“The online gaming ecosystem is shape-shifting in ways never imagined”

India’s oldest online skill gaming company, Head Digital Works (HDW), operating and developing skill-based gaming applications for the online gaming industry, has aggressive expansion plans for its talent pool and has announced new leadership. There is a rise in the demand for skilled tech professionals due to rapid digital transformation during and post the pandemic. Online skill-based gaming are those where the outcome of the game is determined by the mental and physical skills of the players. The online skill based gaming community in India has been dominated by the mobile gaming community and according to research during the pandemic, most mobile users have started to play games on their smartphones. Online games are booming due to the emergence of advanced technological innovations as well as opportunities for earning money and creation and consumption of influencer driven content.

HDW is focusing on expediting growth, both horizontally and vertically. It has hired a new CTO, VP of Marketing and VP of Product. Previously in the year 2022, it launched a new campaign with Shah Rukh Khan as the brand ambassador.

In conversation with Adgully, Siddharth Sharma, Head of Strategy, Head Digital Works, speaks about the online gaming ecosystem in India, the growing popularity of skill-based gaming, trends and the road ahead, the 5G factor in gaming, and more.

How has the evolution of skill-based online gaming been in India?

Over the past few years, the number of online gamers in India has grown exponentially, with the mobile gaming community taking the lead. According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), the mobile phone is the primary distribution channel for gaming in India. The popularity of skill-based gaming has also been catalysed by factors like a young consumer base, rising disposable incomes and the introduction of new sophisticated gaming genres with easier learning curves due to technological innovations. Interestingly, according to an InMobi survey, nearly 45 per cent of India’s mobile users started playing games on their smartphones during the pandemic. We saw trends on A23, our gaming app, that the time spent by players has increased to over 120 minutes per month on an average in the past year. This is proof that users are open to adopting forms of gaming beyond casual gaming to ensure that the Indian skill gaming market will become a $3.9 billion business by 2025 (as estimated by KPMG).

What are the industry trends?

The online gaming ecosystem is shape-shifting in ways never imagined as online play has become commonplace. We have seen an increase in the number of players coming in from Tier 2 and Tier 3 towns, especially for real money skill-gaming. India is emerging as a global talent hub for techies with intensive tech integration within the sector. This has further led to the creation of several job opportunities in data science & analytics, marketing and even creative communications.

Online games are experiencing higher engagement rates owing to the availability of advanced tech features, including creative visual and voice assisted devices. Influencer-driven content is playing a vital role in the online gaming industry as well. Influencers are driving higher gaming adoption rates across all types of games, especially in the emerging e-sports market. Such new developments in the industry are attracting both users and investors so much so that investment in the gaming sector increased from $212.9 million in 2020 to $443.3 million in 2021.

What are the expansion plans of HDW to strengthen its workforce?

As the first half of the year comes to an end, we are happy to have on-boarded over a 100 employees across functions already and have robust plans of doubling our workforce to 800+ employees by the end of 2022. We are actively hiring across domains, including technology, analytics, marketing, business strategy, growth and product. We are also paying special attention to building and solidifying the leadership team at Head Digital Works with recent announcements of a new Chief Technology Officer (CTO), VP Marketing and VP Product.

As we expedite growth both horizontally and vertically, we are paying special attention to cultural integrity and technical skill sets in our hiring efforts. We are keen to take on candidates who can assist us in riding the crest in the gaming industry with cutting-edge technology at Head Digital Works.

What are the initiatives taken by HDW for employees’ well-being?

Prioritising employee wellness not only has a direct impact on productivity and performance, but also makes them feel valued. When it comes to health, we provide a Rs 10 lakh group medical insurance for spouses, children and parents, along with a group personal accident cover. To help upskill our employees, we assist them with a training and development allowance. We also have a car lease policy in place. Lastly and most importantly, we have a tie-up for mental health well-being, wherein employees and their immediate family are free to opt for counselling sessions as per their needs and discretion at company expense.

How does HDW plan to expand its leadership team?

To catalyse and sustain growth across verticals, we have just onboarded a new CTO, VP of Marketing and VP of Product. Our new CTO, Visvesvarrya Neelakantan, brings to the table extensive experience in developing and scaling multiple product offerings at mature businesses. Gunnidhi Singh Sareen, who has joined us as VP of Marketing from an array of work in Telecom will be leading the company’s customer acquisition and retention efforts. The final piece of the puzzle to lead our product management and analytics efforts is Vasu Merugu, our VP of Product, who brings with him rich multi-cultural and multi-domain expertise. We have chosen to be diverse in our recruitment and have not taken the traditional paths in building up our teams. These senior leaders share our values and already show an acute understanding of our business.

As we continue to hire across roles, we will lay a special focus on hiring leaders that share the same vision for the company and who have the right strategic leadership abilities to navigate through the ever-evolving online gaming industry.

What are the new partnerships of HDW centred around upskilling initiatives?

While our company has robust expansion plans to grow its talent pool, we pay significant importance to upskilling initiatives for our employees. This is even more important, given the nature of the technology industry that we operate in. Our employees must constantly refresh their skill sets to not only bring their best capabilities on board, but also to produce trend defining innovations in online skill gaming.

We are constantly exploring partnerships in research and training across all levels and areas with top academic institutions. In fact, we cover the course fees for our employees to encourage them further to enrol in programmes of their choice. We have bi-weekly knowledge sharing and training sessions among our tech teams. Employees can currently enrol in any course of their choice, and once they acquire their certification, they can reimburse a course fee of up to Rs 50,000 annually. We believe this will inculcate a culture of learning within the organisation.

How does HDW plan to grow in the next five years?

At Head Digital Works, we take pride in being the pioneers of skill gaming in India and also to have extended our portfolio into other successful products in the past few years. In the next five years, we will focus on expanding our team with the right talent to create innovations in online skill gaming and beyond. With geographical constraints going down due to hybrid working and work-from-home models, we are also looking at building an international tech team. This will help us get insights from professionals across countries and create global gaming standards in India, if not better.

While we focus on expansion, a continued focus area will be responsible gaming. In fact, earlier this year, we launched the ‘Chalo Saath Khele’ campaign with Shah Rukh Khan as our brand ambassador, which was a first-of-its-kind responsible gaming campaign.

Overall, having been in this industry for over a decade now, we have seen a shift in not only the type of content creation needed to reach our target audience, but have also seen a shift in the messaging that fares well. We strongly believe in inclusion and will be streamlining our energies to give integral importance to diversity while expanding. Lastly, it goes without saying that the support of the government and regulation will play a key role in the expansion and growth of the overall sector.

What does the future of skill-based gaming look like in India?

Online skill gaming is still a relatively new concept for most people in our country. Skill-based games require the expertise of a player and hence, are not based on chance and aren’t anything close to gambling. There is still a dire need for people to understand the difference between game of skill and game of chance in India.

Having said that, skill-based real money gaming options have witnessed increased adoption in recent times, depicting that a certain level of understanding is now seeping in among people. Academic institutions have started introducing courses in gaming and the options are only going to multiply in the future. This will create diverse talent in India in the niche area of gaming.

What are the barriers to the growth of skill-based gaming in India and what are the opportunities for the same?

While it brings with it endless opportunities, online gaming has a number of challenges that could stunt its possible growth. The most widespread is the misconception around real money games being associated with gambling. This is far from true as real money games need one to use their skills just like a sport. The industry is well aware of the habit formation that happens with some players and takes serious steps in the direction of ‘responsible gaming’. There are daily and monetary limits depending on the players’ activity to check this.

Lastly, there is no clear government regulation associated with the skill-based gaming sector in particular. With effective regulation and support from the Central Government, India can become a global force to reckon with while bringing in more order and safety from a user point of view.

How can users benefit from 5G in the gaming space?

5G has been the ‘buzz’ word for quite some time now. What it has in store for the gaming industry is definitely an exciting thought and it is sure to accelerate the growth of the industry tremendously. This is so because with it comes enhanced experiences like graphics-rich gameplay, high-frame rates, zero latency, cloud gaming, ray-tracing and many more. With its speed and low latency, it will enable new VR and augmented realities, producing real tactical experiences where gamers can receive haptic feedback.

As technologies continue to grow and expand, the Metaverse will play a crucial role as well in online gaming. It will allow gamers to transition between the physical and digital world seamlessly. Whether it is creating quirky virtual gaming avatars or having access to innumerable gaming options – the future presents many extraordinary opportunities leading to an easier and more collaborative gaming ecosystem.