Gaming as an industry will be at least ten times the size of all other media such as movies and OTT platforms, CEO and founder of Nazara Technologies Nitish Mittersain said during an online event organised by Meeting Minds on Saturday.
Meeting Minds, a virtual community experience, hosts monthly sessions on current topics and issues with eminent speakers and experts.
Mittersain was speaking about Nazara’s journey as a gaming company over the past 20 years. Nazara is India’s largest gaming company.
“Gaming will be at least 10 times the size of all media in the next 5 to 7 years,” Mittersain said. “This decade is going to be the decade of gaming in India.”
“We are already experiencing a massive explosion in gaming predominantly because of the revolution that’s happened in mobile phones that everybody walks around with a smartphone today, which is actually a very powerful gaming device,” Mittersain added.
Mittersain, who started Nazara as a 20-year-old, said that despite the rapid growth gaming in India remains in a nascent stage due to a lack of access for kids and teenagers.
“As kids, we don’t have access at home for gaming PCs or consoles. But we have smartphones and iPads now,” said Mittersain.
The lower data costs and faster speeds have also contributed to the rise of online gaming.
“it’s kind of perfect situation for this business to grow. I think we are at the start of that inflection point, and it’s going to be a very exciting, exciting space to operate in,” Mittersain said.
The first-generation entrepreneur said that cricket games were leading the company’s portfolio with an average of 40 to 50 million monthly active users. This peaks to 90 million during the cricket season, he said.
“We have a lot of cricket exposure on IPL when viewership goes up to 80-90 million users a month,” Nazara CEO said.
He said that of the 40-50 million people engaged on Nazara, the top 10% spend close to 5-6 hours per day on gaming, and the top tier gamers are diversified across age groups.
Close to 50% of business of the gaming and esports brand is concentrated in North America where gaming is ten times larger than Hollywood, he said pointing to the opportunity.
Mittersain said that the current decade has a massive opportunity for the growth of gaming in India because of the young generation that is growing up amid the age of digital content creation.
“Esports, which is competitive gaming, is now becoming popular in India. It is the third most-watched category on Hotstar,” Mittersain said, adding that while movies are passive viewing, gaming includes active involvement and brings along social connectivity, which sets gaming apart from other content streaming.
He though, said that it is still a long way before Indian esports athletes reach global scale.
Mittersain, who started coding for gaming at the age of 7, has focused on keeping Nazara an asset-light company and debt-averse. We have focussed on cash flows and profitability, rather than vanity metrics of startups, he said. “We also have zero litigation history,”
Mittersain said that his company’s upcoming IPO in India is leading up to be the most exciting chapter in Nazara’s story yet. “We want to be an Indian gaming (company) with global operations and revenues — but we will do our IPO in India,” he said.
Imran Jafar, managing partner at Gaja Capital, moderated the talk. Amita Haribhakti and Shailesh Haribhakti were among those present at the event. Amita is the co-founder of the Meeting Minds initiative.
