Catch The Wave of Mobile Gaming in India

Being a 90’s kid, I have grown up playing Ludo, carrom, gully cricket to computer games such as Mario, Prince of Persia, etc., to Nintendo and Xbox and now to Mobile games such as candy crush, ludo, rummy, PubG, fortnite and so on. With access to affordable smartphones and cheap high speed internet data, the ease at which any ‘mango’ man can escape their daily monotony has led to the boom in mobile gaming which is already rising in the anticipation of the 3rd wave, achieving escape velocity with the help of pandemic and subsequent lockdowns.

Mobile gaming has become the largest growing market globally and in India. According to a survey, there are nearly 400 million gamers in India, which has become the 5th largest market globally. The number of gamers is expected to grow above 550 million by 2025

Understanding the Indian gaming Audience

Home to 1 out of 10 gamers globally, gaming is not just for Genz or kids. It has penetrated across people of all ages, genders, status, and generations in India.

Many marketers carried misplaced notions that only GenZ males are into games- multiple research studies have shown participation in gaming is now spread across the population, from Genz to Gen X and from Men as well as Women across the country.

Source: Inmobi Gaming Report

Gamers can be bifurcated in 3 different profiles i.e., Casual Gamer, Engaged Gamer, and Professionals

All these gamers have a wide variety of interests both online and offline. Be it social networking or online retail store visitors, it is likely that the audiences you are after are gamers too.

Benefits for Advertisers in Gaming landscape

Be it casual gamers or even engaged gamers- they don’t buy paid subscriptions for any service, be it for any entertainment app or Gaming. According to an Inmobi Pulse gaming survey, Gamers are familiar with gaming ads and clearly prefer to watch ads over spending money when looking to progress in a game or in exchange for a benefit.

Ad recall is also very high amongst Indian Gamers, especially when it is engaging and about a topic of interest.

31% Higher video completion rate seen in gaming benchmarked in comparison to any other in-app video ads. Also, gaming apps see 2.6 times higher engagement rates in ads than the non-gaming apps

The Social and Mobile Gaming report from MediaBrix shows that average gaming ads have click through rates (CTR) of about 3%. Social and mobile gaming ads have, on average, a 91% completion rate.

ADVERTISING OPPORTUNITIES

We have reached a critical juncture for gaming. While plenty of evidence exists to the contrary, misconceptions about the gaming audience persist. There is a paucity of marketer attention in gaming channels relative to the immense growth of the ecosystem. Never has gaming been more prevalent in popular discourse with the kind of opportunities it has for the advertisers around the world.

Gaming as a platform provides a great pool of opportunities with benefits like hyper targeting, trackable viewability with high completion rates, product placements and high engagement along with brand safety. Moreover, brands can maximize ROI and optimize campaigns using real time analytics.

Media to Drive Reach and awareness

In-Game Advertisement

Ludo King in app advertisement

Gaming Content targeting

Gaming content on Youtube

Brand Integration

Branding & tie ups with popular games and Content Creation and collaboration around these games and their gameplays. Influencer content with famous games and gaming influencers help drive good engagement with the followers.

Branding or tie up with existing games

Oppo Sponsored PUBG mobile India series

Dettol in game integration with Chota Bheem game. Collecting the logo would give you temporary immunity

Pulse engages with gaming audiences on their social media – going after broad affinity segments like console gamers, or Ludo enthusiasts

Moreover, advertisers can create their own games with the help of Game aggregators like Loco, 99 Games and Nazara technologies. This enables advertisers to creating a whole new experience around the product.

Advertisers can benefit from the merging of gaming and content creation for brand engagements. The high interaction of mobile gamers combined with the inherently social nature of user-generated gaming (UGG) makes it an ideal environment for brands.

CLEARING OUT THE MISCONCEPTIONS AND CATCHING THE WAVE

From casual players to professional ones, Gaming is expanding at full pace in India and penetrating across the Indian population. With a variety of available options in the segment, the worlds of advertising and gaming have merged over the years: from games that were only brought into existence to boost a brand message, to peripheral product appearances, to brands being used as tools within gameplay, to brands that are the central focus of the game itself.

The gaming industry as well as the community is ever evolving and definitely an interregnal component for digital marketeers to include in their mix of advertising strategies.

Keep Playing, Keep enjoying.!

References

https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/over-40-indian-gamers-spend-rs-230-month-mobile-games-156170
https://www.inmobi.com/blog/2021/04/21/2021-india-gaming-report-everyone-is-gaming-among-us
https://www.financialexpress.com/brandwagon/writers-alley/how-gaming-industry-can-leverage-performance-marketing-strategies/2355304/
https://influencermarketinghub.com/5-examples-of-mobile-gaming-influencer-marketing-done-right/