One of the things that is highly prominent on smartphones today is mobile gaming. It is perhaps the most used service in India. Whether it is the Google Play store or the other platforms, gaming is bringing good revenue and of course the most popular form of entertainment to its audience. The big players in this segment are the cash games that offer real money to the players. Some of the popular sports include rummy game, poker and some other variants of card games.

As per a recent report by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and TechSci Research, the gaming industry of India is valued at $543.08 million in 2016 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.61 per cent over the next five years.

So, what’s happening in the gaming world in India? Here’s the big leaps that is happening as you read:

The Big Market of Digital Games

Mobile gaming is among the fastest growing markets in India. Just about anyone who has smartphone, spends time playing different types of games online. This automatically means, that there is enough revenue and even game reviews to make stores like PlayStore and Apple take focused steps to grow it to the next level.

As per a recent report from the XDA Developers, the Google Play Games is currently testing a new ‘Hub’ section for all gaming news. This would be a focused and dedicated news feed that will share user stories related to games installed on the player devices or related trending games. What the report is stating is that the hub wouldn’t be as customizable as the news feed on the Google App, however on the other hand, Google has the absolute knowledge of what games are installed and it will use the data to provide relevant news around the game.

The main aim of this hub is to keep players connected to the gaming world and accelerate downloads for the other games.

Game Training Program

Another grand initiative taken by Google is the launch of a new four-month training programme for gaming startups and the developers in Asia, including India to successfully build and market the next generation of popular mobile games.

The programme targets gaming start ups in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand giving them an opportunity to work with mentors from the gaming industry and Google.  As per the survey, the emerging markets now account for over 40% of game installs on Google Play. With increased smartphone adoption, it is the need of the hour to create a new base of engaged gamers that are looking for high quality gaming experience. This programme by Google is a fantastic platform for bringing passionate gamers under an umbrella and give them the support required to entertain, educate and inspire to develop better games for the audience.

New Gaming Platforms

With Google coming up with new and innovative ways to boost the gaming world in India, there are other portals like Snap that is changing gears when it comes to gaming. Snap had more or less been pushed back as Instagram added most of the Snap features to its platform. It now needed to diversify into a new path.

As per a recent report by The Information, Snap is now working towards a gaming hub that will be inside the Snapchat. The report confirms that the platform will be launched later this year and multiple game developers are already in talks on collaborations around it. Snap could become a strong game developing platform bringing new and challenging games for the audiences. Even though there has been no report stating whether the games will be AR based or not, however it is highly likely, considering the resources available in the company. Snap has already launched a few AR items and one of the games is called Snappables that is a small selfie AR game.

Gaming and Advertisement coming together

Gaming innovation has gone to the next level bringing advertisement and gameplay together. Recently, in a campaign done by Parle Agro’s Frooti, mCanvas came together with OMD India to create an AR mobile ad campaign. It was a unique idea to create an innovative mobile game inside the banner ad and did exceptionally well for the banner with over 1.9 million users engaged. This is just the beginning with more of similar campaigns bringing the audience and the brands closer.

Conclusion

The Indian gaming industry can anticipate significant changes with the potential to make us the top country for mobile gaming. The market today is ready for mobile gaming with affordable data and budget friendly smartphones. Entertainment based games give a break from the monotony of life and let’s you explore skill-based games and adopt to ways to learn it as well. Traditional games that a player may have just heard about now becomes easy to pick, with tutorials on how to play rummy, how to videos and other tips available online.

With new technological advancements made every day, and removal of minor limitations like buffering and slow game load among others, the game industry all set to take the world by storm.