The Online Gaming Mirage: So Near, Yet So Far

The online gaming industry has reached at an all-time high; still, there are several areas that need to be ironed out. These bottlenecks are limiting the growth potential of online gaming. In this post, I will be talking about some of the hurdles that are bothering this fledgling industry.
Veterans of gaming are of the opinion that content developed for the Indian market is lagging in quality. They feel that these games are Indian imitations of western games. I particularly agree with this point. I mean, whenever you go through any of the Indian games, you can easily trace its roots to prominent games doing rounds in the cyber space both in terms of concept and development. For others, the main obstacles are infrastructural concerns like PC penetration and lack of Broadband connectivity. Apart from the mainstream obstacles, there are other psychological concerns that are acting as a growth impediment. Some of them are listed below.

Anti-gaming culture
Contrary to the developed markets, electronic gaming is not a part of mainstream culture. The Indian mindset lays utmost importance on cut-throat competition in the field of academics. Parents don't want their their children to play games online. To them, gaming is considered as a futile exercise, as they fear that the addictive nature of games can lead to indelible health consequences.

Lack of Online BUZZ!
Indians have abundant opportunities to access games either offline or on cell phones. There is a lack of 'pull factor' that can motivate people to play online.

Prominent hurdles

Infrastructure: Low penetration of PCs in households, lack of broadband connectivity and inefficient cyber cafés is a paramount concern and a significant roadblock that needs to be overcome.

Lack of quality: A quality creation is a gameplay of accurate design, programming and other creative efforts. One requires mastery over specific skill sets in terms of individual activities such as writing codes, graphic designing, animation; such specialization is rarely available. Lack of quality manpower is posing a great challenge to game development entities.

Lack of advanced training: Game development is not a preferred choice of students. Game development as a serious career option. Furthermore, there are very institutions that can teach "action script".

Low on finance: The nascent market is attracting tremendous amount of VC funding, but only the major developers are getting a bigger slice of the pie. Small scale players are untouched by the benefit of angel investments

Though India has a long way to go in terms of revenue, market and the number of gamers, a lot needs to be done to pave the way for consistent growth in this booming industry.