Along with the pandemic came the boost to the gaming industry in India. According to a report by India Times, analysts claimed that over 24 million Indians joined the payment-linked gaming market during the lockdown period.
In 2022, the Indian gaming sector recorded a growth of $2.8 billion, this is expected to reach a whopping $5 billion by 2025 with a CAGR of about 30%. The number of individual gamers in the country is likely to scale from 420 million in 2022 to 500 million by 2025.
Seeing potential in this market Shubhodip Pal started Googly in 2021. Googly is a multi-gaming platform with over 150 different casual games and about 50 e-sports games. The platform gives gamers in India an opportunity to join and build a community as well as learn, play and teach various online games.
CEO and founder of the company, Pal told Entrackr, “It is not easy to find a hardcore gaming community in India. The community is broken and connects over various different platforms. We wanted to provide these gamers a single platform where they can find all aspects of the gaming community.”
The platform allows subscribers to connect with and play amongst others who are of the same skill capacity and level. This levels the playing field giving fair opportunity to all the players to improve and showcase their skills.
Apart from the tournaments conducted by the company, individual players can create tournaments of any chosen game. The players are almost given free reign over the rules of the tournament. For example, the ones creating the tournament have the authority to choose the number of players, timings, days, a few rules apart from the obligatory ones, and the number participation and winning tokens. As soon as the match ends, the winning amount is converted into real time money and credited to the player’s account.
“My son is an avid esports enthusiast and the inspiration behind starting Googly. He had a few bad experiences with some bad losers, and it became imperative for us to ensure that the winnings from the tournaments are transferred to the right winners in a transparent and seamless manner. This made us think of having the escrow function on our platform.”, said Pal.
The opportunity to coach other players is one of the main features that is being added to the platform. Once players excel at a particular game, their name appears on the leaderboard, and they are eligible to become coaches after a few internal processes. The individual gamers can decide the fee and the timings.
Googly’s Head of Product Sumit Sharma said, “The platform is subscription based with the first 30 days as a free trial. Since we have gamers of all ages need parental consent for specific age groups. For those within these age groups we provide the parents with the access to limit the screen times and look over the expenses and incomes in the account.”
Although the company does not provide game streaming as part of its offerings, in a broader sense it faces competition from companies such as Loco and Rooter. In terms of casual games and esports it is up against Paytm First Games, Dream11, MPL Games etc.Â
Currently focusing on the Indian community, the platform is available all across the country except for the states that are facing a ban or restrictions on online games. Googly focuses on providing its users games of skill, leaving out games of chance and laws concerning it. Â
The mobile gaming industry in the country expanded at a CAGR of 38%, compared to 8% in China and 10% in the US. This sector is estimated to reach $5 billion by 2025.
