Gaming: What to expect from the Indian gaming and e-sports industry in 2022

As we enter 2022, we can only look back and wonder at the meteoric rise online gaming has seen in India in the past two years. While gaming had been witnessing growth, albeit a relatively slow one, before the lockdown, it was during the locked-at-home phase that many across the country not only discovered the joys of gaming, but also realized they could make a healthy living out of it. If most reports coming out in the last one year are to be believed, India will see an even faster growth for the industry in the next few years, and now Bharat is joining in this growth. A recent report by Mobile Premier League (MPL), an esports and skill gaming platform, revealed that India’s tier-III cities and towns have witnessed a significant rise in the number of online gamers in 2021. The top 30 of them reported up to 170% more gamers compared to 2020. Some small towns have more than 100% to up to 200% growth in online gamers. Another report by Sequoia India and BCG said that while the gaming industry in India is currently smaller than that of the US and China and is 1% of the global gaming market, it is generating $1.5B revenue and is expected to triple to over $5 billion by 2025 on the back of the ‘mobile first’ phenomenon. This massive growth has also led to a new breed of influencers who are being followed by hundreds of thousands of engaged audiences. YouTube’s recently released list of top Indian creators on its platform featured 5 gamers. And things are just about starting to get heated. The gaming industry is progressing, taking complete advantage of the latest developments in technology, software, better internet services, gadgets, cloud technology and more. In the Indian scenario, there is an explosive growth of gamers in this booming industry, with creative and engaging content being an important aspect of the system. With more games introduced and with more people joining the pool, more brands are shifting their focus on marketing their brands through these young creators who have an enormous fan following across the age group of 15-30, which is the most targeted audience in advertising terms for both endemic  and non-endemic brands. Games,  and gaming content,  are highly engaging,  and we're seeing a huge spike in average and concurrent viewership for gaming content. The consumers are very dynamic, and their attention span size has decreased noticeably in Gen Z. We see short gaming video content to witness a never seen before hype in the gaming community.  The mobile gaming market is expanding in tier 2 and tier 3 cities,  and we'll witness a rise in engagement in games, viewership and content creation. Young gamers will play engaging games, consume fast-paced engaging content,   and want to socialize with gamers often simultaneously. This will lead to more virtual world socialization among the young generation  and higher consumption of gaming content. The Indian gaming industry along with the M & E segment has now become one of the fastest growing sectors in India with around 7.3 by  on downloads in recent years. It has emerged as an important avenue due to a multitude of favorable factors such as young and tech-savvy population, affordable availability of feature-packed smartphones, better internet connectivity, and an overall technological development.   The move has also accelerated the growth of multi gaming format in the online gaming space.