Now, hundreds of millions of Indians spend increasing amounts of time playing online. Ultimately, some of those expect formal recognition for their gaming activities.

Bharat Is a Gaming Market Leader

Towards the end of 2020, authorities declared that there were already 750 million unique internet users in the Union. India had already become the world’s second largest app download market. Quite importantly, a consistent number of those apps were related to people’s pastime.

Bharat’s young population also made it a global leader in the gaming segment. Consistently in the top 5 markets globally, the country reached 365 million gamers recently, about half of all online users.

Consumption trends paint a clear picture: the overwhelming majority plays for at least an hour in one sitting; women and middle-aged users are growing in visibility; and India already accounts for over 13% of total global gaming sessions.

Popular games like PUBG (although now banned) or Counter Strike top the rankings, along with real money games like andar bahar online on gambling sites in India like PureWin.com

Online Gaming and eSports Growth Not Only Covid-Related

The rise in demand created favourable conditions for many Indian gaming studios and the IT ecosystem as a whole. The sector is growing and players are responding quite positively to both local content and global top performing games.

Other industry surveys show that Indian gamers play an increasing number of hours each week. Far ahead of the world average in session length, India takes third place among leading online gaming markets. Only China and Vietnam have reported longer weekly play sessions.

The US-based company Limelight Networks presented in its “State of Online Gaming” report some findings which point to a growing ambition on behalf of desi gamers to get some official recognition.

Despite the lack of any notable eSports success, more than a third of all Indian players claim to be experts, and about 10% place themselves in the “aspiring professionals” category. This kind of perception ranks Bharat consistently in the top 3 countries in player engagement terms.

While international fame is probably still far ahead, Indian gamers have lobbied for a couple of years to get recognised as eSports practitioners. Earlier this year, the Indian Olympic Association had a brief announcement confirming the intent to eventually recognise video gaming as a sport.

Industry bodies and player associations point to the lack of clear regulation and distinction between skill gaming and games of chance, as well as to the benefits that eSports will bring to the economy. With over 300 million eSports enthusiasts in the country, online gaming has the potential of even outpacing cricket in popularity, bringing in consistent taxation revenues for the state and national coffers.

Whether legislators and sports bodies will seize this chance is another question. Or, rather, when. The Indian online gaming and eSports industries need to meet the understanding of the wider public first, before being able to expect the kind of systemic support which the nation’s traditional sports receive.