Inside India’s GamersTrends emerging within the Indian gaming ecosystem

Sohel Taiyab Golwalla – Associate Director, Products Anshul Singhal – Vice President, Products

Introduction

Driven by the massive influx of cost effective smartphones, the Indian

mobile gaming ecosystem has been expanding at a rapid pace. According to

IDC, in the Q2 of 2016 alone, 27.5 million devices were sold, which is up 17%

from the previous quarter.

Various market estimates peg the Indian smartphone market at about 220 -

250 million devices, which make it the 2nd largest after China. This

tremendous growth in the smartphone numbers and the evolution of the

device itself from a calling and messaging device to a full-fledged media

consumption and utility powerhouse; is sure to provide the necessary

impetus that the Indian gaming market was awaiting.

This report examines a lot of interesting data points unearthed from our

annual mobile gamer survey and tries to bring forth some key qualitative

insights around the Indian gamers’ behavior, their preferences, devices etc.

Methodology

The source of this report are two online surveys conducted by gamesbond;

on gamers who downloaded at least one game from Mauj platforms and

game developers registered with Mauj operated App stores.

The total respondents who completed the gamer survey stood at 1,336 and

the survey was conducted over a time period of 6 weeks in the months of

Sep’ 16 and Oct’16, the total respondents who completed the game developer

survey stood at 202 and the survey was conducted over a period of 4 weeks

in the months of Sep’16 to Oct’16.

Gamer survey - september 2016 to october 2016 ( 1336 people )

Game developer survey - september 2016 to october 2016 ( 222 people )

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50% OF INDIAN GAMERS HAVE A MONTHLY MOBILE SPEND OF RS. 200/- OR LESS

In terms of overall demographics, about 40% of the gamers are students, and

the employed and self-employed professionals are about 33% of the gamers.

In terms of where they are coming from, the spread is quite even across

metros and non-metros.

The average mobile prepaid/ postpaid spends are at the lower end of the

spectrum with nearly 50% of the gamers spending upto Rs. 200 per month

and nearly 30% gamers spending anywhere between Rs. 200 - Rs. 500 per

month.

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Indian gamer occupation

39%

Student Employed SelfEmployed

OwnBusiness

Homemaker Others

28% 6% 10% 10% 7%

28%

18%

28%

17%

9%

Monthly Mobile spend

UptoRs. 100

Rs. 100 toRs. 200

Rs. 200 toRs. 500

Rs. 500 toRs. 1000

More thanRs. 1000

INDIAN GAMERS USE ENTRY LEVEL SMARTPHONES WITH LIMITED HARDWARE CAPABILITIES

A bulk of the smartphone influx into India has been spearheaded by a

plethora of super cost effective devices (most of them in the sub Rs. 10,000

range). While this has unlocked tremendous value for the mobile gaming

ecosystem by unleashing a whole new set of Indian gamers, it also

increasingly poses deeper challenges for the game developer community to

be sensitized and aware of the kind of devices the Indian gamers are using

and optimizing for them.

The study attempted to understand the nature of devices currently used by

gamers, the issues that gamers face with the device and what could be

important for gamers while buying a mobile device.

Some of the key facets examined were as follows:

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Device internal storage spread across gaming devices

8 GBor less

40%

8 GBto 16 GB

26%

16 GBto 32 GB

More than32 GB

Notsure

20%5% 9%

Device storage

The internal memory of the mobile phone becomes an important factor in

determining how the phone behaves overall when it’s put under some

stress. It especially comes under the scanner while playing games.

Of the total users who participated in the gamer survey, about 70% use a

mobile phone with an internal memory of 16 GB or less, with about 40%

having an internal device storage of 8 GB or lesser. This is an important

point as while 8 GB might seem enough storage space, however, if you layer

it with the space that the android OS will take along with some 2-3 essential

apps that most gamers carry on their devices, the effective usable space with

a gamer who has an 8 GB internal storage will probably be only 1-2 GB.

External SD card spread used by gamers

8 GB 16 GB 32 GB 64 GBor more

NoSD card

32% 28%15%

5%

20%

Device storage

What this translates into; is a massive need for expanding the devices with

an additional storage through an external SD card; and the analysis

indicates that nearly 80% of the gamers end up using an external SD card to

expand storage on their devices.

Even amongst the gamers who use an external SD card, more than 30% just

have an additional 8 GB of additional storage space. 20% of gamers don’t

have an external memory card on their devices

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Device costs

The device costs have been steadily going down owing to the massive influx

of cheap smartphone devices with low hardware specifications which are

not optimized for gaming. The analysis indicates that about 30% of the

gamers are using a smartphone that costs Rs. 5,000 or less. Devices that cost

less than Rs. 5,000/- tend to have specifications of 512 MB RAM, low end

processors and 4/8 GB internal storage, these specifications pose real

challenges for the game developer community as the games need to be light

on memory and device resources and highly optimized for low end

processors.

Case in point is the recent EA Sports launch of a FIFA mobile soccer version

of their highly popular FIFA Soccer franchise targeted at users with limited

phone memory and low mobile data usage. The game has gained over 5M

downloads and continues to gain traction. The game size is ~65 MB, which is

95% smaller than their 1.4 GB FIFA 16 Soccer game.

Mobile data is expensive in India— and lightweight games reduce the cost

burden that prevents those with mobile data constraints in India from using

certain games. As developers look to capture users across India, they will

have to design their games to be inherently smaller, faster, and lighter—not

just create lightweight copies of heavier games.

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Device cost

BelowRs. 5000

Rs. 5000 toRs. 10000

Rs. 10000 toRs. 15000

More thanRs. 15000

28%

37%

21%

14%

2/3RD OF INDIAN MALE MOBILE GAMERS ARE MULTI-PLATFORM GAMERS

Another interesting facet observed is the multiplatform behavior amongst

power gamers. 2/3rds of the male gamers are multiplatform gamers ; i.e.

they play games on multiple platforms like PC, laptops, gaming consoles and

even in gaming parlors; apart from playing on their mobile phones.

Whereas, 50% of the women displayed multiplatform gaming behavior.

On an average the Multiplatform gamers (MPGs) end up spending double

the time on games vis-a-vis Mobile only gamers (MOGs) and are willing to

pay 27% more for mobile games.

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Multiplatform gamers Mobile only gamers

Multiplatform gaming behavior

PC/ Laptop Tablet Gaming console Gamingparlour Only mobilephones

58%23% 13% 5% 37%

GAMES HAVE TO CONSTANTLY COMPETE TOSTAY AMONGST THE TOP 5 GAMES ON THE GAMER’S DEVICE

Most Indian gamers have 5 or less games installed on their mobile devices at

a given point of time. Low cost devices coupled with low internal storage

capacities on devices of Indian mobile gamers do not allow a gamer to keep

a lot of games on the device since phone performance continually degrade

owing to low device space, this could possibly hint at low retention levels for

a lot of non-compelling games.

About 12% of the games have 10 or more games on their devices

In terms of frequency, about 59% find time to play games every day, and 44%

actually have more than 30 minute playing sessions.

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No. of games installed on devices

Less than 2 3 to 5 6 to 9 10 or more I am not sure

25% 43% 18% 12% 3%

1/3RD POWER GAMERS FIND IN-GAME ADS AS A POWERFUL SOURCE OF DISCOVERING NEW GAMES

About 13% of the overall gamers came across as power gamers who

download 10 or more games in a month.

This is a small but a predominantly young cohort; with about 75% of them

are under 25 years of age. Even this cohort of heavy gamers face device

storage as an issue and 85% of them tend to augment their devices with an

external memory card.

As opposed to the overall gamers, a much higher proportion of this group

(75%) plays games every day and for 80% of them the session times are more

than 30 minutes at one go.

Another interesting aspect about this cohort is that they fundamentally

believe they are good at gaming; with about 70% of them saying that they

are very good and competitive at playing any game.

One important finding from this group was their understanding of the

in-game ads, almost 1/3rd of them find in-game ads useful either as a means

to discover new games or to aid in level progression through collection of

coins etc.9

No. of games downloaded in month

Less than 26 to 9 3 to 5

45%10% 33%

10 or more

13%

WOMEN GAMERS ARE OUTPLAYING MEN IN INDIA

Women gamers in India demonstrate a distinctly divergent

demographic trend from the male gamers.

59% of the women gamers are in the age group of 30 and above; and off that

46% were homemakers - vis-a-vis only 24% of male gamers were above 30

and almost 50% of them were students . This divergent demographic trend

has implications on various parameters of women gamers like the games

they play, the session times for which they play and where they typically

play mobile games.

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46%

Homemakers

59% of the women gamers are inthe age group of 30 and above

50%

Students

24% of male gamers agewere above 30 and above

WOMEN GAMERS ARE OUTPLAYING MEN IN INDIA

63% of the women gamers play games every day and 98% of them play

games at home. 98% of women gamers said they play mobile games at home,

while 25% said they played while commuting.

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63% of the women gamersplay games every day

25% women play games while commuting

WOMEN GAMERS ARE OUTPLAYING MEN IN INDIA

The biggest reason for women to quit playing a game is when they are stuck

at a level for too long - 38% women quit playing a game when they get stuck

for too long; while for 54% of the men the biggest reason is when they've

crossed all levels in the game.

Degradation in phone performance is the single biggest reason that leads

them to delete a game for both men and women.

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38%

Women quit playing a game Men quit playing a game

54%

53% OF THE GAME DEVELOPERS LOCALIZE THEIR GAMES

Most game developers see value in localizing their games as per the market

they are launching in. However, the extent of localization varies widely.

The preferred parameters on which the developers typically localize are:

i) Changing textual instructions in local language

ii) Localizing game themes and characters and

iii) Game audio in local language

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No. of games downloaded in month

We don't localize

47%

We localize our games to support publisher request

10%

We distribute multi-countryand localize most of our games

43%

61% GAME DEVELOPERS FEEL THE NEED FOR BETTER DISTRIBUTION AND MONETIZATION PLATFORMS

A high percentage of the game developers (42%) agreed that a gaming studio

is a tough business to be in and needs a lot of patience and funding to sustain

until they turn profitable.

In general, they feel that a lot needs to change in the ecosystem for game

studios to do better. The top 3 things that they felt needed to change in the

ecosystem were:

Nearly 80% of the game developers indicated that they prefer developing

their games targeted at North America and Europe to benefit from the better

monetization potential in those markets.

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61%

Better distributionand monetization platform

for games

22%

Financial supportfor the game development

industry

12%

Financial supportfor the game development

industry

30% OF THE GAME DEVELOPERS FEEL THAT IT IS CRITICAL FOR THEM TO GET GOOGLE PLAY FEATURING ELSE THEIR GAME WON’T SURVIVE

While almost every game developer wants to get featured on google play, in

the Indian context 30% game developers feel that unless their game gets

featured, their game is sure to die out sooner rather than later.

In a market like ours where almost 85% of the developers have android as

their priority platform; this creates a massive demand – supply mismatch as

only a small fraction of games end up getting featured. This also makes a

compelling case for most game developers to rely on alternate app stores to

reach their customers.

Some of the developers find immense value in the unique featuring,

curation and localization opportunities that some of the alternate app stores

offer. 60% of the developers cited Incremental downloads outside of Google

play/iTunes as the primary benefit cited in support of using alternate app

stores; while 26% felt that it was easier get featured on alternate app stores

vis-à-vis the google play

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30%

It is critical

5%

I don’t care much

40%

Important else it willtake a long time

25%

Its good to get featured

Importance of Google play featuring

Summary

The Indian gaming ecosystem offers a sizable and distinctly unique

opportunity for game developers. Game developers looking to make

successful games in the Indian context need to understand and be conscious

about the nuances of the Indian gaming consumer, their limitations with

regards to the devices they have, their wallet sizes etc. and create a tailor

made gaming experience around the Indian gamer.

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