India to become world’s gaming capital: Nitish Mittersain, Nazara

The exchange4media GameOn Summit saw leading names from the gaming, entertainment, and brand world put their best game faces on to meet and mingle over a day of discourse, debates, and learnings.

Key among these discussions was a fireside chat 'What's next for online gaming in India’, which saw a spirited exchange between Dr. Annurag Batra, Chairman and Editor in Chief, BW Businessworld & exchange4media group, and Nitish Mittersain, Founder and CEO of Nazara Technologies.

Dr. Batra began the conversation by juxtaposing Nazara’s recent expansion with the evolution and growth of the Indian gaming industry, with Mittersain noting, “We came out with our IPO right in the middle of the pandemic, and listed in March of 2021. I think the COVID push was a pretty strong push with, generally, people spending a lot more time on gaming and a lot more gamers coming into the ecosystem.”

Mittersain opined that gaming in India is going to be the largest sector of the entertainment industry by far, in the years to come. “I would, of course, be biased, but I think that's the truth. And I think, India is really on its way to becoming the gaming capital of the world. So, it's been a fantastic time for the last two, three years, but I really think we're just getting started.”

Dr. Batra and Mittersain went on to discuss the growing acknowledgement of gaming as a legitimate career, as well as the different paths to succeed in the gaming industry, whether as early entrants like Mittersain himself who began coding from a very young age, going on to launch Nazara way back in 1999 and since becoming a foundational player, to those would-be coders, e-athletes, streamers and content creators who were excelling at gaming in all its various points.

Pointing out recent successes like Mumbai-based Kiddopia (now owned by Nazara), which was celebrated by Apple’s Tim Cook during his recent India visit, as well as companies like Bengaluru-based PlaySimple, which was recently sold for $300-million plus, in less than five years of being set up, Mittersain said these success stories of companies are now attracting more and more talent, more and more entrepreneurs, as well as more and more equity capital.

“On the other side, you're starting to see gaming influencers become very popular and have millions of streaming fans. And a lot of the audience here would know about that. I think they're making a lot of money and seeing a lot of success and adulation. We recently hosted DreamHack, which is a gaming festival in Hyderabad. Some of these gaming influencers came and the crowd pull was so much that we actually had to bring in security to manage. So, they're becoming celebrities, just like movie and music stars,” mentioned Mittersain.

He continued that today was an extremely exciting time for the segment due to the huge technology shifts taking place across media and entertainment, and how these were going to transform the entire gaming experience.

“So, one is the whole web3 world, with blockchain and NFTs. I know that two years back it was very fashionable to talk about it. And the last two years, given the way that the words got hammered, it's not fashionable anymore. But the reality is that there's a lot of disruption that's going to happen in gaming because digital ownership of in-game assets is going to be a game-changer, and that's one big technological shift.”

The second is virtual reality and augmented reality, Mittersain noted while emphasising it wasn’t just because Apple launched its Vision Pro Mixed Reality headset last week. “Investors on my board were telling me to set up a VR studio 10 years back or maybe even earlier. Luckily, I didn't, I would have bled a lot of money because a lot of these technologies are on the horizon, but sometimes take much longer than you estimate them to. But, especially in the last year or so, a sense I've been getting is that the inflection point in VR is really coming. VR will transform the gaming experience because you're going to go from playing a game to being inside a game. And that really changes the whole experience.”

Speaking of new experiences, Mittersain had to mention AI, especially the generative models. “I think having these AI-driven characters, which are going to live inside your game and talk to you, will drive engagement and user interactions incredibly.”

“So, I think you have three or four technologies coming together into this melting pot, which will completely disrupt what you think of gaming today, versus what it is going to be as early as three years from now. It's also challenging for companies like ours because you have to be able to adapt and move very fast to those trends while keeping an eye on your quarterly numbers and revenues and profits.”