Ahead of the India-Pakistan clash at the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 on October 14, Dream Game Studios, the gaming studio owned by Dream11 parent Dream Sports, has launched its first mobile game, Dream Cricket 2024, in both countries.
The mobile cricket cricket game is currently available in open beta on Google Play Store in India and Pakistan with an iOS version in the works.
This launch comes even as Dream Sports navigates through a turbulent period due to massive retrospective goods and services tax (GST) claims of over Rs 40,000 crore related to its flagship fantasy sports platform Dream11.
Dream Game Studios first debuted the game title in August this year and launched it in Bangladesh last month, marking its foray into India's mobile free-to-play gaming market. Dream Sports acquired Pune-based mobile game developer Rolocule Games in August 2021. They rebranded it as Dream Game Studios, with founder Rohit Gupta serving as the CEO of the mobile gaming studio.
Free-to-play and paid video games continue to be taxed at an 18 percent GST rate on app sales and in-app purchases in India, as they do not involve a staking or wagering element.
With realistic gameplay, voice commentary and 3D graphics, Dream Game Studios says that this title is one of the "most advanced AAA mobile games to ever come out of India". AAA Games are typically video game titles that have big budgets for both development and marketing purposes.
Dream Cricket 2024 will also likely benefit from Dream Sports' estimated reach of over 190 million users across its portfolio of brands.
New World Cup game mode
The cricket game features 3D realistic faces of several current and former Indian cricket players such as Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan, Gautam Gambhir, Suresh Raina, Harbhajan Singh and international cricket players such as Chris Gayle, Rashid Khan, Brett Lee, and Shoaib Akhtar and stadiums including the Ahmedabad Stadium, which is the biggest cricket stadium in the world and is set to host the World Cup final match next month.
Users can bat and bowl across different game modes such as multiplayer match, Dream Team and matches across various cricket leagues such as New Zealand Cricket team, Afghanistan Cricket team, Super Smash League and Legends League Cricket, for which Dream Cricket 2024 is the official game partner. The gameplay allows users to control every shot they play, and every ball they bowl, it said.
On October 13, the company introduced a new cricket World Cup game mode that lets users play as one of the 10 International teams in a World Cup event and participate in tournaments to "win the Dream Cricket World Cup". Users can also experience each World Cup match as it happens in real life, it said.
"There will be at least 48 “Match of the Day” encounters, with varying formats from Super Over blitz to 5-over ODIs. Play as any one of the participating teams and as many times as you wish, with victories rewarding you with World Cup tickets," the company said in an official blog post.
Dream Cricket 2024 will also feature a 'Play with Friends' mode that will enable players to invite their friends to play a private match with them.
India's maturing gaming market
This launch comes at a time when India’s gaming sector is maturing, with users showing more sophisticated behavior and habits, and the industry reaching an inflection point in terms of scale and the propensity to pay.
The country's rising potential as a global gaming hub is also spurring local studios to attempt to create bigger, better, and more complex games that can eventually compete with their international counterparts, as Moneycontrol previously reported.
India is the fastest-growing video games market in Asia, both in terms of revenue and gamers, with its mobile and PC gaming revenue projected to reach $868 million in 2023, according to Niko Partners, a market research and consulting firm that covers video games, e-sports, and streaming in the continent.
This is set to grow at a five-year compound annual growth rate of 17.2 percent to touch $1.58 billion by 2027. These figures do not include revenue generated by real money games.
JetSynthesys, which is backed by Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan, Serum Institute of India CEO Adar Poonawalla, and cricket icon Sachin Tendulkar, has developed a mobile cricket game franchise called Sachin Saga. It also owns game development studio Nautilus Mobile which has developed a simulation-based cricket gaming franchise called Real Cricket.
Meanwhile, Nazara Technologies-owned Nextwave Multimedia offers a mobile cricket game franchise called World Cricket Championship that claims to have clocked over 100 million downloads across mobile platforms in the past seven years.
India's overall online gaming industry revenues reached $2.6 billion in FY22 and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 27 percent to $8.6 billion in FY27, according to a report by Lumikai, a gaming and interactive media-focused venture fund.
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