Leveling Up: The World Is Playing More Online Games

moneyguru
Guru Gyan
Published in
3 min readAug 31, 2020

--

The pandemic might have been difficult for several industries but the gaming industry has been having a blast. With more and more people staying inside their houses, isolated and not having many opportunities to socialise, people are turning towards online games for human connection.

Why wouldn’t you want to play online games? You get to meet people and you can spend hours playing video games and many people even make money out of it.

The Numbers

  • According to a report by Unity Technologies, gaming is a $160 billion industry with a global audience of 2.7 billion gamers.
  • Also, there has been a surge of nearly 50% in daily active users of HD (High Definition) games due to Covid-19.
  • In-App Purchase (IAP) Revenue growth for mobile games rose by 24% since the pandemic was declared.
  • Mobile gaming ad impressions climbed by 57% and ad revenues jumped by 59% for the weeks after March 8, 2020, as compared to the timeframe in 2019.
  • The number of installs of mobile games has surged by 84%.

These numbers are proof that the pandemic has accelerated the growth of the industry. However, these numbers talk about how the industry has grown on a global level but what about India?

The Indian Online Gaming Industry

According to Google-KPMG, the Indian online gaming industry is growing at an exponential rate year upon year and is anticipated to be worth $1.1 billion by 2021. India is predicted to have a user base of over 628 million gamers.

As a country, India has a huge potential for the gaming industry because the country has more than 560 million internet users, making it the second-largest online market in the world. The number of internet users in India is projected to rise up to 650 million by 2023. And we can assume that most of the internet users would be playing online games.

With 60% of India’s online gamers aged between 18–24, we can understand how Generation Z and millennials are the ones contributing the most to this industry and this is expected to surge in the upcoming years.

The one other thing that would give a push to online gaming is the localised content offered by companies in India. Games such as Indian Rummy, Teen Patti, Andar Bahar, Texas Holdem Poker and Omaha Poker continue to attract an audience via several online sites.

There is another interesting segment in online gaming is fantasy sports. For the uninitiated, fantasy sports are online prediction games where you put together a virtual team of real sports players. The better your player performs in real life, the higher your fantasy points will be.

Fantasy sports in the Indian market is anticipated to reach more than $5 billion in the upcoming two years. Out of all the sports in this segment, cricket is the most popular one with nearly 85% of users engaging in this sport.

A Gift For Indian Companies

Apart from the people having a good time playing online games, Indian companies are having a good time with online games as well. Online game development companies in India have surged to 275 in 2019 from 25 in 2010. India is also seeing a jump in employment opportunities within the job market. The rise of job opportunities comes after India became a popular backend development center for gaming companies forming more opportunities in non-conventional sectors like tech-oriented carriers with IT and game development.

In conclusion, the gaming industry is having a great time during the lockdown, which was imposed to control the spread of the pandemic. So, if this helps our country and at the same time, fend off boredom, then we would say that the growth of online games is a blessing for all of us!

Head to moneyguru’s Insight section to stay updated on all major financial news updates of the day!

--

--

moneyguru
Guru Gyan

Your Best Direct Mutual Fund Investing Experience Begins Here. Invest, Read and Track — at one place & for free! vist us at: www.moneyguru.in