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<ul><li>In our last feature from the series where we crystal-gazed into 2022 and brought to you some key trends that will impact the industry, we speak to experts from the Indian <keyword id="6357332" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="gaming" source="Orion">gaming</keyword> industry.</li><li>They share their thoughts of a few big trends that will dominate the industry in 2022.</li></ul>As we enter 2022, we can only look back and wonder at the meteoric rise online gaming has seen in India in the past two years. While gaming had been witnessing growth, albeit a relatively slow one, before the lockdown, it was during the locked-at-home phase that many across the country not only discovered the joys of gaming, but also realised they could make a healthy living out of it. If most reports coming out in the last one year are to be believed, India will see an even faster growth for the industry in the next few years, and now Bharat is joining in this growth. A recent report by <keyword id="7087972" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="mobile-premier-league" source="Orion">Mobile Premier League</keyword> (MPL), an <keyword id="2440542" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="esports" source="Orion">esports</keyword> and skill gaming platform revealed that India’s tier-III cities and towns have witnessed a significant rise in the number of online gamers in 2021. The top 30 of them reported up to 170% more gamers compared to 2020. Some of the small towns have more than 100% to up to 200% growth in online gamers. Another report by Sequoia India and BCG said that while the gaming industry in India is currently smaller than that of the US and China and is 1% of the global gaming market, it is generating $1.5B revenue and is expected to triple to over $5 billion by 2025 on the back of the ‘mobile first’ phenomenon. This massive growth has also led to a new breed of influencers who are being followed by hundreds of thousands of engaged audiences. YouTube’s recently released list of top Indian creators on its platform featured 5 gamers. And things are just about starting to get heated. To understand where this highly dynamic industry is headed in this next year, we reached out to a few prominent voices from the industry and this is what they had to say: Lokesh Suji, Director, Esports Federation of India &amp; Vice President of the Asian Esports Federation (AESF) India was a sleeping giant till Covid-19 happened, and now we have established ourselves as a market that cannot be ignored; Stakeholders like the brands, investors, authorities and so on, were just sitting on the fence and observing. But with a market of at least 450 million online gamers, the potential of video games and esports cannot be ignored. The year 2021, has been the inflection point for video games in India. While esports evolves itself into various business models, Non-fungible token (NFT) will be one big trend to watch out for in 2022. Video Games is the best use case for NFTs, customization of the skins, virtual avatars, in-game items/rewards etc. all this already exists in video games (so-called metaverse) and is now starting to be converted into NFTs. One of the key drivers for the meteoric growth of Video Games has been live streaming and esports, and such content creators and/IP holders will eventually look at converting the best of gameplays/streaks/moments into NFTs, which not only help increase monetization for content creators, video game developers etc. but also be a catalyst in terms of retention of fans and users respectively. Anirudh Pandita, Founder, <keyword id="820765" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Loco" source="Orion">Loco</keyword> Gaming has now arrived as a truly mainstream entertainment experience and has become the primary source of entertainment for India’s young generation. 2021 saw the rise of esports and game streaming, and 2022 will see this multiply. In 2021, we saw the arrival of BGMI which all Indian fans were waiting for and in 2022, we will see multiple big publishers release games for India. In 2021, we saw esports go to new heights and we will see continued growth in the sector in the next year as prize money as well as number of games will increase. Game streaming saw the entry of hundreds of thousands of new streamers and millions of viewers, and this trend should accelerate in 2022, with individual streams rivaling those of major traditional sports. Lastly, with blockchain providing interesting use cases, we expect to see interesting new use cases come out to help creators and consumers. We, at Loco, have always aimed at paving the way for gaming to go from a niche hobby to a mainstream national interest- which the year 2021 has helped realize. We are confident that with this, India will cement its place on the global gaming map in 2022. Abhishek Aggarwal, Co-Founder &amp; CEO, <keyword id="12415204" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="trinity-gaming" source="Orion">Trinity Gaming</keyword> The gaming industry is progressing, taking complete advantage of the latest developments in technology, software, better internet services, gadgets, cloud technology and more. In the Indian scenario, there is an explosive growth of gamers in this booming industry with creative and engaging content being an important aspect of the system. With more games introduced and with more people joining the pool, more brands are shifting their focus on marketing their brands through these young creators who have an enormous fan following across the age group of 15-30 which is the most targeted audience in advertising terms for both endemic and non-endemic brands. Gaming content has begun to penetrate the Tier II, Tier III locations, and beyond, giving vernacular content creators a chance to grow. With Hindi &amp; Tamil being the two most popular languages in streaming in India, it will surely gain more prominence in the coming time. More people will watch game streaming. Audiences tend to admire their creators and feel more connected to them due to their high level of engagement. The future of gaming beholds a lot and a stronger and classified gaming ecosystem is on the rise. Tarun Gupta, Founder, <keyword id="10820861" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="ultimate-battle" source="Orion">Ultimate Battle</keyword> Games and gaming content are highly engaging and we're seeing a huge spike in average and concurrent viewership for gaming content. The consumers are very dynamic and their attention span size has decreased noticeably in GenZ. We see short gaming video content to witness a never seen before hype in the gaming community. The mobile gaming market is expanding in tier 2 and tier 3 cities and we'll witness a rise in engagement in games, viewership, and content creation. Young gamers will play engaging games, consume fast-paced engaging content, and want to socialize with gamers often simultaneously. This will lead to more virtual world socialization among the young generation and higher consumption of gaming content. As such, 2022 will usher higher inclination by brands into the gaming industry to target the young age group of 18 to 25. With many startups and organizations focusing on gaming and esports, we'll see a spike in Esports events and team IPs being created. This will boost the gaming ecosystem in India and open multiple opportunities in careers for gamers and IT professionals. Roland Landers, CEO, <keyword id="3634002" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="All-India-Gaming-Federation" source="Orion">All India Gaming Federation</keyword> The Indian gaming industry along with the M&amp;E segment has now become one of the fastest growing sectors in India with around 7.3 Bn downloads in recent years. It has emerged as an important avenue due to a multitude of favorable factors such as young and tech-savvy population, affordable availability of feature-packed smartphones, better internet connectivity, and an overall technological development. The move has also accelerated the growth of multi gaming format in the online gaming space. The Indian gaming industry is expected to reach 3 billion by 2025 and is now projected to grow faster than the global online gaming segment. The industry currently employs 40,000 people in direct jobs and by 2024 the online skill gaming industry is expected to employ around 2 lakh people. This growth will further lead to revenue generation for the country, driven by ease of payment, better security and instant withdrawal of winnings etc. As the regulatory landscape is also evolving and positive judgments are expected from many states, we as an industry leader look forward to an exciting year for this sunrise sector. With its exponential growth, the gaming industry will also attract international investors to invest in the Indian market. Sameer Barde, CEO - E Gaming Federation <div type="image" title="IMG-20220110-WA0005" msid="88826278" hostid="261"></div> Online gaming will become increasingly mainstream and find acceptance as a source of entertainment in 2022. This year, we anticipate a growth rate of over 35 % for the sector as a whole. However, for this to happen, we hope to see government stakeholders accepting the need for regulation to protect the player and industry interests. Increasing monetization and adoption of new-age technology including blockchain and NFTs in the gaming ecosystem will be seen. We expect a larger number of players moving from free-to-play to paying-to-play, in-game purchases, and skill gaming. Industry players will develop new and exciting games for users based on traditional games and Indian themes, keeping the PM’s vision in mind. Additionally, e-Sports being a medal sport in the forthcoming Asian Games in September will result in a significant increase both in terms of acceptance and interest. All in all, we at EGF are excited and believe that this will be a bellwether year for the entire industry. Bhavin Pandya, CEO and Co-Founder, <keyword id="8913431" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Games24x7" source="Orion">Games24x7</keyword> The Indian online skill gaming industry is poised for tremendous growth. With the right support particularly in the form of progressive policy structures, gaming can spur a second software revolution in India. As of today, this industry offers direct employment to almost 50,000 people. It is also a major source of taxation for the exchequer. In addition, the sector has multiplier benefits for several other domains including fintech, banking, semiconductors, animation, and other aspects of Information Technology. The sector has witnessed significant investments from marquee international investors and accounts of several Unicorns. With the right encouragement and support, India can emerge as a global pioneer in gaming technology. Ankur Singh, CEO and Founder, Witzeal We believe that the gaming sector will continue to expand with the high end adoption of AI and data science to understand and provide users experiences they wish for. Future of gaming will likely be based upon newer technologies like Blockchain and its active usage would prove fruitful in the years to come. Another key trend to look forward to is the penetration of gaming in rural areas because the penetration of internet and smartphones is on a gradual rise. Yashash Agarwal, Co-Founder and CEO, <keyword id="3212361" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Gamezop" source="Orion">Gamezop</keyword> <div type="image" title="RIC_8498" msid="88758667" hostid="261"></div> Blockchain gaming is shaping up to be a very interesting space. We are already seeing very interesting games emerge with blockchain and NFTs at the heart of all the action. Games like Axie Infinity have popularized the Play to Earn mechanic and they have been able to scale engagement as well as monetization to huge numbers. Take it one step further and we see that decentralization is fundamentally changing how companies operate: all the way from raising money, to day-to-day governance. This is most notable in DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organisations), which follow a bottom-up, community-driven management style. We are excited to see the blockchain gaming projects that emerge from India! Vaibhav Odhekar, COO &amp; Co-Founder, <keyword id="2734866" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="POKKT" source="Orion">POKKT</keyword> The gaming industry is constantly evolving, and its popularity will continue to rise. In the last three years, the sector has welcomed 500 million new gamers globally. New technological breakthroughs such as virtual reality have provided another dimension towards entertainment in this domain. For many young folks, the industry has also become a viable career option. Talking about the trends- The audience will continue to diversify in the coming years. So, instead of a male/female audience bias, we'll have a nearly 50-50 gender split, with a lot more older people joining the online gaming space. India is expected to create more global content. Although the percentage is extremely low right now, as more high-quality content is created in India, the trend will improve. Also, e-Sports as a category will grow in popularity. In 2022, there will be a significant increase in the number of movies released worldwide. So, the biggest trend we anticipate to see is a lot more games based on movie franchises. Gaming has its own history of adapting films and gamers are enthralled by such games. Video games are a vast medium that covers a wide variety of genres and experiences that can only be experienced in games, along with contributions from a population from all over the world. Even while many modern games are inspired by movies, they are nevertheless unique in their own way and we expect them to expand in the coming years.

Gaming: What to expect from the Indian gaming and e-sports industry in 2022

<ul><li><keyword id="11282365" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="shuchi-sethi">Shuchi Sethi</keyword>, India Lead - <keyword id="11282366" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="anytag">AnyTag</keyword>, <keyword id="2734866" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Pokkt">POKKT</keyword> writes how <keyword id="2540701" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Influencer-marketing">influencer marketing</keyword> is becoming omnipresent today. </li><li>She shares how one can leverage influencer marketing beyond <keyword id="1746818" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Content-Creation">content creation</keyword> by including <keyword id="1112328" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Influencers">influencers</keyword> in product development and marketing ideation. </li></ul>These days influencer marketing is omnipresent. Whether you log in to Instagram or YouTube, you would find tons of examples of brands using influencers to tap into a new audience. From big brand launches to small niche brand awareness campaigns, influencer marketing has a big role to play. Although influencer marketing is not a new phenomenon, it is evolving more quickly than any other forms of marketing. Smart brands and agencies are aware that the trick to partner with an influencer effectively is not solely dependent on their number of followers. Still, the key is to leverage the organic influence of the key opinion leaders to create strong engagement between their followers and your brand. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Best advice amid the pandemic" text="Best advice amid the pandemic">Best advice amid the pandemic</cmsannotation> In the current times, when people are working from home, maintaining social distancing, and trying to minimise their outdoor visits, influencer marketing can come in handy for businesses to engage with their audience and influence them to purchase their products and services. Since physical shopping has taken a severe hit, people are more prone to buying products online or through social media. Consumers would be more interested than ever to listen to influencers and try out their suggested/promoted products. Influencers can bring more authenticity and creativity to these programs and can also provide insights into what they believe will resonate more with your target audience. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Ways to leverage influencer marketing beyond content creation" text="Ways to leverage influencer marketing beyond content creation">Ways to leverage influencer marketing beyond content creation</cmsannotation> Including Influencers in product development and marketing ideation Influencers can get involved in product development to create original products that will appeal to your brand’s customers and the influencer’s followers. You should focus on genuine, zealous content creators with small but loyal followings. These are regular people who closely engage with their audience and produce relevant content to their line of interest. Such people are called “micro-influencers” who enjoy a decent following on social media. Micro-influencers are true to their audience and hence authenticity becomes better. Such influencers are well-aware of your industry’s products and trends, thus providing relevant insights into what your target consumers seek and would be willing to pay for. There is a lot you can learn from these influencers. Their insights can be used to broaden your marketing initiatives and make them more effective. Daniel Wellington is a watch brand that does not do traditional advertising and is often featured by fashion and style bloggers. In order to reach out to a wider audience, the brand has identified influencers of different styles and niches. Source - <a href="https://www.instagram.com/joyful_jax/">@joyful_jax</a> Coca-Cola benefits from long-term relationships with micro-influencers such as Miette Dierckx, a travel and food micro-influencer with more than 35000 followers. She has been creating content for their heritage soda brand for several years now. She regularly posts photos of herself with a coke in hand. Long term influencer relationships are a great way to build reach and engagement over time. Source- @miettedierckx Another such example is of travel micro-influencer - Yannick Merckx who includes Coke into his worldly travels. He has nearly 48,000 followers with whom he shares frequent photos of either donning a Coca Cola sweater, taking a sip of Coke or holding recycled Coke can objects. Souce - @hetisdemerckx <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Cause Marketing" text="Cause Marketing">Cause Marketing </cmsannotation> Influencers can help you in promoting a cause that will resonate with your audience. Cause Marketing is similar to Corporate Social Responsibility but with a dual purpose of increasing profitability while bettering society. Mahindra #SeedTheRise campaign was a huge digitally-driven crowdfunding campaign to enhance the lives of Indian farmers. SeedTheRise was successful in collecting digital donations amounting to INR 1 crore. This campaign kicked off with a fundraising appeal film made with Bollywood actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui, who is incidentally a farmer’s son himself. This money will be utilised to improve the lives of farmers and their families in ways such as providing alternate forms of livelihood, educating their daughters and assisting them in modernising agriculture. You can check out the film here: <div type="Youtube" id="rlS2VrSEIdE" title="#SeedTheRise for India's Farmers | Nawazuddin Siddiqui | Mahindra Rise" thumbUrl="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/rlS2VrSEIdE/mqdefault.jpg"></div> #NotAshamed by TLLLF Foundation - The Live Love Laugh Foundation was set up in 2015 by Deepika Padukone to champion the cause of mental health in India, with a focus on depression, stress and anxiety. On the World Mental Health Day, TLLLF started a worldwide campaign with the objective to get people to share their stories on mental health using #NotAshamed to reduce the stigma. One of the survivors who was a part of the campaign was Deepika herself. Such campaigns backed by a social influencer like Deepika have the potential to remove the stigma around mental health and bring it out in the open. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Narrative testing" text="Narrative testing">Narrative testing</cmsannotation> Influencers can help you identify the right narrative/messaging to drive the goals of a given campaign. You may test narratives to assess which would provide the desired outcome. One influencer may use a particular narrative while the other can focus on a completely different narrative, and you can then check the effectiveness of one over the other. For example, if you want to test which narrative would result in increasing the purchase ticket size, you may use one influencer to advocate the long-term benefits of your product and the other to focus on the immediate advantages. You can assess the outcome of both narratives and select accordingly. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Giveaways and Contests" text="Giveaways and Contests">Giveaways and Contests</cmsannotation> Influencers organise giveaways and contests in association with brands. In such contests and giveaways, people are required to follow certain instructions such as liking a post or comment, tagging people or following a page. Such activities enhance brand awareness and increase visibility in front of your target audience. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Conclusion" text="Conclusion">Conclusion</cmsannotation> Influencer marketing has proven itself to be an effective marketing technique time and again. However, it doesn’t work alone but in tandem with content marketing and social media marketing. It encompasses curating highly engaging content, sharing it in a strategic way to reach more people and engaging with the audience to build a relationship. Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all strategy when it comes to influencer marketing. You have to be willing to take risks and try out new things to see what works and what doesn’t for your brand. You may also use platforms such as Anytag to discover, activate, manage, track and attribute influencer marketing activities that drive recurring revenue. AnyTag is one of the most comprehensive influencer marketing platforms in the market, providing an integrated platform for influencer marketing and social media analysis.

What are the different ways of leveraging influencer marketing apart from content creation?

Online payments space has fueled the internet <keyword id="34412" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="40" keywordseo="economy">economy</keyword> and has blurred the borders within India like never before. “Over the last five years, the focus has been around eCommerce which has sucked in most of the capital, that’s changing now with sectors like health, media, and education taking the limelight. There’s a lot of opportunity in different sectors especially in futuristic technologies like AI, Machine Learning, Deep Learning and the likes” says <keyword id="262068" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Rajesh-Sawhney">Rajesh Sawhney</keyword> who says that the most important thing about a startup is its product market fit. <div type="embedgroup"> <div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="59070016" title="Exclusive: Anand Lunia, Founding Partner, India Quotient reminisces how he moved on to investing from entrepreneurship" rank="1.0" kind="RELATED" publishDate="Jun 09, 2017, 4:39 PM" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div></div> At <keyword id="2797965" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Innerchef">Innerchef</keyword>, a food company start-up Sawhney has founded, things have already changed in the past two years. “With the influx of technology, the way we consume food, the supply chain and the demand are all rapidly changing. Necessities like food become great opportunities for starting a business at this time in India,” says Sawhney who identified the sector basis his passion for consumption. Agriculture, which is India’s largest employer, might be impacted by start-ups soon, specifically food –tech start-ups which can sway the demand for what we’re eating and how we are eating.<div type="embedgroup"> <div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="59070754" title="Exclusive: Anand Lunia, Partner, India Quotient wants to be entrepreneurs’ first coach instead of handholding them through the end" rank="1.0" kind="RELATED" publishDate="Jun 09, 2017, 7:00 PM" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div></div>
 Sawhney also thinks that <keyword id="22917" type="CITY" weightage="40" keywordseo="Companies">companies</keyword> are growing faster,”Earlier, the start-ups took years to fail or succeed which isn’t the case now. The market has become really brutal and companies know in the first few months whether it’s time to pivot or not.” The Indian Consumption Story Rajesh has made over 20 <keyword id="6362476" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="40" keywordseo="investments">investments</keyword> as an active angel investor, which include <keyword id="1680590" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="ViKi">Viki</keyword> which was acquired by Rakutan, Little Eye Labs which was acquired by Facebook, Mobstac, Pokkt, Silverpush, Hackerearth, Browntape, Overcart, Flinto and Timesaverz. GSF accelerator focuses on early stage <keyword id="6362513" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Startups">startups</keyword>, and has currently taken in its fifth batch, which helps start-ups to turn into notable companies that they can bank on. <div type="embedgroup"> <div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="59181595" title="Exclusive: Global Superangel Forum’s (GSF) founder Rajesh Sawhney is an Innerchef at heart" rank="1.0" kind="RELATED" publishDate="Jun 16, 2017, 8:17 PM" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div></div>
 India’s biggest problem is that of resource management and technology can help aid that, “The key is to think of technology in a non-traditional way, and that’s where the start-ups can become truly successful,” says Sawhney who says that the quality and quantity of start-ups has improved. Whether you’re a brand, you can’t ignore the Indian consumption story, “In the next decade, we will see the per capita income increasing and with disposable income increasing, we are bound to see a boom happen which is what all start-ups and investors are banking on,” says Rajesh, with a smug.

Exclusive: Rajesh Sawhney banks on the people who make up companies with the right product market fit

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Gaming: What to expect from the Indian gaming and e-sports industry in 2022

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What are the different ways of leveraging influencer marketing apart from content creation?

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