India’s richest man, Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani, recently set the proverbial cat amongst the pigeons when, in an interaction with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, he noted that gaming had enormous potential in India and the industry will be bigger than music, movies and TV shows put together.
Ambani’s views have been echoed by Morgan Stanley’s Ruchir Sharma and Sequoia Capital India’s managing director Rajan Anandan, both of whom see online gaming as a sunrise industry and one of the most interesting sectors for investment.
Industry size and potential
There is some confusion on the etymology and scope of the term ‘online gaming’, partly because of the hazy legal definitions in India. For some, online gaming means casual online games played for fun, without stakes; for others it also includes real money skill games (exempt from gambling or betting under law) such as poker, rummy, fantasy sports etc; for another section, it is an all-encompassing term that includes all kinds of games,...
