India's gaming industry is currently lagging behind the rest of the world in terms of development and penetration. However, this is the very reason why investors are now flocking to the country to try and take advantage of the untapped market. The untapped market consists of millions of mobile and online customers who have just recently had access to these technologies and are now hungry for content.
India's mobile market alone is quite massive, given that the country has one of the cheapest mobile data charges in the world today. Local players have taken advantage of this fact and have so far flourished in the growing industry. The success of local players such as nCore Games, a home-grown mobile gaming firm, has now attracted the world's top investors.
According to nCore Games founder Dayanidhi MG, he believes that the gaming industry in India is already set for a massive explosion in the coming years. However, the overall industry will still need to go through a lot of hurdles before it can compete with highly competitive gaming markets such as South Korea and China. Video game publishers and developers in the country still find it hard to grab a foothold given that India traditionally doesn't have a gaming culture. However, that is slowly changing as more and more people now have the means to access the internet and the extra income to pay for entertainment.
The industry has already gone through the majority of the most difficult hurdles, such as internet access, income, and major technological issues, which means that it only has to go a little bit further to become globally competitive.
The founders of the Indian gaming firm Funearn had recently mentioned in an interview that they actually have had a number of venture capitalist groups express interest in investing in the country's gaming sector. The company's founders, Harsha Sachdeva, and Hardeep Mehta, also mentioned that India's gaming industry as an emerging market already presents a very strong case to global investors as it is.
Last year, the overall gaming market in the country managed to rake in more than US$890 million dollars. With its overall structure still pretty much underdeveloped, it still hasn't reached the levels of revenue found in countries such as China and South Korea. However, with further development and support from the government, telecommunications firms, and other companies, the industry may very well be able to surpass those markets in time. Estimates suggest that the country's gaming market could easily surpass the US$1 billion in 2020 and may even breach the US$10 billion mark as soon as 2025.
