Online games are more popular than any other segment of the digital world. With smartphones entering every household and every region, one of the most highly downloaded mobile apps are the mobile games. The biggest reason for the rise in mobile games is quick entertainment right in your hand. So, you are stuck in traffic or a gathering you really don’t want to be around, then the instant rescue is the online games that consume less or no data and let you consume those dull hours in a fun way.
“Today the smartphone has enabled mass market-level adoption of games as a form of entertainment. Earlier, having a specific device for gaming was a challenge due to pricing. Today, on the mobile device, games is certainly one of the top five activities for most users. There are signs that people have started to form habits… for example, elderly people have also started downloading games and spending time on it… which is a new trend,” shared Nasscom Gaming Forum chairman Rajesh Rao.
What are the preferred choice
The players today on the mobile are not only men but women as well. Of course, that means that there is also a varied choice of games that are downloaded and enjoyed. When on one hand women are seen to play more of Candy Crush and Bingo, the men take to online games like rummy, solitaire and puzzle games.
It is also seen that in the last one year there has been a significant growth and currently the Indian game industry is estimated to be around $300-500 million and is growing at a CAGR of around.
The key factors to this growth
Even though we can see the adaption of a variety of mobile games, there are some key factors that contribute to this adaptation. One of the key reasons is the localization of content. Today, over of the game downloads in the top 100 games of 2017 were the games developed by Indian publishers. Indians today want to play games that are local to them and are even available in local languages. Not all are comfortable seeing content in English and hence when the players get the option to communicate and share their experience in a language they connect with, the growth is much higher.
Another interesting factor is getting a constructive output from the games. Online card games like rummy game are available for free download and lets you win real cash. Games like this have created a unique and niche place for itself. Where on one hand it is absolutely legal to play these real cash games, it is also absolute challenge and skill that you can actually win. So, brainstorming and uniqueness make them one of the biggest online game players of India.
Another adaptation that is there is the growth of freemium games. Today players don’t mind paying for entertainment. So, when the earlier concept was the consumption of games that are free to play, today players go for the freemium option. Like other sources of entertainment, they pay for what they want.
The Variety is getting stepped up
As recently stated by Purnima Kochikar, Director Google Play, “We realized that our audience is large and that there is a significant amount of people that are interested in premium. We also realized that we have to play a bigger role in making sure premium games are front and center”. As per her, the goal is to offer the players a more interesting variety other than just Puzzle, Racing, Sports and other typical genre labels. Once the player has those choices, they can make a better decision about what kind of games they really want to play.
What is the road ahead
Even with more and more users getting comfortable with online games and even with the freemium games, it is the flexibility to provide multiple payment options that are going to help in the adaptation of games in 2018. Where online gamers like RummyCircle already giving multiple options to pay and enjoy card games on rummy app, the other game apps need to provide payment options other than International Credit Cards.
