The gaming series part 4: uncovering the untapped opportunities

In part 4 of our gaming series, we talk toManish Agarwal, CEO, Nazara Technologies, Thomas Purtell, Co-founder & CEO, Omlet, and Anirudh Pandita, Founder, Loco, talk about the untapped opportunities within the gaming industry. Tune in.

Tarun:

I actually wanted to maybe conclude with one quick rapid fire. So a gaming company which is going to be very large 5 years from now that nobody is building? Each one of you maybe if you can talk about something that you would build if you were starting up today or some new project that you guys have seen that you guys are very bullish on or whatever it may be, would love to just quickly get answers from all three of you and then we’ll use that to conclude.

Manish:

I’ll build a Web 3 publishing company.

Tarun:

So talk more about that, maybe just a quick like 30 seconds.

Manish:

Not the gilts which you see today in the current avatar, do not confuse the current business model and current use case but the gilts which in my opinion what it can be, it can be a Web 3 publisher and in a form and shape and I would love to build that because if you’re looking at the play and earn in a country like emerging markets where you can create entertainment and earning opportunities you valued it toDream 11. Dream 11 is a UFL model where you have a hope to make money but the entertainment value is still only limited to 15 minutes of pre-match lineup, but think of it if it’s in it meets the excitement and entertainment of the community like a PUBG and BGMI with an earning of Dream 11 the magic will happen. And if you’re able to create a “publisher” the job is to kind of really get concurrency and equity to the game, and if you can really do that the network effects will be amazing because you will be bringing a lot of those games on your network.

Tarun:

Great. Anirudh, TJ, either of you guys.

Anirudh:

I was going to say Loco but then you said you’re not building so -- I think an Indian game studio will be interesting. We’ve not seen it for various reasons --

Tarun:

So talk more about that because you know the typical I guess sort of counterargument is that we don’t have the talent today. And maybe that’s changing very rapidly so maybe weave that into your answer as well, why would you do that and you think --

Anirudh:

I actually think there is sufficient talent and I think there are enough partners today to help you. If you have someone like Manish sitting and giving you such a nuanced way of thinking about Web 3 there’s no reason that you cannot build a loco storyline with the business model which has either free to play or has a Web 3 element to it and you go to partners like Krafton who are spending a lot of time and effort -- right, look, money, lot of people remote control, send in their money to India but a lot of people don’t spend that time and they’re spending time also the other guy is doing it also.

Krafton because I know them better but you can ask them for help and that’s where we’re weak, right, so I might be a guy I might be good at certain parts of it, I may not be good at live ops. So go to them and say, bro, you do live ops, make an investment whatever and I think that why nobody is building is because it’s hard to fund that stuff. Like if some guy comes to me today it just has to be like literally I have to run that fund because I’ve to convince some LP because nobody else was funded that easy, I’ve seen a lot of these guys struggle and I think there is some encouragement required.

I know guys like Lumikai, Nazaara, and all they’re now at least either directly or indirectly through investments starting to encourage that. I think you will see a top game come out of India in the next five years and the great thing with these games are they’re not one time hits,they’re worlds and what you will see and this is my dream is like you will see the opposite like kind of like a which or where a game will come and Netflix will launch it as a show to make it like this massive event and then you’re like on EGC.

That’s when the business school guys come in and we start monetizing that stuff. But that first IP is going to come and I’ve seen enough where to know that they’re struggling for the last 4 years and there are teams which are like from geographies you would not have thought of who are they’re just like Walt Disney or whatever you want to call it like they’ve just been working on it and I think some great things will come out of the i10. Yeah, it will be like one of those - like the Zerodha ofgaming, right, where these two guys are going to build something and everybody else misses it.

Tarun:

Awesome. TJ, we’d love to get your thoughts on this as well?

Thomas:

Sure. Having a -- this is something that I wish existed and I think it’s possible, it’s sort of related to the mobile streaming space, it’s streaming space in general. I think streaming is like a lot of bandwidth like it’s pushed around everywhere, and the reality is don’t just people have these games on their phones anyway so they had all the resources and everything already there. So I think there really should be like a game engine and emphasizes that to be able to run from the web, from the mobile and be able to kind of reconstitute the play without moving the H264 video instead kind of synchronizing the state.

Because I think fundamentally which you’re going to build like a whole bunch of e-sports games, you can have like a lot more profitability if you don’t have to spend all that money on the bandwidth for running a platform to do actual videos streaming. So I think we see that in some games of the spectator modes and things that are there but I think that’s a cross-cutting concern that somebody like a Unity or Next big unity can do that’ll be super exciting from a tech perspective.

Tarun:

Got it. I think you’ve given us a lot of food for thought with all these three ideas, incidentally, we’ve been thinking about the first two, the third one TJ like you said is very interesting and we’ll spend more time on it. Guys, thank you so much. I know it takes a lot to take out time and it’s a busy time for everybody, so I truly, truly appreciate the time and the insights, I think this has been fantastic, far more than we had hoped to cover we were able to manage. So thank you so much guys, really really appreciate you guys taking out the time.