1, 2, 3, GO

THANKS TO A DRAMATIC RISE IN SUBSCRIPTION GAMING SERVICES AND CLOUD GAMING AMID THE PANDEMIC, INDIA IS NOW THE WORLD'S FASTEST-GROWING MOBILE GAMING MARKET, HELPING MANY ENTHUSIASTS TURN INTO PROFESSIONALS . WILL THE MOMENTUM SUSTAIN?

- PRERNA LIDHOO

PROFESSIONAL CLASH Royale player Prashant Pandey started gaming in 2015 while he was studying to become an engineer in Bengaluru. Five minutes of casual gaming turned into 15 hours a day and, in 2018, Pandey went on to represent India at the Clash Royale League e-sports competition in the US. He even started earning a six-figure salary as a player. This year, Pandey co-founded Qlan, a social network for India’s online gaming community, where players can look for jobs, broadcast their skills, share content, etc. “India’s online gaming industry is not what it used to be. It has gone beyond leisure and entertainment. It’s a full-fledged career opportunity in the making now. Just like Indian cricketers get salary from the BCCI [Board of Control for Cricket in India], online gamers can make upto ₹1.5 lakh [monthly] by playing for a team,” says Mumbai-based Pandey.

In the early 2000s, games such as Counter-Strike and Age of Empires introduced Indians to the world of online gaming though consoles and PCs. Today, almost two decades later, India is the world’s fastest-growing mobile gaming market, growing at 22 per cent annually, and is expected to generate an annual revenue of ₹11,900 crore by FY23, according to a 2019 KPMG report. The main reason behind this is India’s 560-million-strong internet user base, growth of cloud gaming and a dramatic rise in subscription platforms accelerated by the pandemic. Mobile users form an overwhelming 85 per cent of the industry and given the low entry barrier for mobile games such as PUBG Mobile, Free Fire, Clash of Legends and Call of Duty Mobile, the industry is expected to grow exponentially in the next few years.