While gamers care about games and the content they offer, Web3 has the potential to decentralize the space and give everyone an equal opportunity to try their hand at their craft.
Piyush Kumar, founder and CEO, Rooter; Ishank Gupta, IndiGG Elders Council Member and Co-founder, Kratos Studios; Salone Sehgal, Founding General Partner, Lumikai; Bharat Patel, Chairman and Director, Yudiz Solutions Ltd; and Kapil Dhiman, CEO, MetaStudios
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India ranks second after China in terms of the number of gamers in the country. The country is home to more than 400 gaming companies and has a staggering 420 million online gamers. According to a report by Dentsu, the number of gamers is expected to reach 700 million by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 12%.
As we transition from Web2 to Web3, we become more and more aware of owning and monetizing our data. While gamers care about games and the content they offer, Web3 has the potential to decentralize the space and give everyone an equal opportunity to showcase their abilities.
At the 2023 Entrepreneur Summit in New Delhi, India, in a panel discussion titled “The Game Has Begun: New Directions and Next Evolutions in the Gaming Business,” panelists discussed the momentum of the Indian gaming space and what it means for Web3 gaming entrepreneurs. Moderated by Kapil Dhiman, CEO of MetaStudios, the panel included Bharat Patel, Chairman and Director of Yudiz Solutions Ltd; Piyush Kumar, Founder and CEO of Rooter; Ishank Gupta, IndiGG Elders Council Member and Co-Founder of Kratos Studios; and Salone Sehgal, Founding General Partner of Lumikai.
1. Make Web3 gaming technology invisible
While India currently has a large number of gamers, the foundation was laid in the 2000s, when mobile phones became commonplace. The advent of smartphones became a major attraction for the younger generation to try gaming, and the pandemic has further fueled the trend.
"Regarding Web3, we must understand that we need to go back to the gaming industry about 6-8 years ago, when gaming quickly expanded from a niche industry to a $300 million giant industry. This is mainly due to the rise of mobile games, because mobile games have crossed various barriers. It breaks down barriers, you no longer need expensive hardware to play games, the gaming population has also expanded greatly, women have begun to participate in games on a large scale, and children have begun to play games more frequently. And the immersive experience brought by mobile phones is also fascinating." The founder of Lumikai shared. In fact, according to a recent report released by Lumikai and AWS, 40% of today's gamers are women, and female players consume an average of 11.2 hours per week, compared to 10.2 hours for men. "
“Until the technical layer becomes invisible, until we can solve these teething problems in the industry, I would say Web3 adoption is further away than everyone thinks,” she added.
2. Decentralized gaming business
“Historically, in the gaming value chain, games spend money on third-party platforms, and players come to these third-party platforms and spend their time, money, and skills. And in return, the people who benefit from it are these platforms. So what we want to do is use blockchain to let people own their data. In a way, when they spend their time and skills in these games, they get rewarded. And those benefits can go back into the games themselves,” shared Ishank Gupta, co-founder and custodian of IndiGG DAO.
It's all about the game.
When discussing Web2 and Web3 technologies, gamers only care about one thing — playing fun games. “Gamers don’t care about Web2, Web3; gamers care about having fun playing games,” Gupta shared.
Piyush Kumar, founder and CEO of Rooter, agrees with this view: "For us, when we look at Web3 gaming, we look at it in the next few steps. The game has to gain some traction first, and second, it needs to be easy to use the game, and people need to understand it easily." He believes that Web3 gaming will start playing an integral role in the next five years and believes that Web3 gaming is very important to make the Indian gaming market bigger.
“For this ecosystem to be successful, we need a large number of games,” added MetaStudios CEO Kapil Dhiman.
3. Adequate talent pool
India is the hub of software developers in the world and a pillar of Silicon Valley. Techies are constantly looking for new things to use and Web3 is the latest tool. “Talent was a challenge in the past few years but with the advent of technology that one has witnessed first-hand internationally, I think people have developed skills and reskilling these skills has become a common thing now and we should build an ecosystem starting from the college level,” shared Bharat Patel, Chairman and Director, Yudiz Solutions Ltd.
4. Investors’ bets
Even though the funding winter continues and Web3 is severely affected, there is still room for Web3 entrepreneurs to build their products. "Whoever wants to build in this space must have two things: a very unique insight into what they want to build, and a very comprehensive understanding of the lessons and mistakes made by the first generation (Web3) entrepreneurs, and how not to repeat them," Sehgal shared what investors are looking for when investing in Web3 gaming startups. #DeFiChallenge