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Gaming Deep Dive with Anirudh Pandita
The conversation is rich with context on the evolution of India’s gaming landscape, the factors that contributed to it and the unit economics of building in emerging markets. Tune in for a zoomed out view on the past decade in the India gaming landscape.
Hi, this is the Deco podcast and I'm your host, saurabh. I'm joined by my co-host, siddha Jain, who is the co-founder at Deco and is also an angel investor. Today we are thrilled to host Anirudh Pandita, who is the founder of Loco and Pocket Asus. Loco started off with an aim to democratize gaming entertainment, and Pocket Asus is one of the leading digital entertainment companies in India, with channels like Filter, copy and Ice Media. Anirudh himself is an avid gamer and has done his MBA in finance from Vottel, so he has an experience in finance marketing as well as gaming.
Speaker 1:Through this conversation, we aim to understand what Anirudh's views are on web 3 gaming or gaming in general, before moving on. Deco members or guests appearing on the podcast may own assets that we discuss here. Nothing we say here is a financial advice, and all the opinions mentioned here are our role and do not reflect the views of any organizations that we belong to. With that, let's jump right in, anirudh. I mean we have been talking to various guests on this podcast, but your background is strikingly different from all pretty much almost everyone that we've spoken to. Can you just walk us through your journey?
Speaker 2:I think when you were saying that I worked in marketing and finance, and actually when you start a company, you work in every single different area of company building in general, whether it's HR, finance, marketing, product tech you work in every single one. I also had the notoriety of actually acting in content or, as I say, acting badly in content. So I have worked in every single different sphere of company building and doing all of them. You realize how bad you are at each one and you gain more and more respect for the specialists. My background is, as you guys know, Vaan and me grew up there for a bit and moved to Delhi and then to Kuwait where I grew up, so grew up pretty much as a immigrant kid there in the Middle East, learned a lot about life through sports, learned a lot about life through watching television. So I always say, whatever your parents are telling you not to do or there might be some value in building businesses in that sector, but yeah, went to school, then undergrad at the University of Illinois, where I really learned how ventures are built, saw that innovation-based ventures could actually make it out.
Speaker 2:I think before that India, there was always this licensed large culture and I think we are now lucky to live in an age where companies like Flipkart and so on have really set up good benchmark for what just normal people can do, and I think for me that happened in college and seeing Mark and Jason and written the browser on the Illinois campus Max Lepton from PayPal was there, so I was from there and so you got this confidence that, yeah, even you could build something.
Speaker 2:And after that I worked in banking and private equity, really learned how businesses are created, how they die, how capricious markets play a part of that, how businesses get resuscitated. And then you have kind of these giant multi-decade multi-baggers whatever word you want to use for them but businesses that really stand the test of time. So, really, really great education. And then, yeah, I went to work after that and started pocket aces and then, and then loco. With both those companies I've been at the frontier of forefront of seeing consumer behavior, especially with regard to entertainment change in India, and it's been an unbelievable journey. And, as someone who's been an avid gamer, to say that I now watch games and help other people watch and stream games for a living is amazing, because then you can, as Buffett says, step down to work. So, yeah, it's quite a privilege.
Speaker 3:I think that's the beauty of it. It's what you do for a living, what you enjoy doing. You can spare time anyways. I think that's the dream job to have Totally. But just a small quip. What are the games that you enjoy playing which are also streamed on the Blackfork, because I think most of the highly streamed ones are FPS or yeah, I mean we've actually.
Speaker 2:so it's very interesting. There's been an evolution of games in India. Obviously, pre 2019, I would say there was no real streaming per se right at scaleless. After 2019, the FPS games in India really took over. Mobile arcade games cracked open Indian gaming, whether it's BGMI or Free Fire. They really caught to that 100 million plus MEU mark. And, of course, you know your casual games are still popular, so I'm sure you know when you're traveling by the metro or whatever, you will see people playing. You know Candy Crush and so on. But from a steamer perspective and from a game game more perspective, these are the games that really broke out and we saw that in the last year when there's been a suspension on some of these games. We saw GTA is really climbed up the charts as one of the largest categories on our platform. Minecraft is doing very well, especially on the VOD side.
Speaker 2:As far as I'm concerned, I play a lot of BGMI. I'm not extremely good, I'm not bad, but I'm not terribly good. I play a lot of FIFA on the console side, which I love, and there was a time I was extremely good at it. Now I'm pretty good at it and right now I'm actually playing, you know, zelda Years of the Kingdom and that's been quite an enjoyable experience. I started playing it on my vacation and on my switch and so playing that right now.
Speaker 2:But yeah, last year played, you know, the last of us and it's a game I had not played before which I quite enjoyed and it was an interesting because I also watched the show alongside. So I would play the game there, I would watch the episode. It was kind of a different way of experiencing interestingly, experiencing the content. But yeah, I love any game. Actually, if you put it in front of me I would more or less enjoy it. But yeah, amongst the games that are streaming on our platform or are very popularly streaming on our platform, definitely BGMI and FIFA are two that I played and of course, during the lockdown everyone played among us, which is also popular on the streaming side. But I think since then its popularity has gone down a bit.
Speaker 1:What's BGMI Like? I'm sorry, pardon my clearance, but I don't know no problem.
Speaker 2:So BGMI is a battleground mobile India, which is the Indian version of PUBG mobile. It's published by Kraft in Korean studio flash company that is behind the PUBG franchise.
Speaker 3:Okay, One thing that I've always been trying to understand is right, like what makes a successful game right and how important is the streamability factor to the virality or to the success of a potential title? We've had waiting answers from people who run studios, but as someone who operates the biggest streaming platform in India, right Like, what are your thoughts?
Speaker 2:there. Look, I think you know, just like any other form of content, and this was true even when we did pocket races, and I think one of the biggest reasons why pocket races succeeded is we thought a lot about how this content that we make get distributed. And I think the same thing is true for gaming, and you have to evolve that strategy based on what your distribution avenues are right. So if you go back, you know 20 years and you know, as a kid growing in the Middle East, I had a Sega which my dad gave me gave me as a birthday gift after much much scheduling from my side, and then you just kind of purchase games right, games were kind of consumer packaged goods. You just go to the bookstore or you know a general store and just buy them and that kind of stayed true. You know whether you bought the original or you bought the you know pirated version from Palika, like you kind of stayed true for a long time. But now, of course, when you're building games, if you're doing casual games, there was a phase where Facebook became primary distribution mechanism, right, and so that I saw the kind of rise of Zynga, which became a publisher that was fueled a lot by Facebook and after that obviously they've seen a decline, but it's not as bad as people make it out to be. It still did quite well in a multi billion dollar outcome, which is a success in my books.
Speaker 2:And now when you look at any game, right, you kind of have to think about okay, what's my target audience? Where are they consuming content? Is my game, you know, gonna appeal to them from an emotional perspective? What need is it, is it serving, and what's the sort of time limit or investment I'm expecting? So when you look at sort of hyper casual games, there's a time where and you know just couple of years back where you were you could really be a big driver of growth. You could just put something on Google Play, put a lot of ads out, whether it's through, you know, through Facebook or Instagram or YouTube or whatever Google TikTok and get your game to become popular on the casual side. That's obviously changed a lot now, given that the new ad rules on Apple and so on on Android will also take effect, which will increase the size of the investment in terms of cat right. So that makes some games unviable now. But if you looked at sort of the large games which are, you know, multi, triple a studio games you know what makes them successful is much like a film, right, it's very large, high of its cost.
Speaker 2:So, again, testing at different points, getting audience feedback. And I think you know, for me it's very important to understand what emotional like I mentioned, emotional need you're serving. So, for you know, a wannabe sports athlete or you know, or a high, hardcore sports fan like me, playing FIFA let's you do things you couldn't do, right, so it solves that emotional need, whereas something like a Minecraft or even an aluminum processing Zelda, to some extent it really just is a fantasy land. You're building something or you're going through these different, you know explorations and it kind of calms you down right. So it's almost, you know, for me at least, even building something basic in Minecraft or animal crossing, just doing something on it is like therapeutic right. So that's a very different need that you're solving. And then there's obviously, you know, the FPS, which is kind of action. You're just looking for a thrill, looking for a dopamine hit to some extent, and it's competitive rate, so it gives you the these emotional needs. So pure play game experience is that. But now games have also become community right, so there are certain games like I found that with BGMI, and you know you can find that with many other games now online as well GTS, for example, on our platform where it's just a community.
Speaker 2:People are going and hanging out in the game and it's not really what they're doing in the game is. Less important is just hanging out. Your friends are there, you're having a good time and then that's it and it's low pressure, right. There's no real big issue with hanging out there. You don't have to bring anything with you. You can be yourself and you can be someone else, right. So it also plays to kind of our need to hang out with other people and I think that's a big gap that gaming serves in, especially in the country like India, where you know we don't get to. You know you may not have the facilities of entertainment that you know other big towns may have or a big city may have, like whether it's a big cinema or a mall or something like you may have, may not even have proper grounds and stuff to play, and so you know, going and figuring out what someone involved is doing seems like a world away. But it through gaming it's now become possible and we're seeing that in all the big games that are success.
Speaker 2:So the short answer to your question is does the game have to be streamable? Yes, ideally, because it'll help streamers stream your game. It'll help them make it popular for you and community building, because much easier. But if you're a hyper casual game and you have a great idea there and there's still good ideas coming out there it may not be as helpful because it's not really streamable per se. But for the larger games, all of them have to be made streamable now because it just forms an integral part of the community and and go to market. And for those guys they can get streamers involved in early people to come in and get feedback where required need. Today you can even have interesting content that floats in and out, so voice packs, our towers, so on, so forth. That can get made of famous streamers to make your game a bit more famous. So all of those things lay an important part. But yeah, bigger games definitely should be streamable. It's a key part of the marketing.
Speaker 1:I want to take a step back. I think you mentioned a couple of things. One was that you can be yourself or you can be someone else, and you also spoke of entertainment. What aspects of gaming like excite you personally? And I mean, why is it that you opt to play games and why do you think that people in general want to play games?
Speaker 2:It just just repeat the first part. I missed the first part of the question.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I said that you mentioned about. You can be yourself or be someone else in games and there is an aspect of entertainment. So what is it that gets you excited about gaming in general? I mean, I understand that you play different types of games and different aspects of those games might be appealing, but to you personally, what is it about gaming that gets you excited in general and what do you think? I mean, why do you think people choose to play games?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so. So for me, you know, a big part of what makes gaming exciting is immersion, because you get immersed in the game and that's why, from you know, unlike a lot of other people, I spend time in VR as well. I have a question I spend time on it, and the problem is when I spend time, when I put it on, once I cross that Laziness barrier or putting it on, I end up spending two, three hours on it. I love the immersion. There's no substitute for that in our movie or any other passive form of content. And Then, from a emotional perspective, I find it much more satisfying personally, like whether I play a role-playing game, or whether I'm an exploration style open world game, or whether I'm playing a FIFA, which I think play have played every day of my life for the last year or four years. So for me it's much more the emotional need of that. You know it helps me relax and just focus on that thing versus worry about anything else. It's also one of the few places where my hands don't go to my phone and there's photo messages and other Things that connect me to the world. You can disconnect, however good time. So that way it's meditative in that sense.
Speaker 2:I think for other people you know there are, like I said, many other emotional needs it can serve. It can, like I said, can be Relaxation for others, it can be a thrill the opening these games check well, like high action Fathers, it's bad part of the storytelling or the fan multi-verse that they are part of can also be a big social experience when they're hanging or whether other people and and really connect with a community. And you know Our friends will still remain friends with people online who they may not have met, you know, before, but they've just been online playing some games, right. So I think that's a big emotional need again, being social. That gets addressed by this, by games, and I think the human connection that comes through this, especially the social sideways game, I think is is really important.
Speaker 2:And I think one thing you will see with again when you Segment gaming, you will see certain games where work across borders right, like a call of duty can work, cross many different Cultures and genres. He fucking work across because that's this universal game. But there are other games where they may be more culturally. You know particular to that area, right. So if you come to India, you've seen do to doing very well the Middle East. There's particular, you know their own games that I've done well, which are, you know, there's kind of local games that do well. So there is an aspect of gaming which is like content, where local throw things also work. So, yeah, I think it's just these emotional needs that that get tapped into and then, of course, like I said, the emotion.
Speaker 1:It's interesting you mention Oculus, because I used to play cricket growing up, playing almost until when standard. I mean there are probably very few days where I've not played cricket and these days I keep playing IB cricket. So I look forward to finishing my work every night and then I put on my Oculus and, yeah, I will, it's great. Right at 2 am, 3 am In the night, I get to, you know, have my private session. You do have the bat as well. Yeah, I mean so very well designed back. I was very skeptical. I thought I mean it looks like plastic might be cheap, but I think the weight balance, etc. It feels like an actual bat and, yeah, playing ultra in San Poling at whenever you want. I mean I think that's that's a really good experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I've played, I've spent a lot of time in that game as well, and and I recently had the pleasure of playing going to next at Lord's and I was just the first thing I was remembering was was the Oculus experience and I'm like man, how many hours I spent there. And you know, it's still obviously not a perfect substitute, but it's pretty damn good and you go in your own journey there right when you're chasing a score or whatever. Absolutely it's.
Speaker 3:It's a great experience, absolutely yes so I know that when you mentioned in your introduction right, I think you've built out pocket aces, which was a resounding success, and with the prior to that you had Experience on Wall Street. So what made you actually leave a look rated job on Wall Street and then move to create in the consumer? It's great startup.
Speaker 2:and all for geography in India, yeah, I mean, look the growing up, you know, in the Middle East. You saw people from our background building everything around you, right? Then I went to the US. The same thing was happening. They are seeing Indians doing so well, and then question always was when are we gonna do that back home in? That question always played in my mind and I think just around, like you know, around the time I graduated college. I'm pretty old, I graduated, oh, six, so around that time is when the first sort of movement of people started happening in they, you know, into India, and that Entrepreneurship started kind of picking up in its you know, its current version. And for me, you know, the aim was how do we serve this large audience? What do I do which can help these consumers? You know, as they come online? Right, it's not often that you see such a large inflection point happening multiple times. That doesn't happen For most entrepreneurs of their lifetime.
Speaker 2:Right, the fact that you know, you've had multiple miracles happen in India over the last, you know, call it 10, 12 years. You had internet prices dropping, you know, by a 20th, something, right? When I moved to India, I was paying, on a, say, about 3000 rupees a month. Today I pay hardly under 200 rupees a month, right? So you know and I consume a lot of content, so Seeing people save data and, like me, you know the track data on Android phones today to people downloading gigs of data, whether it's on movies or games, that's a miracle. The fact that Today there is white spread penetration of smartphones Also is a miracle, because you you've seen a big shift in terms of, then digital Infrastructure and then, to top it off, you have a UPI where people can now send each other money, improving the sort of transactability between individuals. So those are miracles that don't happen often for me, you know, back in you know, 2013, 2014, when I started my entrepreneurial journey, I think for me it was much simpler.
Speaker 2:I Go find a rush when it already moved to the entertainment industry, we felt that the cultural impact of India was much larger than its economic impact in entertainment, which I still think is true. You know, at that time, the Indian movie industry was about two billion dollars in revenue. You know, one billion of in the Hindi film industry and the rest was Tamil and Telugu. And you know, I always wondered that when you traveled and you would meet Taxi drivers, would know Raj Kapoor and Shah Rukh Khan, and yet we were not able to. You know, and this is the size of our industry, right? And on the other hand, like a lot of the rings would show up and it would do two billion dollars plus by itself, right, probably done one that and she, historically, if you see, there are many movies and I've been on a, you know, late lately, I've been on a binge watching some funny old movies and I, after watching them, I usually just try to see hey, what is the budget of this movie and how much did it make and made all these movies made two hundred three hundred four hundred million dollars, right, and South America billion dollars, and that's amazing. And when you think, in 2013, the whole of Intel Indian film industry was just that much, that Made us think that, hey, there has to be a way for us to change that.
Speaker 2:And, of course, part of entrepreneurship is also Fooling yourself for being naive enough to start, right. So so that's how we got started. We wanted to change the kind of content that was coming on in India. We felt that popular content in India was very inward looking and therefore couldn't sell outside. And if you were just selling inside, we just didn't have a big enough market to create a higher ten billion dollars sort of impact. And we were as most entrepreneurs are. We were Wrong in many of our assumptions and when we started we realized that and I think what I realized after that is the one of the most important lessons that my journey in the last 10, 12 years has taught me is that Don't think so much, just start, because once you start, then you will really learn about the market.
Speaker 2:Sitting from outside and reading some Report by some consulting firm is usually a very Hand of yours really learning. It's good enough to maybe make a deck or two, but blogs and stuff and you know, podcasts are good, good to listen to, but then you have to act because once you act you really see and then you can Really probably have insights that can help you. So so that's how we started and once we once I got to India I think the macro of India was obviously great, but the day-to-day positive energy of meeting people who are willing to make a difference, who are willing to change things, that that was very infectious and I think that kept us going in the initial days when things were not Easy at all, you know we used to ask people here, we want to make a show. It's gonna ask six episodes, and people like what you mean? Like, and these are like writers we're looking at, they're like you mean for this week, right.
Speaker 2:I was like, no, this show is only gonna ask six episodes. They're like what do you mean? I could make shows like that. And you know, from there to building some of the most popular memes at the truck, we really then, once we started making content, we realized what was right or was wrong with what we could really take advantage of, and that's how we stumbled on it was sort of digital Content, and we made a very conscious choice Then into what platforms to focus on, what kind of content to make, yeah, and, and and. Then you know we get lots of small and then larger successes.
Speaker 3:Oh, for sure. I think one of my favorite shows originated from your Startup, right. So little things. I think almost everyone is hard if it was seen it. So I can totally attest to it. Right, like I was reading a little bit about it, how it's based on your experiences, and that I and the writer was also a part of, was an I himself right at that, help Kind of shape it to do what it was.
Speaker 2:I mean, we went to same school actually, oh wow, in Kuwait. So we move each other from there and I mean, this is the surrender video, entrepreneurship, right. My sister told me that hey, there's this guy and from our school you should go meet him and he's kind of Doing something in Bombay and you know, just like any other person in the industry, they all we always say how will not she a? Or like you should meet, it should do something together. That's I.
Speaker 3:Can totally relate to it, because that's how we had sort of got working together as well. So it was my senior at college and then we stayed in touch right when we started exploring three together.
Speaker 2:So so she was adding to Betty yeah, and, and you know, we started we, we bet a lot on Facebook because we felt that all the distribution that was actually happening was on Facebook. Even if people were consuming on YouTube, even the link sharing was happening on Facebook. So if you started build large presence on Facebook you could really create distribution elsewhere and that bet really paid off when you're starting with our digital video franchise with Fiddercopy. We really bet big on Facebook at the beginning and in fact, little things also germinated from a short video that we did which became very popular, with Drew and Mithila in it, and then we did another video like that because that video did well and these videos were being made at an extremely small budget and so we were not burning a hole in our pocket by putting out a lot of money so we could learn quickly, iterate, sort of. It was very much digital video, was very much aligned with the principles of kind of building from a lean perspective or lean philosophy versus film, which was exactly the opposite, right, high fixed cost and therefore low innovation. It's not like the big film style and the big film personalities don't want to innovate and this is often the sort of conflation, right, they're just okay with being mediocre or they're just okay with this, they're not just okay with it, it's just that that's the economic structure of the industry. Every time Shahrukh Khan takes a risk and the movie doesn't do well, like lots of people lose money and the fixed cost is so high that the cost of failure is kind of debilitating. And you've just seen with him like there was a period where people were like writing him off Because with, with, with Pathanis, come back. He's come back really well, but it shows you the problem of innovation, right Like you do a movie that, a movie like Zero, which was pitched to every single big star apart from him, and that we know because we had met some of the creative team and pitched it to us as well, and it's, it's difficult and you know you're not able to delete time between your insight and when you deliver it, because your taste could change completely.
Speaker 2:Whereas digital videos opposite, like where you were just quickly making content, you know we'd I did something on, say, a Sunday and by Wednesday to you know, or Thursday would have the video out. In fact, the most extreme version on that became memes, which is what we really, really you know I use this word like quote, quote, weaponized, which is like we we went after on the main site. We grow on Instagram a lot with the kind of means we put out, and that came primarily by having a culture of high velocity, and so it was very much in keeping and that's how we then cast our first few actors. We saw they were successful in short videos. We put them in log form.
Speaker 2:Content story ideas came from there and we often tested even endings, or we test like one audience is special about something by just making a short meme or a video about it, and then you know the writers would be like, oh, okay, or it is worth the audience six, so you don't have to be guessing anymore. You can actually put out something and the audience doesn't care in. Audience doesn't have to know that this is actually input into a show that's coming out of Netflix in three months. For them is this content and they react to it in the most authentic way. So yeah, I think you know it's. The paradigm we set up was very different from what existed in the industry at that time.
Speaker 3:I think I could personally go on and on about talking more about the pocket races journey. But, yes, what made you make this switch from what was as a solving substance, right and pocket aces to kind of venture into gaming and streaming, particular?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think we are the benefit of being surrounded by young people and I think the benefit of that is that you get to see and observe a lot of their behaviors here, a lot about different things that you know normally you wouldn't hear in another office or another work set up. And so we were very clear that when, with the phone, democratizing sort of entertainment, personalization and short video would become a big in, that was the first sort of big wave we were part of, and the pocket races, this direct to consumer enterprise or the direct to consumer brands, were part of that Post that we we felt what is next right, how can, if we want to go directly to the consumer, what is the consumer asking for next? And we saw around us just how much love there was for games, and especially 2019 was huge because 2019 is when we saw everyone in the office play PUBG Mobile. That's how I learned about the game. I had not played PUBG on the PC and in fact, I'm not a big FPS fan in general to the extent that people are like I'm not. I've never been good at it, was terrible at Halo, but I played it for fun, but it was not like a big fan, but we GMI allowed on the phone that you could do that. I played it a lot. Or PUBG, while I played a lot at the beginning and really loved it, and actually a bunch of us in the office are doing it. So, from that perspective, we gaming became.
Speaker 2:We started recognizing the signs for what was to come, which is that, look you have, structurally, the world has changed. There are 100 million plus users of these games and one sign of something being very large around you is that people around you will be doing it. And and we saw it, we saw people. You know, we were part of that journey as well, and we were. You were very sure at that point that, ok, people are going to be playing games. They're going to ask for content because this sort of these sort of games, which are these FPS games, are very much streamable because they're, you can watch them, you can. There are competitions, these sports competitions that can happen on top. They had the right mix of skill, strategy and action to be fun to watch. And that's how kind of the idea of local as a game streaming platform was born.
Speaker 2:In its previous avatar, it was a live trivia app and again, that idea came from OK, we've done.
Speaker 2:Powerful content, short form content what else does the user want? And we saw that there is obviously a natural inclination to be more immersed and get closer to the content, and that's what we did with the, the quiz version of local, which became also very popular, and it also had a unique go to market, which is that people could sit a and see their names on a screen announced by the host In this case it was Boreh Kapoor and then play with their family. So you could. The social aspect was there, and then the fact that we distributed the prize money at the end was unique at that time and that was unique go to market. And also we utilized our own filter copy network first and then, on top of that, utilize the broader talent network which is now very common. Right, the influence movement has become pretty well known now. It was not at that time when we utilized it before anything else, because we were in that movement and realize what what it could actually do for us.
Speaker 1:Shifting gears a bit to Web 3 Gaming now. So Joel tells me that you have been exploring Web 3 Gaming for a while, so the first question is what is it about games in general that leave room for Web 3 Games?
Speaker 2:I think, like I said, if you look at the human or consumer behavior, right, there's consumption from one person which is kind of this the radio slash, television effect, that one, or newspaper effect, where there's one editor, one channel blaring out stuff at you and you just consume it, right, and then you did not really have an outlet of discussing it. Then we got to the point where online there was like this bulletin board et cetera, where you could chat with other people and suddenly you want to talk about everything else, so that peer to peer communication became bigger, which Web 2.0 really picked up very well. So you communicate very well. The part about Web 3, which interested me was that how do I own a part of these assets? How do I ensure that I have some bona fide ownership of some of these assets that I'm investing so much time and money into? I find that quite interesting in that, the fact that there is a very clear you know to get to use a slightly more casual term ownership deed or a title that is available.
Speaker 2:That actually was the first thing that really interested me about the Web 3 games per se, right and what the promise that Web 3 had. And you know, from our perspective, we felt that first and foremost for Web 3 games, they had to be games that you liked. So I think that's the part you know took time in the media. That happened was that people were just like, oh, you know, the economy came in, you know, in front of the game, but actually the game has to be fun first. If you don't have a fun game, then it could. Whether it's a hyper casual game or a triple A game or a board game, you will not play it. So so yeah, that's that's how we started thinking about it, you know, last year and in the open.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, as you mentioned, I think we did over engineer Web 3 games towards economics, right, Instead of keeping it simple and making them fun to play.
Speaker 1:I think, from the plethora of Web 3 games that exist or don't exist, very few I mean personally there are very few, or at least I think there is no game that I would go back to and keep playing, Whereas, like some games like I be cricket right, People have to tell me to stop playing and I mean I look forward to playing it every day. I don't think there is any Web 3 game that exists as of now which is as engaging I don't know whether it is the, the headset and you know the environment that it creates, but still is this due to the economics or financial component that Web 3 essentially brings? What are the reasons? I mean, it's been four or five years since people started developing Web 3 games, right, and I think by now we should have seen at least one or two interesting games that keep audiences engaged and they play the game, regardless of whether there is any avenue of making money through.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that that part that you're talking about, which is the economics in front of the gameplay, is a big part of it, and I think the the problem is also when you have something which is this play to earn, then that also sounds like a job, right, why am I playing to earn, like I should bring to have fun Right now? The ownership aspect of it, the Economic aspect of it, I think that's the part which and it's a very hard thing to do right, it's obviously easy to make fun of that, but getting any economy right, whether it's web 3 or not, is a big issue. So I think that comes a big problem and I think the Distribution aspect of it is also tricky, right? So, for example, if you have a Mobile base web 3 game, there is high friction online. There was quite a lot of high friction, especially in the last year, caused the regulations changing. You know, getting people, wallets, etc. What is my tax, what do I need to pay those have become a massive headache. So just getting people online has become a problem. I think that's bit of an issue. So go to market remains challenging also, I think you know.
Speaker 2:Finally, you know you don't discuss right whether a game was made on Unity or unreal engine rate. It's a player. You just say I'm playing X game and I think the web 3 part of it has to be under played or Kept under the surface. It cannot just be like played because it's a web 3 game but nobody cares about. So like one of the things which we we thought was most interesting was another Collectible cards or the solar sort of model which is hey, can you use, you know, provide a new spin to fantasy and put yourself really in the shoes of Scout, which which you couldn't do earlier. Other games cannot provide you that and there is a audience where there is a Appreciation for that stuff. We've seen it on other platforms. So I think there is there is still room and there are really Game developers who are working on this stuff and I think you will see something will definitely break out in my view in the next Two or three years which will not be branded as a web 3 game. It'll just be a game that makes it and It'll be fun to play and there will be some portion of it will be web 3 driven and other portions will just be kind of like a normal game. So when I say we have to means I will own some piece of that, some of those asset who may become tradable and and therefore with the publicly tradable was is just private, which has been just happened in the past. So you will see that sort of stuff happening.
Speaker 2:But a lot of this became here the piece of land and then to buy the land and there's nothing there, and then you know, from a user perspective, these games are hard to play and there's nothing. But so it became like a Like the classic land grabs of the past, where you know people are like, hey, buy land here and they'll be buildings, I'll come up, and those buildings never came up. So what's this saying hey, there's a built apartment building, move in, bring your furniture, there's a community. So it's it's the stuff like this which is which has been an issue.
Speaker 2:And If you have games which are just giving you money to play Ludo or something which is well, then you, from an audience perspective, you might as well take cash right. So then then you will play some of these real money gaming sort of game. So I think the the fun aspect of it soon we maintain, and I think the game developer has to think why do I need an ownership aspect in this? What is the real use of the functionality that is we're providing you, apart from just, you know, just economics, which clearly don't you know, don't always get supported over time. So I think those are some other things that people will have to think through totally.
Speaker 3:I think we recently dive deeper into why there is no adoption in terms of Real gamers coming in and playing, though. Simple answer is there's no game which is worth its salt, that you might leave a PSL console or whatever device that you engage on, to kind of come to and download that game, play it right, while it's not available on Steam or any of the other usual Places that gamers flock to right. That being said, under what we are interested to know more in the audience would love to know is how does local position itself and In this journey of a treat right in terms of providing tools for streamers or in terms of a strategy in general, like how do you see this planning out in terms of the Features or product that you have for that's getting shook in the near future or is already in production?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So we inbuilt a product called local legends is a card game, fantasy card game, so it's basically, you know, a fantasy game where you can actually buy cards and then train them over time, and it was based on tournaments which are happening in the eSports world. Now, of course, since then eSports itself got a suspension through through the government in now we've had the sort of GST ruling, so we've Actually not taken the product online, even though it's a bit out. But we felt that that model was actually pretty interesting. Where you could actually have so local is the place where you could see all sorts of tournaments all the way from sort of I would give you a cricket equivalent like a Kanda league all the way till the World Cup, right, so our IPL, so you could see all forms of cricket, and In doko, so you could see any eSports tournament, which could be a thousand rupee tournament or a scrim all the way to Kind of the biggest and best BGMI and valorant on. So what we wanted to do was let the fans Get two or three value buckets. One was they could actually sport talent early and therefore Buy their cards and keep those assets that would grow in value over time and you, they could enter them in fantasy competitions, right. So there was that part of it.
Speaker 2:Then there was the fandom, which is the collectibles that could be built, and what we wanted was that almost all streamers want to release merchandise, and Usually it's a bad idea because you don't have enough demand and you there's a lot of friction in this sort of business where you have to Create t-shirts and so on, so what? But virtual merchandise is something that can be created quickly, we can help people with it and it can be utilized in the platform and some of it could be collectible and those collectibles could be traded. So we've actually built some of those things where you know we have things that can be Santestic, us, etc. But we wanted to build those as NFTs and those could be traded on the platforms and so Fans could really own some of those things that could call themselves super fans, right, and I think that, like even for me, I'm a big, for example, big Liverpool fan in football and I typically people I don't have like hundred people around me who are constantly talking about a Liverpool but online I'm like part of Sony forums and you know groups where people are constantly Talking about the team and what we should do and who we should buy and so on.
Speaker 2:So for them, the tribalism inside these ports is just as big, or if not more, and there then to stand out that you have XYZ collectibles from XYZ player that would have value. So that's how we were thinking about it. And then, of course, there are simpler things, like which is like profile pictures and so on, which which could also be interesting, but we were concentrating more on this game and from a go-to-market perspective, obviously we had, we were responsible for majority of a lot of e-sports tournaments that were happening in India and and secondly, we also got the data much earlier than other people. So that allowed us to then give us an advantage if you wanted to build that sort of product. But we kept it on hold right now, given even where the Macro is on on the stuff and regulatory Risks on the stuff.
Speaker 1:So I want to quickly touch on the GST rolling one of my friends. He plays poker for a living and, yeah, I mean he's like one of India's decent poker players. After this, I think Epocher is almost done for right, you know, at least as far as India is concerned and all of these people are Figuring out where they should relocate. And, yeah, is it like all real money games or betting platforms, etc. I have been affected due to this. Like what's the scene exactly?
Speaker 2:But we generally with these, these sort of regulations, even before the regulation came out, my view was that there are two broad risks that exist, right. One is that some political climate goes against you and things get Banned, and it's happened globally, right, if you're in a real money gaming, slash, game of skills, slash betting, whatever you know camp you're in, you know that this is a possible outcome. Yes, you know, someone could really ride and and the people opposing it, or people who want these to be Banned, so on, so forth, have justifiable reasoning. So they're not completely you know, matt, or incompetent or whatever it. So there is, there is some merit toward this, a which is what gives it legs then when it goes into the halls of legislation. On the other hand, there is a simpler viewpoint that he has taxed this stuff and, and so always these two risks, risk profiles or risks, exist.
Speaker 2:I think the with this ruling. I think it definitely is a negative in multiple ways. One negative is obviously for a table game or place where there's, you know, maybe seven, eight, ten people playing for pot. It's debilitating, right, because your odds become horrible, and so why would you play? And look, I love poker as well. It's a great game this company has called pocket is for a reason. So I think it is hard for those guys. Whether it's the someone who's a professional, of course, it's very difficult. They are likely then one of moles, but they have to make a limit. For companies who have big balance sheets in this and many of them moved on extremely well, they will probably just write it out for smaller players it's going to be very difficult.
Speaker 2:I don't see big we are to this unless the regulation changes, which it can change. You know I always say that One thing about regulation is that you know it's never static, right. Things do change from time to time. Steer, we had a certain back in our sector this year got reversed, you know, things were changed and and Till these become very settled sectors. You've seen the same thing happen in multiple, multiple different sectors when they mature. So I think negative, different before the day way games and those sort of games.
Speaker 2:What bigger games where there's a bigger price distribution, kind of like, you know, where there's like a tournament and then thousand people win, or those kind of pooled Games there is, it's the hit is lower because the top guy still will make some money, but I think a lot of Less people can win or less people get their money back, which means that either the platform will pick up some slack, so they will make more people win, so therefore their economics become worse, or the retention will become worse because people you know this is a simple rule, right winners written in these games who win, sometimes and you come back. That's a classic kind of gaming paradigm or a loop. So you want to make people win, but now if you know there's so much money that just goes into the tax bucket, then you don't have money to make other people win. So I think they will get impacted, but impacted less than they are directly we game.
Speaker 2:And then I think the third thing, which is you know how does that leave India and the perception of India, I think that you won't need people aspect of it is you know that means to the government to explain some of these decisions better. I don't think you know, like a lot of people who think this is kind of random. It's everything. Is that random? I mean, clearly this been discussed at a committee level and people are. There has been new process, so I think just a little more communication there would be good for you, but obviously these are all you know. I think gaming was one of the few sectors in India where the leaders were all profitable and pre-cash were positive. So not having that is definitely not a positive from an investment perspective.
Speaker 3:I'm actually right now. I was just watching SoulToblet stream. I was about 5000 with along 5000 more people. So again, just coming back to the 3 component part for today, I see all of these people dropping in stickers and all of the other things like going on randomly the chat. I think there is definitely scope for incentivizing or ensuring that these streamers can discover that top follows via collectibles. So I think, is that something that you have plans for introducing the short term? Or is there any other thing that you could see, apart from the two things that you have already mentioned, within the pipeline for collectibles on local?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have a full pipeline and a roadmap laid out. I think the biggest concern for us was how does the are you on RAM people? Are you insured that there is an understanding of the various regulations that are out there? So, yeah, I think that there is. We would be very happy to put it out there. I think there is a lot of value.
Speaker 2:You can I mean, as you were saying, goblin streaming this you'll always see people sending stickers, right, and the interesting thing is, every time we drop a new sticker pack, it gets used a lot, which shows you that it's a consumable and that gets because popular people want to like. For example, the rocket became very popular with soul Right and now it's like continuously. Or the plane that'll be like rocket sent in the chat Now, who sent the first rocket? That has value for the fan base, right, there's definitely value to to solve these things, and I think you know we've built something called quests, which is not a blockchain feature, but you can see how it is very closely aligned to something that will happen there in that world as well, where streamers can run their own loyalty programs today so they can put various metrics, so some people may optimize for live watch hours. Some people may optimize for engagement through chat, some people may optimize for stickers or they may do a combination of these and we allow them to run these quests. And just to give you an example, we ran a quest recently with two streamers there was Regaltoes from Seoul and there was Blind Rebel from Blind and the number of stickers that were sent we created a quest battle between them and the number of stickers that were sent were more than what was sent for the most successful VGMI tournament in India world. I'm just in one stream, so it gives you a sense of how you could use these sort of features to help people express their fandom in.
Speaker 2:And that's where you know things like loyalty clubs are very, very applicable to what you know. We have secret promise right there. I can own something that was provided by some person and you know, let's say if it shows in your profile and that's valuable, that's worth something. If you see in the chat there's the moderator has a separate color.
Speaker 2:We're actually working on features where you know there would be, depending on how what you said as a streamer, your colors could change as a user in terms of how you get perceived in that chat box because there is social value or social status as value in that box, right? So if you're everybody's in white and you're in, you know, some green color, so green or whatever, some blind red, right, it has some value. So I think there are, there are use cases for providing a publicly verifiable place where people can actually see that. Okay, like you know, state actually owns the first rocket delivered by my goblin or something. So there is. But you know, we are also constrained by where the regulations are and in the start we have to be respectful of that as well.
Speaker 3:I just say that this bot has had a real tough time on the stream Four guys in banning all of these spots.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in fact today we on our streams we have three levels of moderation and still it's like I always say, it's like cops and robbers right, you moderate, and then they find a way out and shoot, and then very tool that helps you and then they find another way. So there's always that sort of stuff happens.
Speaker 3:I think, apart from the stream, the live chat in itself is entertaining.
Speaker 2:It's always that's actually for me most of the time. The live chat is much more entertaining than anything else.
Speaker 3:Totally. I couldn't agree more, but I think what you said that makes a lot of sense, right, I think, is respect. That was that three games making it big or not. I think there's definite scope for the, let's say, royalty model to be tested out with streamers and their fan following set, because these exist already on the platform. So I think the unless and until we're dabbling with tokens, I think NFTs could still be the way forward for at least problems of fandom. What are your thoughts there?
Speaker 2:I mean totally. I think that there's a lot of in the entertainment arena. There's memorabilia and and and collectibles have always had value, which is why we like the fantasy and collectible together as as a model, because then you're not only providing a collectible, you're also providing something that can be used in day to day and fantasy, something India understands, and that's why we like that model quite a bit.
Speaker 1:I'm quite curious as to what the numbers look like. I mean, like for streaming. I understand that different gamers will have different games, will have different numbers of watches and so on. So what are those numbers? And curious about how your business model works.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so on the watch hours and you know there are two or three ways to look at code and code success rate or scale. There is sort of watch hours which is like how much are people watching it? So it's number of people into the time watched, right, so it's it's a that watch hour is a good metric because it shows you how much of a particular game are people consuming. Then there's the concurrency rate. So you know, is there a big event? Are they all coming together? So, for example, for a BGMI tournament, a large BGMI tournament, we've seen, you know, 200, 300, 400 K concurrence on the on the platform for a single stream. But for a valid in tournament it would be much lower than that would be in the 4050, 60 K zone. Right, when I have a stream for for that might be 1000. Right, whereas for BGMI we often see you in a normal stream, some like some goblin or some guy will have 10,000, 20,000 impact. We've seen movie in it, 87,000 last year. So there's like that scale differences there between BGMI is clearly a very large game. Gta is doing very well. In fact, if you see month on month it's doing almost as well as BGMI, which is very surprising and very good Last year before the band Free Fire was doing amazingly well in India. I think the product market fit there was extremely good and I think that's still an opportunity that exists in India today, which is that can we get a game which is optimized for, you know, the entry level mobile phones could be, could be a very interesting opportunity. Free Fire is more allowed in our country and we don't, you know, we haven't seen any news of it coming back. So I think that's a that showed you they were doing your business in India and like I think the GMVs were very high and the hundreds of millions of dollars. So so, so yeah, so you know, watch, perspective, you perspective. These are the sort of numbers you would see on on these games and New York really has as a platform. We have over 60 million installs, so lots of, lots of interest. You know our monthly active users and the tens of millions. So there's a huge interest in the gaming sector and in these, particularly in these games, which are very watched. But you know I wouldn't only use watch hours Now. I actually like seeing stuff on month on month basis, because you can't compare a store that's been running, you know, for 10 years versus a store that is open rate, like you have to do some sort of what the detail is called same store analysis. So you have to kind of see, okay, month zero to month one, how much did a game do? And there are new categories. Having said that, we I think that there is room for new games and we will see new games in the future. So I think that's a good way to take out an India, whether it's and they may not be just FPS. I think this obviously a obsession of FPS, because FPS has managed. But I think over time you know you, we haven't seen like example again train or some sort of role playing game can probably make it. Once the book, a good mobile version of those come out, I will see that. And look, we are not far away. In three, four years are mobile PC population will be as big, as you know, some of the bigger markets. So that's also an interesting factor.
Speaker 2:Moving on to your second question, which is like our business model, business model is pretty simple. You know we have two primary business lines. So there's advertising in this direct to consumer transactions, slash subscriptions. So you know, people watch content, we play ads and we charge the advertisers. That's a straightforward kind of model and then on the consumer side we are building, we get to announce, actually, some of the features that we are building out, which are which are direct to consumer features. We have lots of interesting features that were, hopefully you know, my September mobile announced some of those excited to see what those are.
Speaker 3:and look another question right, I think you've mentioned you're obviously bullish gaming in India. What are some of the games or studios that we should keep an eye out for right, which are building specifically for the region, or probably just games that we think are due for release and will potentially do well at the geography?
Speaker 2:I think the game that everyone in India was waiting for is Valorant mobile. I think that if you ask any streamer, that's the game they were all waiting for, but I think the game is going to take some time. I actually was like it's in the demo of a game called Maya and Agree, which is pretty interesting. It's kind of like GTA for India, where you the friend is me is working on, so very interesting. Of course there's the in this gaming, which I'm not actually seen the game, but I have good things about it. So those are more like Indian games as well that people are liking. But I think most of all in the last years, people are waiting for BGMI to come back, which has come back, and you've seen the pickup in numbers. I still think there's, you know, there's opportunities for games that are in other genres, like I feel like a clash of clans could do with Linux which use a base in India. I feel like something like a Genshin, like I said earlier, will break out. I think there is still opportunity there.
Speaker 3:For sure. I think, especially in this right like we've worked with the teams who can definitely attest to what the building is going to be special, but let's see how the game comes out, because nothing is nothing you'd be taking for a guarantee in gaming. I think it's still. It's the thing that makes it very tricky class to invest in and also to kind of just participate in right, because it's very close to the creator process. Right like what might be successful and one might not be successful for the other approach. I think it's always exciting to see what can work in the future.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know there are many of the big publishers, whether it's an Activision or some of the other guys who have thought of games, nice, whether they focus on India or not, we'll have to see. But you know, we saw last year EA releasing its game, right, the thing is that I feel one of those games will also ultimately end up working. Well, you know so, the new kind of Call of Duty games, or you know, whether it's a Final Fantasy, some of those kind of games will definitely make it. And you know the guys from the Hoyovas you want to call it that way we mentioned. They are also coming up with another RPG called Zendes. So there are games that you know people are going to be looking forward to.
Speaker 2:If you're asking particularly for India, the big question remains what's going to actually work across phone and what's well optimized, and I think that's a really, really big question, right? I know, for example, even Rainbow Six is coming out with its own mobile game. That's what we've heard. So there's a lot of publishers who have committed. I think now it's just a question of who will actually make it and what does the audience like next? It's going to be a question.
Speaker 3:I have two more questions. So one is what are the kind of games or things that are interested in or following closely as a theme, and Web 3. I am pretty sure like the answer to that can be nothing as well, just because of the lack of interest from players right now, but as a theme. Have you tracked anything that's remotely caught your interest in the past six months?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean the most. The game that I've tracked the most is actually Soraya, because I find that's the best model to follow per se in terms of mechanics and the C plus and I think while everything is taken a hit in general, I think it's still held up pretty well compared to other games. Other than that, I'm not really followed anything per se in this. I know there are a lot of games that are coming out, but I haven't seen anything that's out yet which I played myself. Which I can say are that games aren't really really well.
Speaker 3:So when we are leading indicated for success of any of these games, because as soon as they start getting streamed, that's the big indication whether they will be successful or not. That being said, I think I wanted to dive deeper into the role that the Middle East is going to play. I think you've grown up here. You probably spent some time at UAE as well. We've seen a lot of reports and heard about a lot of bullishness coming into the gaming ecosystem from governments and investors, both in Dubai and GCC areas or Saudi, and so on and so forth. So any takes there, or do you think there is going to be significant action of world studios and ecosystem builders to the region, and how would you perceive it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think. Look, the regulatory support is very visible, whether it's in the UAE or Saudi Arabia. These geographies have governments and leadership that understands and is willing to support gaming and they enjoy gaming themselves also. So I think you've seen PUBG Mobile has had multiple big events in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Last had a very big event in Abu Dhabi last year. Of course, gamers eat. Largest e-sports event in the world has seen the best of every game, whether it's a FIFA or whether it's PUBG Mobile or any other PC game as well. So I think there is a lot of obviously incentive and desire to really dominate gaming.
Speaker 2:I think, if you look at from our perspective, if you look at the mobile gaming, that is, the games that are played in India and that are played in Vienna are the same. So you see PUBG Mobile here in Middle East and India. You would see BGMI and Free Fire. Free Fire is popular in Middle East as well. Clash of Clans here, clash of Clans in the Middle East. So there is the games are like for like and so you have to. Really, we know we've seen this movie before. If you're from. That way, people will engage with it because they can play these games and they're spending a lot of time on it.
Speaker 2:From a market size perspective, you know, in Asia actually Abu Dhabi is in world it's a $2 billion dollar market, growing less fast as in India. I mean, india is obviously bigger in terms of growth rates, but out of the $2 billion in India there's a lot of that real money gaming as well. Right In the Middle East it's all pure gaming. So I think there's a lot of similarity to India, in fact, even in the audiences that no two countries are like right. So it's much like India, where, as there's one country called India, but there are many states which have different preferences for different games and languages, etc. The same here in the Middle East. So there's a huge potential. And will gaming studios move here?
Speaker 2:I think a lot of that depends upon how the ecosystem develops. There's definitely many positive factors, right from a quality of life perspective, access to capital perspective there is, there is, but there is a long way to go in terms of getting the right talent. So it's not like overnight the Middle East is going to become Finland or you know. But you know in the region also, you've seen some early successes. Turkey's had amazing successes. If you take a broader view what Middle East is. There's a lot of good game development talent there. Jordan's had some good success. So I think you look at that and then you see that India is right next door. So good things can happen if the right combinations of incentives and financing shows up, because a lot of these games can be built in different places. So and I think the governments here are thinking about that as well- Couple things right First, where can people find you, whether you're right, etc.
Speaker 1:And what should people be looking forward to from local, whether it's Web 3 or other way?
Speaker 2:Yeah, look you know we have, from our perspective on local, we have three big sort of focus areas that we're working on right now. We're working on making the app much more interactive. So we have a bunch of new interactive, which is that are coming out on the app which will be announced in the next quarter. We also have a big focus on ramping and monetization in this next quarter. So both on the ad side and on the consumer, consumer side we have a bunch of features that are going live.
Speaker 2:And then, lastly, one really important fact which, as you get larger, is quality of experience. Right, when you are smaller, you can get away with more MVP style, style of operation. Now we're also building in the sort of the right amount of quality in the, in the, in the product, so to ensure that quality of experience is really good for everyone. So those are the three kind of big focus areas for us in the next year or next two quarters, you can say. And then, in terms of my own social, you can find me on Instagram and Twitter, like then, usually active, so I don't write as much as I should, but when you are, you can. I'm, you know I answer almost every LinkedIn message I get so, and the same thing on Twitter and Instagram as well.
Speaker 1:Alright, thanks a lot. This was a lot of fun.
