Digital financial inclusion a challenge for game publishers: Laveesh Pande

Well-known Taiwanese gaming corporation, Softstar Entertainment Inc, has launched Starlight gaming and is thereby expanding its reach in the Indian gaming market. Starlight Gaming has the objective of developing spectacular gamesand giving rise to a strong desire to play instantaneously, helping in forming and maintaining interpersonal relationships, and stimulating the imagination, creativity of the gamers.

With the launch of Starlight Gaming, Softstar Entertainment fulfills its aspiration to have a global presence and network and connect with various gaming communities present across the world. It has been known for its gaming excellence in the publishing and game development industry for over three decades now. Previously, they have come up with some amazing gaming series including 'Chinese Paladin', 'Richman', and 'Xuan – Yuan Sword' that have been critically acclaimed as well as financially successful.

Starlight Gaming offers high-quality games, with an emphasis on player contentment, and innovation, and offers gaming experiences that are immersive leveraging AR, and VR across an extensive range of genres. It has the unconventional ideology of offering revolutionary games that challenge conventional ideas regarding what is achievable during the gaming journeyand motivating the players to aim higher and surprise themselves with what they can achieve. It aims to revolutionize and bring a breath of fresh air to the Indian gaming sector, unleashing newer perspectives and storytelling, thereby fascinating the players and motivating them to go the extra mile both in gaming and life.  It has unveiled a series of enthralling updates and additions for Raider SIX, the acclaimed Battle Royale game on the occasion of Independence Day.

In conversation with Adgully, Laveesh Pandey, COO, Starlight Gaming, said, “It’s different in our case, we are releasing games which are specifically made for India. So, in terms of looks and gameplay and aesthetics, these games look and feel very much Indian, and people can relate to this kind of games.”

What is the objective of Starlight Gaming?

Starlight Gaming is a publishing company, and we are a 100% subsidiary of Softstar Entertainment. We are here to publish new and exciting games. So Softstar, as you know, is a multinational and has been in the gaming industry for close to 35 years now. And internationally, we have more than 100-plus titles. But when it comes down to India, the gaming industry is still evolving. That's why we created Starlight Gaming to create games that are made for India. Now, these games can be made for India in many ways, whether it is in terms of aesthetics looks, or gameplay, as well as the specifications of a game. So India, as we all know, is the number one smartphone market in the world. And we have all sorts of smartphones, ranging from as low as Rs 5,000 and which goes up to Rs 1.5 lakh. But the real recruitment of gamers is coming from Tier 2 and Tier 3 towns. And to make a game that runs on low-end devices is very crucial, especially when somebody wants to succeed in India. That’s the primary focus of Starlight Gaming, we want to create games that are made for India, whether in terms of looks or in terms of specifications.

How does it support Soft Star Entertainment’s commitment to growing its global presence?

India has always been a huge market, whether in terms of geography, whether in terms of the sheer number of consumers. And what we have observed in the last three to four years, is that gaming has been on a real high, especially during COVID, India became the No. 1 country in terms of downloads on Google Play. So, those were early indicators on how gaming is kind of progressing in the country. With over 500 million gamers, India has the potential to become a significant contributor to Softstar Entertainment’s overall revenues and market share. India is one market that Softstar did not want to lose, and I think it is at the right time that we have kind of made inroads in the country.

How will Starlight Gaming impact the thriving gaming community in India?

We are bringing fantastic games. Like, the first game we released is Raider Six, which is a Battle Royale game. What we have observed in the last four or five years is that there were no new games introduced in this particular segment. Currently, Action and Battle Royale is one of the most enjoyed segments of gaming in India. And there are a huge number of people who play a lot of these kinds of games. We saw a void. There were no new games that were introduced. A lot of games were being banned and then unbanned. There was a lot of uncertainty. And that’s how we kind of introduced Raider Six, which is a world-class battle royale action game now.

But this is not all. We do have a plan to cater to a wider audience. The next game that we will launch in India is going to be a casual game. The difference between a Raider Six and a regular casual game is when you start to play Radar Six, you will need to have some time in your hand. The average game session that we currently see is nothing less than 27 minutes. So, that means any gamer who starts to play Radar Six, he’s there in the game for about 27 minutes on average. However, when you compare this to a casual game like Candy Crush or any other casual game, the session time is much shorter and it appeals to a wider audience. A lot of people working at corporates enjoy these kinds of small casual games in the 5 or 10 minute free time that they get, which make them feel good. Those are the next set of games that we will plan to launch in India. We will cater to a larger set of audience and all genres of gaming are something that we will touch upon in India.

How is Starlight Gaming leveraging technology to attract Indian gamers?

There are two things that we are continuously doing within the game. One is we have kept the update intervals very short. This means gamers can expect a new update or a new enhancement in the gameplay every month or every 45 days. Secondly, we are exploring new formats of gaming. When it comes down to esports, we have already introduced one mode, which is the skirmish mode, four versus four. There is another game mode that is coming out in the next update. We are also looking at near-field communications right now. This is something that encourages watch parties or game parties. What happens is typically when you are trying to play a game and you are trying to form a squad or you are trying to play with your friends, you need to invite them or add them as a friend within the game to kind of start a new game room. What we are exploring in terms of NFC, is if like five or six friends, or ten people are sitting in one area and they are using the same WiFi, the game will automatically try and put them in one room. That’s the NFC that we are trying to explore in terms of in-game technology.

In terms of marketing, we are using all the latest tools and all the technology that is available in the market. We are using automation, we are using Attribution, we have applied a lot of insights and data science to our performance marketing, analysing consumer behaviour, etc.

Could you tell us about any marketing activities that Starlight Gaming is undertaking or any campaign that it has launched?

We launched Raider Six with a campaign called ‘Bano India Ka Top Raider.’ The campaign did very well. We had Siddharth Malhotra do a media launch for us. We crossed 3 million downloads in the first month. The game has around 500,000 daily active users and it has still a lot of exploration left, which means the game has many layers. There are a lot of things within the game which gamers are kind of exploring on their own and they are talking about it. We started our discord server last week. The kind of response and the kind of love the gaming community is giving us is unbelievable. We’re thrilled to be in this space right now.

Whatever we are doing, the community is kind of reciprocating it. So, even if we make out one post, people are the gamers and the community is promoting the game themselves. So, that’s a good sign and it kind of helps in understanding how to take this game ahead in terms of marketing.

According to you, what are the challenges and opportunities that are facing the Indian gaming market right now?

The primary challenge that any game publisher is currently facing in the country is digital financial inclusion. So, although the government of India has taken a lot of steps in the past four or five years about getting people financially included digitally, I still feel online payments and digital payments have a long way to go. There is a lot of potential left in the fintech sector which is yet to be explored.

So, game purchases are a kind of challenge that every publisher kind of faces. And with a game like Radar Six and with this kind of game that we plan to release, we cannot rely on in-app advertising because that kind of becomes a little intrusive for the gamer and it kind of ruins the overall gameplay experience. While we are committed to giving the best gaming experience to all our gamers, we are still staying away from in-app advertising. And in-app purchases are still something that takes a lot of time to kind of evolve. So that's a primary challenge – payments.