Business - India one of the biggest untapped gaming market in the world

BANGALORE: India with one of the biggest untapped gaming market in the world with less than one per cent penetration held a huge potential with
industry bodies estimating that it would reach 425 million dollars by 2010.

India was lagging behind by 10-15 years in the world gaming curve but had picked up rapid growth in the last two-three years with the console gaming component having experienced a seven fold growth, said Atindriya Bose, Country Manager, Sony Computer Entertainment.

"The Indian gaming market right now is nascent but many new gamers were moving in. It is currently a vibrant market", he said adding that the sector was picking up in the metroes as well in other cities with the Punjab belt, Gujarat, Vishakatpatnam, Salem, Thiruvananthapuram seeing a lot of momentum.

However the industry was facing some challenges: Import duties were as high as 31.7 per cent, creating a major hurdle. The fluctuation of the dollar rate had also hindered stabilisation of prices, he said.

But, there had been a lot of rationalisation of prices of gaming consoles recently. The playstation two and portable playstation which were in the range of Rs 11,000 to Rs 18,000 had dropped to Rs 6,000 to Rs 9,000 while the Playstation three had seen a drop in prices from Rs 40,000 to Rs 25,000, he said.

Piracy was another major hurdle especially in Playstation and Portable Playstation. However, rationalisation of prices had helped in countering the piracy effect to some level, he said.

The three main gaming segment comprised the kid segment ranging from 10-14 year olds who played games but were under parental supervision. The second segment comprised college students who were glued to the latest developments globally in the gaming scenario and discussed gaming a lot, Bose said.

The early earner segement comprised those who should have played games 10 years earlier but could not as the industry in India had not been developed, he said.

Out of the three segments, the first two were growing rapidly with many new entrants to the field.

Talking about growth of the gaming market, he said the experiential gaming experience was one of the best ways to grow the market. There has to be a visible gaming experience.

This called for inviting peripheral players to come and experience the product through exhibitions, roadshows and other events. Peripheral gamers were those who continued to use the mobile or internet for the gaming experience and needed to be demonstrated the experience of console gaming.

Core gamers segment could be expanded by holding of regular championship, racing events to help them interact and also participate in some of the best games offered. These gamers were looking for variations and higher levels of gaming
The picking up of gaming market was evident from the feeback and the blogging spots on gaming, he said.

The console gaming market currently had witnessed an installation of 6.5 lakh consoles in the country with majority being individual consumers. Corporate sales were seen mainly in BPO and IT sector were gaming was being used as a 'stress buster.' However this segment constituted a very little of the entire market, and could be grown further, he said.

The world gaming market was expected to reach 43 billion US Dollars by 2010 with Indian outsourcing potential being 10 billion USD.

The Indian console gaming market which was expected to reach 125 million USD in 2010, demonstrated the huge potential of the market in days to come, he said.

He believed the current vibrancy in gaming would soon lead to an avalanche shortly.