The mobile game app market in India is on a northward progress. While a growing count of investors is showing a keen interest in Indian gaming industry, such individuals and enterprises – that are ready to fund the Indian game development talents – manifest a worldwide interest in the country and its future in gaming from the perspective of sustainability of the growth.
The phenomenon is of recent origin and should appear in its full bloom only after a gestation period of a few years. However, the trend has indeed arrived and is here to stay. The most encouraging of all points is that the foreign investors are continually showing interests in the Indian game development industry not merely from the point of outsourcing game testing to India. The investors from across the world see India as a potential market, ripe for monetizing games and enjoy a great profitable venture. The comparative newness of the Indian gaming/game development market – still free from competition and high expectations – is perhaps more encouraging for the investors in their assessment of possibilities that Indian gaming industry holds in store.
A decade ago from now, India was seen merely as an outsourcing destination, where it could secure a name in delivering cheap but competent game QA testing services. The abundance of skilled workforce and resources at economical rates has been rendering India the recognition of a fertile location for testing offshore interactive entertainment applications – for errors, bugs and performance issues. However, of late, the scenario has begun to change fast with Indian consumers rapidly shifting from basic handsets to Android-based/iOS-based/Windows-based mobile devices. As such, the market for interactive applications is rapidly gearing up for more to offer and is gradually broadening into a wonderfully lucrative platform for collaboration, advertisement and symbiotic growth.
What has also captured the fancy of the investors around the globe is the fact that locally-made computer/mobile games have been generating a stupendous response in the market. According to statistics, the list of ‘top three grossing games’ in India (as of middle of 2014) includes a locally-made Indian Poker game, named as ‘Teen Patti’ (developed by Delhi NCR-based Octro Inc) at the third position – only preceded by the international Clash of Clans and Candy Crush Saga.
Teen Patti – is a digital version of Indian poker game – has been developed by the Delhi NCR- based game development studio and shows a lot of promises for more in the future. The consistent revenue being generated by the game has driven a global investment company like Sequoia Capital to pump in 15 million dollars to Octro Inc – till now an obscure local studio is responsible for the development of the game.
Major global funding organisations are also encouraged to invest in the Indian game industry citing the consumer behaviour in India. The Indian consumers are assumed to be not very finicky about the quality of graphic user interface (GUI) across interactive applications. They are ready to compromise with visual quality as long as they are having fun. Albeit, the entertainment applications developed locally have generally been found prone to crash frequently, yet, an average Indian consumer continues to play these games as a means to engage himself/herself and is reported to be quite avid at doing that. The facts imply that an average Indian consumer is willing to try – and is not prone to reject products outright just by certain shortcomings.
The global investors interested in Indian gaming market understand that if they could provide these gamers with exciting titles comprising of better GUI – alongside the required robustness – they can exploit the industry even better in the times to come. Not to mention, the local game compatibility testing services in India already help the expectations to materialise and ensure seamless delivery of error-free games for Indian as well as for international game markets – quickly, and at meagre costs!
Article by,
Laxmikant B. Thipse
Founder & CEO
GameCloud Technologies Pvt Ltd
