‘Gamers of this generation are moving away from media in the traditional sense’

Speaking at the Spotlight session of e4m GameOn Online Gaming Summit 2023, Piara Singh Gambhir, Deputy General Manager, Paytm Ads highlighted how Paytm First Games (PFG) has helped brands amplify their campaigns. 

At 300 million-plus gamers, the gaming ecosystem has much to offer brands but monetisation still remains the achilles heel for the industry. The road to monetisation, however, starts with profiling the gamers and charting key parameters such as their motivation to play, time-spent, and willingness to pay etc. 

Gambhir began the session by talking about the different categories of gamers which includes the ‘Casual Gamers’ whose willingness to pay is extremely low; the slightly more competitive and willing to pay ‘Lapsed Gamers’ who don’t invest a significant amount of time and take a lot of breaks; the ‘Die-Hard Gamers’ who are into cult followership, esports streaming, and branded purchases; the upwardly mobile ‘Community Gamers’ who play with their friends, family and social network, and also spend on premium features etc., but the biggest category in the Indian ecosystem right now are the ‘Bougie Gamers’ - the upwardly mobile, extravagant people who like the thrill and competitiveness and also, the money; These are the ones that are into Real Money Gaming (RMG). 

“We have seen that those into RMG on our platform are 20-40 year-olds, are mostly self-employed (business owners), and have a very high spending power,” said Gambhir. “They spend an average of four minutes on a game and play about 35-plus paid games every month. There are around 300K users/day on First Games, and 2.5Mn active users with an average stake on a user-level of 20,000 rupees/ month. We’ve got about 80mn-plus games played every month and about 40 mins average time per day-per user.”

Based on the deterministic signals that Paytm Ads ecosystem is able to pick, Gambir further shared that among the people who play RMG, 35% of them make transactions across shopping outlet (offline or online), 30% order or purchase food, 16% book travel tickets, 8% spend on wellness, 7% on beauty and fashion and 2% book movie tickets, all in the first month itself. And this goes on up till the fourth month and beyond. 

“So clearly, gamers of this generation are moving away from media in the traditional sense,” he observed. Taking the audience back to the four minute average time-spent on a game to 40 minutes average time spent, per day, per user discrepancy, Gambhir explained, “the user behaviour is such that they are not only playing as many games, but they're also checking their credits - how much balance they have in their wallets, and if there are more options to win some credits or bonus points that they can again stake back. So they spend a lot of time exploring the lobbies and the app. And that’s the interesting bit, and the opportunity as well, ‘what can you do with these users who are so intensely engaged with this app’?”

First Games, he claimed, is one of the only RMG Games which comes up with innovative solutions for brands to capture the attention of these “intensely engaged users” in multiple ways and formats. These could be in the form of lobby backgrounds branded through the Skins, branded games, product placement right at the lobby around the game where gamers spend a lot of time, ATF/ BTF banners, splash screens, in-game immersive experiences, more in-game options such as tournament sponsorships, bonus points and claims, jackpot machines with branded prizes, scratch cards, video solutions, and even moment messaging within the app. 

Gambhir wrapped up by saying, “brands can leverage and benefit from its 350mn-plus users in the Paytm Ads ecosystem across First Games, payments, health, movies and more to target them at various touch points throughout their journey.”