As viewers demand more games on OTTs, gaming firms see a chance to grow

India has seen an impressive rise in the adoption and growth of social games, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a recent study by the gaming and interactive media venture fund Lumikai Capital and RedSeer, India has emerged as one of the fastest growing gaming markets in the world, with growth in new paying users now at over 50 per cent. India’s gaming market is set to reach $7 billion in FY26, which is more than three times the market in FY21. This makes players like Gamezop, a plug-and-play gaming platform, a much-sought-after property. Players like Gamezop allows online companies the easy flexibility of embedding their games onto the OTT platforms, thereby bringing casual gaming to their users. The company has over 3,500 partners including, Amazon, Sony LIV, Paytm, Samsung Internet, Goibibo, Airtel Thanks, MX Player, etc.

 

“Audiences these days prefer everything entertainment integrated in one place and gaming is certainly the next most sought after feature that will be integrated in OTT platforms,” said Nakul Kapur, Head of International Business and Games at MX Player.

 

Gamezop, which boasts of over 40 million monthly active users across the world, says that by virtue of these integrations, hundreds of high-quality HTML5 games can be played within a single app without being installed separately. 

“Most importantly, the games don’t increase the app size. These factors have contributed in a big way for the adoption of games by OTT platforms. OTT platforms in general, and market leaders like MX Player in particular, have realised that the demand for gaming will continue to surge, and having games as a value-added offering will have a positive impact on engagement and monetisation metrics,” said Ankit Saxena, Head of Business Development, Gamezop. Last year, Gamezop had powered more than 800 million minutes of gameplay on MX Player, and these numbers are growing at 20-30 per cent month on month, the company said.

 

Recently, Netflix, too, experimented with gaming on its platform. “In a short span of time, we will see the majority of OTT platforms across the world having a game centre for their users,” Saxena added. 

Gamezop has partnered with SonyLiv, EPIC ON, Hoichoi, and others and is looking at similar partnerships with other OTT platforms.

 

The online gaming industry in India has been growing at an extraordinary pace and is giving a tough competition to other popular entertainment categories such as short-form video, streaming services, and social networks, according to MX Player. 

“We have grown nearly 4x with over 400+ million monthly gameplays on the platform in the last 18 months and we will continue to invest in not only building more India specific games but also in adding features including social interactivity to make the experience more engaging. Our objective is to scale-up our gaming experience to MX Player’s global audience,” Kapur said.

 

Mobile game downloads in India increased to 2.7 billion in April-June 2020 and furthermore to 2.9 billion in July-September 2020, from 1.8 billion during January-March 2020, according to a report from KPMG. 

“Integration of gaming on OTT platforms is only set to diversify further. In the near future, we are likely to see OTT platforms gaining popularity for their gaming options and competing with each other not just for the content they produce but also for the games they have to offer,” he added.

 

Gamezop, too, feels that gaming on OTT platforms is going to grow. 

“At the time of undertaking the effort of integrating our games on OTT platforms, our hypothesis was that quality content of different kinds will complement each other: users who watch videos will also play games if games are made available conveniently. What we see is that the behaviour of gamers on OTT platform is not any different from gamers in general. High-quality content sees its due share of respect from users. Beyond that, OTT platforms have to ensure that key categories (Puzzle & Logic, Action, Adventure, Arcade, Sports & Racing, Strategy) are present so that all users have something to pick as per their liking,” Saxena said.

 

He adds that this partnership represents a marriage of MX Player’s penetration across the country and Gamezop’s high-quality gaming catalogue. 

“Gamezop was one of our first partners when we started gaming on the platform. They have been instrumental in helping us drive engagement and gameplays. We are further looking to scale gaming by introducing newer formats of games in order to offer new exciting games to our audience. We are inclined towards creating India’s first integrated entertainment platform and gaming has been a logical extension to our offerings,” Kapur said.

 

Since the content industry has long worked with the model of partnerships and strategic alliances to meet the twin goals of quality and scale, gaming on OTT platforms seems inevitable, experts believe.

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