In terms of gameplay sessions, India is Facebook’s third-largest market, with 234 million in the two months of July and August 2021, as the social networking giant aims to capitalize on the country’s gaming boom.
Facebook, the social networking behemoth, plans to invest in the country’s gaming boom.
Brief scenario
“In the previous years, there has been kind a lot of growth in gaming section.” Manish Chopra, director and head of partnerships at Facebook, said in an interview. In recent years, it has technically changed its games experience for its users by moving beyond social games.
It is introducing several new features and services, just like game streaming, virtual reality (Oculus), and cloud gaming, to name a few. The video-sharing platform from Google YouTube has long led the game streaming market in the United States, but startups like Loco and Rheo TV have carved themselves a niche.
Facebook Game, a standalone gaming app, was released in April of last year as well. According to a recent study which is conducted by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), RedSeer, and OnePlus, that India’s mobile gaming market is predicted to more than triple in size by 2025, from around $1.8 billion in 2021 to $6-7 billion.
“Over the last year and a half, we’ve been particularly focused on spreading out the platform so that game developers can access lots of new audiences as well as tools through which they can build, grow, and monetize their games,” Chopra says.
In March 2019, the social media giant introduced a dedicated Facebook Gaming page, which allows its users to play fast games, watch some gaming videos from their favorite streamers, and connect with other gamers through gaming-related groups as well. According to him, more than 20 million people in India were active members of gaming groups on the site between July and August 2021.
Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, downloads of simple gaming applications have soared, and esports contests have become the new trend due to fewer entertainment options.
The digital behemoth launched a dedicated Gaming tab in March 2019, allowing users to play quick games, watch gaming videos from their favorite streamers, and connect with other gamers through gaming-related groups. In April of last year, Facebook released a standalone gaming app called Facebook Gaming.
While casual games remain the platform’s mainstay, Chopra claims that major publishers are leveraging it to engage with new players by providing short playable versions of their games, potentially attracting them to their console-based gaming titles.
According to him, between July and August 2021, more than 20 million people in India were active members of gaming groups on the platform.
Facebook collaborates with game developers to improve its game streaming service, which Google’s YouTube dominates. Chopra stated that the company is concentrating on bringing in more diverse producers to the platform, emphasizing female creators.
“To be able to extend their visibility on Facebook, we’ve been working with the top creators as well as a lot of nano and micro creators. Facebook is carving out a niche in India’s fast-growing and highly competitive online gaming and streaming market. He went on to say, “We’ve been partnering with AAA gaming publishers like Garena and Krafton to offer content to Facebook.”
Wrap-up
PUBG Mobile, Garena’s Free Fire, Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto V, PUBG Battlegrounds, and Moontoon’s Mobile Legends were the top streamed games by Facebook’s gaming creators India during July-August 2021, according to Facebook. It did not provide any viewership data particular to India. In January 2021, Facebook had 439 million hours of watching worldwide.
Article Proof Read & Edited By Shreedatri Banerjee
