Is India ready to bloom in gaming sector?

Many companies like Sea Gaming have the potential to emerge from our country and dominate the global market - Part II

Success story of Sea, the gaming company

Steve Jobs, one of the founders of Apple Computers, delivered a historic speech at Stanford University in 2005. On that occasion, he addressed the students and said, "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish". One of the students, Forest Lee, was very much inspired by those words. A storm of ideas ensued in him. He was born in China and wanted to spend his life doing some work in America. He spent sleepless nights, thinking about his mission.

He is now the owner of the ' Sea Limited ' gaming company, listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The company has a market capitalisation of $136 billion (approximately Rs 9 lakh crore). The company is recording an annual turnover of approximately 1.14 billion US dollars. This is much more than the value of many of the top companies in Indonesia and Singapore. Shares of companies such as Amazon, Alibaba, Facebook and Tencent Holdings on the New York Stock Exchange have risen sharply this year following the coronavirus outbreak. Everyone talked about them. But if one company has increased its market value to compete with them, it is the Sea Gaming Company.

What does Sea Gaming Company do? It became such a big company because of its online gaming. Sea Gaming Company has over 100 million gaming users worldwide. Its Garena-published ' Free Fire' mobile multiplayer online survival game became the most downloaded mobile app from the Google Play Store and iOS App Store over the past year. The game was released in 2017 by Sea Gaming Company. From there the company went unchallenged. This year, the game generated $167 million in revenue for Sea Company between April and June. Free Fire crossed $1 billion in lifetime revenue. That was not it. Forest Lee, the owner of Sea Gaming Company, hopes that the game will be popular with online players for the next decade and generate billions of dollars in revenue. Sea Gaming Company has focused on other business opportunities as it gained hold over the gaming sector. It also began investing in areas such as digital payments, shopping and digital banking. Covid-19 has done some good to the gaming industry. It has created a situation where the world economies have to move towards digital technology. Forest Lee says this has created a very favorable environment for the digital entertainment gaming sector.

The exciting thing is Forest Lee did succeed when he entered the gaming sector. He faced many difficulties in the early days. The first gaming startup did not go as planned. Just in time, he started another gaming company, Garena, in 2009. This paved success for him. He was established as a leader in the field of online gaming. Forest Lee attributed his success to Southeast Asian countries, social life, and the technological revolution. Whatever the conditions prevailed in Southeast Asian countries exactly ten-fifteen years ago, such conditions now exist in our country. A situation where everything is ready for online gaming. That is why it is an undeniable fact that gaming companies have the opportunity to go sky high from here.

Many companies like Sea Gaming have the potential to emerge from our country and dominate the global market. There is nothing that cannot be achieved if persevered. Should grow louder the world is moving forward without being disturbed, even if there are opportunities or noting, and during crises. It is meaningless if we do not realise the future and confine ourselves to whatever we know. Creating a computer game is like making a movie. It has a story, characters, weapons, narrative, and challenge, win-lose, end. Then only the game will be successful. Considering the cinematic knowledge we have, we can easily win the field of online gaming.

It will require perseverance, technology, a system that provides financial assistance, and also government support. If you look at the world gaming arena, wars and action stories are the main themes. If we can add our stories of mythologies, legends and adventures to it and invent different online, mobile games, the whole world will turn towards us. The online gaming industry has much potential to grow exponentially and become one of the top companies in this segment. There is an estimation that the turnover of the gaming industry in our country will be Rs 10,000 crore by 2021. Considering the socio-economic conditions that have taken place in recent times, it is not surprising if a higher turnover is recorded. Unlike other countries, we have the most extensive domestic online and mobile gaming market. With the increase in telecom bandwidth and smartphones' availability, the domestic gaming market has expanded exponentially.

Once the domestic market is won, then the focus can be on the international market. Currently, IT, pharma and diamond exports from our country are very high. There is no doubt that the online gaming sector has the potential to surpass these sectors by achieving high exports. If not, here are some steps that we can take to help ease the way. We have a massive workforce with gaming skills. Technology alone is not enough to develop games. Story, drawings, graphics, animation and VFX animations are needed. We must take up training by starting short-term and long-term courses to produce such human resources. Similarly, the Central and State Governments should provide large-scale incentives and tax relief to job-creating companies in the sector. Provide easy access to loans. The government should unveil a particular gaming policy, and gaming parks need to be set up on a large scale.

The construction of the Hi-Tech City in Hyderabad boosted the IT sector. Similarly, the Telangana State government has planned to set up large gaming and animation park (Image Tower) so that the industry will also grow. Recently, the Central Government also announced the setting up of a Centre of Excellence with the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, to launch courses in AVGC and promote entrepreneurship in the sector.

Likewise, the availability of long-term risk capital for companies in this sector should also increase. Earnings and profits are not immediately possible for gaming companies. If you work hard for a few years, then you will earn a lucrative income. Until then, gaming companies must be in a position to meet capital requirements. Therefore, if we move forward with a long-term activity, our country will be able to win the global gaming market in the next decade. Then we can register a considerable number of jobs, exports, tax revenue to the government on a large scale. It allows for creating unimaginable wealth. Governments and industrialists need to be prepared for that. There can be no better moment than this.

(L Maruti Sanker is Managing Director of Hyderabad based gaming and animation company, 7Seas Entertainment Ltd)