Microsoft is buying gaming company and Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard in a $68.7 billion all-cash acquisition, sparking a buzz in the gaming industry across the globe.
In India, too, players in the gaming sector are wondering what impact this deal could have on the overall market. Experts and industry players say the small but growing Indian gaming industry is unlikely to face any significant impact from the Microsoft-Activision deal. Indeed, given the modest presence of the two companies here, the deal is unlikely to have any significant impact even on MNCs operating here.
India’s gaming industry is estimated to be worth $2-3 billion and is miniscule in comparison with the $40 billion US market and $46 billion China market, according to data from a CII-BCG report.
Mobile gaming is the biggest segment in India, accounting for 80 of the overall market, according to various reports. PC gaming is next, at around 13 percent, with console gaming accounting for the rest.
According to Statista, Activision Blizzard had a 14.2 percent share in India’s mobile gaming market last year, slightly up from 13.4 percent in 2016. That share includes COD (Call of Duty) Mobile and Candy Crush. “If you’re just considering console and PC games, the number is lower,” said Rishi Alwani, long-time gaming industry analyst and communications manager at SuperGaming.
According to web analytics service Statcounter, Microsoft’s Xbox has a share of just 6 percent in India’s console gaming market. Sony’s Playstation dominates that segment comprehensively, commanding a 93 percent share. “Microsoft has a ton of PC and mobile games. All their Xbox games are on PC too and they have mobile efforts like Minecraft and Forza Street to name a few. However, apart from the Xbox Series X and S release, the company has remained largely silent,” said Alwani.
However, Anurag Khurana, founder and CEO of Newgen Gaming, said that India can be a crucial market for Microsoft’s plans for a mobile gaming push as it synergises well with India’s gaming platform of choice. “With Call of Duty Mobile already a rather known title in India, IPs (intellectual property) like Diablo from Activision coming to mobile could work in the Indian market.”
Prashanth Joshua Mandapalli, CEO, Mobius, a game development company, said that with Activision’s acquisition, Microsoft will be able to increase its market share in PC and console games, which has users from Tier 1 markets.
“On mobile, they still have ground to cover in building localised games that cater to the next billion users, beyond metro cities. Activision gives Microsoft a foothold only in the first-person-shooter (FPS) segment of gaming. Genres like P2E (Play to Earn) will be key to capturing the Indian gaming market,” he said.
Good performance in India
Some games by Activision have enjoyed strong traction in India.
Yashdeep Bali, founder of digital marketing consultancy Akhiro Interactive, who is also an avid gamer, noted that the top games in India by Activision include the Call of Duty Series, World of Warcraft, Diablo, Overwatch and Candy Crush.
Abhishek Aggarwal, co-Founder and CEO of gaming talent management company Trinity Gaming, added: “In mobile gaming, Call of Duty is getting a lot of traction. This game is loved in India, especially because of its high-end graphics. In PC gaming, there is Warcraft around which Indians are generating a lot of content and one of the most popular games in the casual gaming space is Candy Crush.”
Mandapalli pointed out that when Activision launched their mobile version of Call of duty, India turned out to be a surprisingly lucrative market. "Even today, India has the highest number of users -- above 20 million -- on their mobile version," he said.
Alwani concurs. “Given how ubiquitous Activision’s games have been in past years, it’s safe to say that at least one in every five console and PC gamers in India has been exposed to and played a game in the series. And that’s before counting free-to-play fares like Warzone or mobile games like Call of Duty Mobile,” he said.
Vishwalok Nath, Director, World Esports Cup, who calls Microsoft’s purchase one of the largest deals to take place in the industry, said that it brings a glimmer of hope for change in India. “We hope that once the deal is through, Microsoft can focus on Call of Duty and Call of Duty Mobile esports tournaments in India,” he said.
India not a priority?
However, Lokesh Suji, Director, Esports Federation of India & Vice President of the Asian Esports Federation (AESF), noted: “Microsoft has not been able to do much in India, be it with their consoles (PlayStation is way ahead of them) or any video game IP; Indian gamers never seem to be on Microsoft’s radar.” Until something drastically changes in the way Microsoft looks at the Indian market there is nothing much for India, he said.
Alwani agrees. “Microsoft India itself doesn’t have a focus on gaming in India. They have no employees dedicated to working on Xbox in India, plus there’s no effort made to fix their distribution and marketing in India, both of which are horribly broken. Even right now, the Series X|S is being outsold by at least 10:1 by the competition,” he noted.
Even P.R. Rajendran, Co-Founder and CEO, Next Wave Multimedia Pvt. Ltd, said that for Microsoft, cloud gaming is doing well in around 18 countries. However, in India, the segment is yet to take off; mobile gaming is the ultimate territory for gaming companies. “When we started with mobile gaming people laughed at us but now mobile has become the number one device for gaming. Console wars have spilled over to mobile now.”
Eye on the horizon
While experts and industry players are not expecting much from this deal, they said that Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision has made the industry more optimistic about the gaming sector.
“We are optimistic about the impact and the potential of this acquisition and hope for encouraging announcements from Microsoft in the future,” said Nath.
Suji said Indian venture capitalists are convinced that the market will develop thanks to this $68.7 billion acquisition, as India is the fastest-growing market when it comes to video games or esports.
"Gaming is now a real and tangible business that has empirical growth and profitability metrics behind it," said Akshat Rathee, Founder and MD, NODWIN Gaming, which is owned by Nazara Technologies.
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