational institutions to train their students in the required skills, in order to reduce the rising demand of skilled IT workers in the gaming industry.
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