Games24x7 co-founder and co-CEO Bhavin Pandya on August 9 said the key factor that will shape the online gaming industry in the next two-three years is how effectively companies harness technology to engage customers.
"We are in a space where technology is growing rapidly. Every second word coming out of people's mouths these days is AI/ML and data science" Pandya said at the Moneycontrol Startup Conclave 2024 in Bengaluru.
'We are at an exciting phase right now. My11Circle recently became the associate sponsors of the IPL, it is a 5-year deal, so we are very excited about what the future holds from that standpoint for us," he said.
Founded in 2006 by Pandya and Trivikraman Thampy, Games24x7 operates a portfolio of skill-based gaming platforms, including RummyCircle (online rummy), and My11Circle (fantasy sports). The firm also recently forayed into online poker with PokerCircle.
Games24x7 primarily makes money from the platform fees it earns from players for allowing them to participate in tournaments or contests across its platforms.
The firm was last valued at $2.5 billion, when it raised $75 million funding led by Malabar Investment and participation from existing investors Tiger Global and Raine Group in March 2022. It claims to have more than 100 million users and has offices in Bengaluru, Mumbai, and New Delhi.
The real-money gaming industry, which makes up the majority of the country's online gaming sector, has raised concerns about addiction and debt in recent years. Pandya said they are leveraging technology to address this issue.
"We use technology to make sure that people don't go overboard (in spending on the platform). We have been focused on trying to identify and understand our users early on the system. We look at patterns from the first 2-3 mins that you are on the site. If we identify a user is going to go overboard or not play responsibly, we are quick to stop them from playing," Pandya said.
He said the company's systems can also detect fake IDs and multiple IDs on the platform. "There is no fool-proof detection system but we go the extra yard and go really deep to try and figure out who is a legitimate player and how old they are. A lot of work is happening in this area," Pandya said.
"It's important for us that players play responsibly because of this perception and the issues surrounding online real-money gaming," he said.
Regulation next chapter in online gaming
He also mentioned that regulation will be the "next chapter in the book of online gaming."
"We have gone through various regulations and different tax structures that at least now the government recognises us as a constituent where we are a legitimate tax payer. Now it is just a matter of what are the next steps in what games you can run legitimately and what you can't, just drawing that distinction," Pandya said.
In recent years, Pandya said some progress has been made on this front with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) appointed as the nodal ministry to oversee the country's nascent but growing online gaming industry in December 2022.
"We are at that phase where we need real regulations now and then I think we are through" he said.
The newly formed National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government will now have to chalk out a framework to regulate the sector after the IT ministry reportedly scrapped the earlier plan of appointing self-regulatory organisations (SROs) to determine whether a real-money game is permitted to operate in India or not.
India's real-money gaming industry currently stands at a critical juncture with its future growth resting on the implementation of a comprehensive regulatory framework in the country, and the outcomes of the upcoming court rulings related to GST notices, the constitutional validity of state-level bans on real-money gaming formats and the role state governments have in regulating the sector, among others.
"It's been 18 years, many comets and meteors have come and hit us. We have been buried to the ground and come up again but the bottom line is we are still here and history is the best predictor of the future, so our hope and our expectation is that we will continue to keep going for another 18-20-30 years from here on out," Pandya said.
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