Gaming income and adoption in India rides an upward curve: HP study
One in three respondents consider gaming as a career choice with earning money and recognition the two primary attractions for the choice
New Delhi: Even as India’s gaming landscape evolves, certain themes are beginning to crystallise and define the trajectory of the landscape. Gaming as a career choice is gaining traction year on year, a trend that gets defined in HP India’s Gaming Landscape Study 2023. Much like last year, one in three respondents consider gaming as a career choice, and with evolving avenues, earning money and recognition are the two primary attractions for the choice. There’s a surge in gaming adoption in India’s smaller towns.
There is a significant upward trend visible on this front. At least 52% of active gamers now consider this as a main career choice – up from 33% in last year’s Gaming Landscape Study. Digging deeper within this specific trend, it emerges PC gamers (56%) still have greater confidence with this as the primary career choice than smartphone gamers (44%). HP’s survey indicates there’s serious money involved too, with more than 45% of serious gamers are earning more than ₹6 lakhs per year.
“As India emerges as one of the top three PC gaming countries globally, we are committed to empowering and enabling gamers through constant innovation and cutting-edge tools. This study allows us to develop a deeper understanding of the gaming landscape and provides colour on the passion and aspirations of the gaming community,” Ipsita Dasgupta, senior vice president & managing director, HP India market, said.
Data suggests that as many as 40% of serious gamers who’ve made this a primary or secondary career choice, are earning between ₹6,00,000 to ₹12,00,000 per year. That’s a significant uptick from just 16% serious gamers who categorised within this pay scale band.
Interesting to note however, that earning band below ₹1,00,000 per annum has registered a decline in gamer numbers – in 2022, 32% gamers earned in this bracket, in 2023 that number has reduced to 17%. It is the same trend for ₹1,00,000 to ₹6,00,000 band (47% in 2022 compared with 37% in 2023). Whether they’ve all shifted to the ₹6,00,000 to ₹12,00,000 band, or some have dropped out of these respective ranges, isn’t clear.
The platform skew in this research sample leans towards PC gamers (70%; that’s up from 60% in 2022), the rest being active smartphone gamers. It should therefore be no surprise that results indicate 67% gamers preferring a PC as their primary gaming rig, while 33% would prefer a mobile device, such as a smartphone. Some reasons for these choices include the fact that PCs tend to have more games on offer, better graphics and the choice of a better display, often limitations in a smartphone gaming ecosystem.
Gamer segmentation defines a casual gamer as someone who spend between 6 to 11 hours a week gaming, a serious gamer spending between 11 to 23 hours on video games in the same period while a professional gamer can clock anything more than 23 hours.
Depending on how you define millennials and GenZ demographics, 75% of gamers who fall within the latter bucket are spending more time on video games, while millennials’ representation is around 67% of the total gamer audience. In terms of gender acceptance towards gaming as a career, 74% of males who actively play video games and 58% females, are “serious” about consistent gameplay.
HP says the research emerges from a sample size of more than 3500 respondents, in 15 Indian cities. As many as 25% of the gamers polled, are female gamers. The towns covered are a mix of Tier-I and Tier-II cities and towns, including Delhi/NCR, Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Guwahati, Coimbatore, Indore, Vadodara, Chandigarh and Jaipur.
From the research data that indicating 58% of females are now serious gamers, alongside 74% males, they’ll be classified within the 11 to 23 hours per week player bracket.
HP is also introducing an online professional certificate program on Esports management and game development. The HP Gaming Garage will be free of cost for anyone who wishes to sign up and will be available in 12 Indian languages. Ian Schreiber, game designer, author, and adjunct professor at Rochester Institute of Technology is expected to be part of the team of instructors, alongside Kevin Mitchell who is managing director at EsportsX and adjunct professor at Emerson College as well as Raja Ravi, professor and game director at Artemisia College of Art & Design.