India Gaming Summit 2024 Highlights: ‘Responsible Gaming’

“Gaming is getting valid recognition as a choice of career, even by the government and PM Modi,” Bakshi concluded.

“Whatever games Indians are playing are foreign made. The government is focused on making video games in the country,” Suji added.

“People are experimenting with different forms of content consumption to stand out,” Dhar specified.

According to Suji, skill development and coaching is key in esports in order to create a ‘Neeraj Chopra’ in esports.

According to Devhuti, the mentorship support is important. “Certain game engines are expensive in India. It is important to build a community,” Devhuti added.

“A lot of effort has gone into differentiate esports from RMG. Esports is a part of ministry of youth affairs and sports,” Suji mentioned.

“Innovation and creativity build over a lot of skills. The part of online gaming that contributes to creativity as the intelligence quotient as well as emotional intelligence improves,” Dhar specified.

“There are a lot of options for skill development. Western universities are good. They have a variety of courses. Global certification from countries like Japan and Korea are preferred,” Bakshi mentioned.

For the final session of the day, we have a fireside chat on the topic ‘Gaming = Skill Development and Employment’ which will comprise of Devhuti Bakshi, Director, Public Policy, E-Gaming Federation, Devashish Dhar, Public Policy Specialist, WinZO, and Lokesh Suji, director, E-sports Federation of India and Vice President of the Asian Esports Federation (AESF). The session will be moderated by Ritarshi Banerjee, Correspondent, FE Digital.

According to Kapoor, government and gaming companies can collaborate for de-addiction centres or even digital detox centres.

According to Kumar, the platform has no idea of what kind of disposable income of users have.

“There are offshore platforms who call themselves gaming platforms who change their entire website, domain included who are not registered in India and operate from abroad. They do not care about the user sentiment,” Kumar added.

“We wanted to create a safe space for users to play. Any company that is rooting for regulation will never run bots because it is the first thing that anyone would find,” Kumar specified.

“I think everyone in the RMG space have been at some point been accused of using bots,” Kapoor highlighted.

According to Kapoor, the Indian platforms are not going overboard with advertisements. “It is the offshore players who are saying anything for the acquisition of consumers,” Kapoor highlighted.

“GST has put an additional burden on the entire industry but it is not about the short-term buck but long-term valuation. A sustainable business model is more appreciated as compared to a higher valuation,” Kumar added.

“It is a joint responsibility. Our job is to educate the users, tell them about the features and let them know whether they are going overboard or not,” Kapoor added.

“I think gaming companies look at long-term sustainability rather than looking at short-term profits,” Kapoor highlighted.

“Gaming is a lot like the stock market. On a player level, we want to be able to find gaming patterns,” Kumar said.

“There are multilevel alerts that are being sent. The levels are defined in terms of different activities. These are forced exclusions for the user,” Kumar stated.

“It all starts with educating the user of self-exclusion and responsible gaming options are available,” Kapoor mentioned.

Next up, we have a panel on the topic ‘Decoding Financial Responsibility in Gaming’ which will have Abhishek Kumar, vice president, First Games, and Gaurav Kapoor, CFO, Baazi Games. The session will be moderated by Jatin Grover, special correspondent, Financial Express.

According to Saxena, microtransactions work in India.

“India is considered the top market for active users and active user engagement but conversion of a paid customer, while USA is at 6%, India is lacking at 0.2%,” Saxena highlighted.

“India is uniquely positioned in terms of talent, content, creativity, and user base,” Saxena stated.

Next up, we have a standalone session on the topic ‘Innovating monetisation strategies’. The session will be hosted by Srishti Saxena, public policy specialist, WinZO.

“There’s still some time for e-sports to go mainstream. I believe that we’re on the right path,” Khurana highlighted.

“Analytical tools can be used by e-sports teams to strategise their gameplay,” Thacker explained.

“For e-sports, the growth will happen on the broadcast side,” Khurana stated.

According to Wani, the immersive experience of e-sports can help not only gamers but also consumers.