An explosion in smartphone availability, localised content, and more have seen India’s gaming community begin to blossom
Words by Karan Karayi
Games have been an intrinsic part of our lives since childhood. Think back to the times you wielded a cricket bat as your favourite willow-wielder in a game of gully cricket, or you tried to replicate any of many footballing superstars in a game of football, or strategically raced along and dove into spaces in a game of kho-kho.
While those are fond memories of play (and I’m sure you have many of your own to tell), games have grown to become serious business in recent years. Leave aside talk of the BCCI, because that is a behemoth unlike any other. Instead, let’s turn our lens to digital gaming. India’s gaming industry is poised for explosive growth, backed by advances in technology, a proliferation of access, and younger demographics.
The numbers bear out this growth story; in 2023, India emerged as the biggest gaming market globally with 568 million gamers and a record-breaking 9.5 billion gaming app downloads. And it’s not a short-term phenomena either. India’s gaming market is on track to reach INR 66,000 crore by 2028, growing at a CAGR of 14.5%.
Gaming is no child’s play any longer, and to try and better understand this explosive growth story, I caught up with Parth Chadha, Co- Founder at Bengaluru-headquartered STAN. A fast-growing gaming startup, the platform has the largest gaming community in Asia with over 15 million gamers onboarded. Excerpts from our conversation are below.
With 15M+ million gamers on STAN, what’s the most unexpected insight you’ve gained about what gaming creators and their communities really want?
The most unexpected insight I have gained at STAN about what gaming communities want is instead of just high-quality content, they want to directly engage, co-create and share experiences with their favourite players, hangout, chat at STAN clubs.
The content creators and their communities are as passionate about and value creator-fan connections as the whole of gameplay. They love personalization and genuine collaborations. This aligns with what we are doing at STAN. We facilitate community engagement through various tournaments at STAN app, and STAN clubs where they engage and chat with each other, and watch videos together along with Giveaways.
Also, many budding creators are looking for ways to earn, so at STAN that’s an ongoing issue in our country for small creators as they need a particular number of followers to monetize. But at STAN we make sure that these gamers get early monetisation opportunities. Creators benefit from early monetization, audience connection tools, and insights. Gamers enjoy recognition, rewards, quality technology, and global community access. All these together allow creators to cultivate a loyal fanbase and have long-lasting, meaningful relationships that go beyond the screen, exactly how they want.
Looking at STAN’s growth from startup to a USD million-plus turnover, what do you believe will be the biggest challenge in scaling the platform globally over the next 2-3 years?
One of the primary challenges we anticipate is navigating the varying regulatory landscape of different markets in different countries, particularly around gaming and digital assets. Additionally, one of the crucial factors as we move into new regions is maintaining a community-focused culture.
We are a gaming community platform and our commitment to building an equitable platform for creators and gamers alike is what has gotten us over 15 million downloads in India and fuelled our growth. Ensuring local players at all levels, whether a professional player or a budding creator, are valued and understood is our core vision with localised strategies.
