Are You Game?

Indias digital gaming industry is on steroids. But making money out of the craze is still a challenge for companies.

- K.T.P. Radhika

As a teenager, Jeet Rajesh Kundra loved playing games on his mobile. His parents worried that his obsession would affect his studies. Kundra, based in Mumbai, was planning to pursue a degree in commerce. But soon his life made what gamers would call a ‘crouch jump’ as he started playing more serious games, winning gaming competitions, grabbing attention of gaming companies.

In 2016, he dropped out of college to take up gaming as a career. The 22-year-old is now a leading player of Dota 2, a multiplayer video game, and a professional gamer with Horizon Sports India, a digital gaming company. “Making a living from playing games is a dream come true,” says Kundra, whose team recently won the famed ESL Indian Master’s tournament held in Mumbai. “My next aim is to win an international tournament,” he says.

Kundra’s story has come at a turning point in the history of gaming in India. The gaming market is growing like never before and, with global gaming giants such as Yoozoo, Alibaba-backed Paytm and Tencent investing in India, many youngsters such as Kundra are taking up gaming as a career. “When I started playing casual games, hardly anyone thought of it as a career, but with new gaming leagues and sponsors, the scene has changed,” he says.

Industry watchers say the digital gaming industry is maturing in India. “Unlike gamers in mature markets such as China, Japan, the US and the UK, Indian gamers were majorly casual gamers,” says Rajan Navani, Vice Chairman and Managing Director at JetSynthesys, a part of the JetLine Group of Companies which creates digital products and platforms for the mobile industry. “However, over the past two years, we have seen a significant increase in the number of hardcore professional gamers.”