30-35% of the global e-sports audience will come from India in 2 to 3 years, feels MPL Co-founder Sai Srinivas
Speaking during the e4m fireside chat on 'Indian Gaming Companies Going Global', Mobile Premier League Co-founder Sai Srinivas has reckoned that 2-3 years, 30-35% of the global e-sports audience will come from India.
2020 was the year of massive boom in the Indian fantasy gaming sector thanks to the Coronavirus-induced lockdown and the subsequent ban on PUBG games. The foreign investors also showed an appetite for investment in Indian companies, with Dream11 and MPL leading the troop in securing maximum capital funds.
MPL, with two rounds of funding, found themselves have come close to be called a unicorn and to go with the tag, the staggering profit they generated this year left everyone stunned. On the first day of e4m Game On: Gaming Summit, exchange4media Chairman & Editor-in-Chief Dr. Annurag Batra spoke to Mobile Premier League (MPL) Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder Sai Srinivas, who stated that 30-35% of global e-sports audience will come from India in 2 to 3 years of time.
“The last 12 months have been quite a roller-coaster. The gaming industry has leaped forward by a couple of years. On a personal front, it has not been easy to stay indoors for such a long time. But with the vaccine rolling out and more people getting vaccinated, hopefully, we can all get back to offices in full strength and take it from where we stopped,” Srinivas said.
“Gaming has always been mainstream. It is just that now, thanks to the internet and mobile phone penetration, it is becoming more and more accessible. Also, gaming is the only format of content that does not have a language. You can't say that about any other format of content, be it movie, video, audio, or text. Gaming is a universal language and that is why it is so easy for anyone to pick it up. That is one of the reasons why gaming is growing so fast compared to other formats of content.”
Srinivas sees a lot of potential among domestic Indian developers and stated that once the market grows, the players will start delivering Triple-A level games which will be completely home grown.
“Firstly, there are a lot of home-grown developers who have been doing pretty well. There are lots of home-grown developers who are making games for global audiences and who focus on making games for Western markets out of India. It is a different ball game that we have still not have or had a Triple-A level game come out of India. I think it is just a matter of time. The closest analogy I can think of is that to make a high-budget movie you need the market to grow. The domestic market has to grow.
“To make a high-budget movie, the person must be confident of breaking even on the investment. So as the market grows the appetite of local game developers will also grow and you will have large Triple-A level titles come out of India. But one thing is for certain which is that most Indian game developers or Indian games will be mobile-driven. I am not saying there won't be console or PC focussed games but almost 9 out of 10 developers are going to build the games for the mobile phone.”
