 Thank you everyone and thank you to all the panelists for being here today. Probably a quick sort of introduction would be great in terms of what you are doing currently at your individual sort of companies and what's keeping you excited. So Lalitha, you've had a... I'll start with you first. You had an excellent campaign which has caught everyone's attention and obviously you are the payment rails for all these transactions. So it's a good sort of macroeconomic view of what's happening in gaming and come through you. What are you currently seeing when it comes to the overall gaming ecosystem and its contribution to sort of what you are seeing as building Rupees brand with would be great to start with that. Okay. Hey, thanks for the bit about the ads. Yes, the team did do a good job and thankfully it has worked. These are hits and misses. This time it was one hit. As national payment corporation of India, we have two sort of relationship, dual relationship with the gaming community. One is of course that the transactions that happen via gaming, both core gaming and non-core gaming reflect on to our systems via UPI as well as via Rupee as brands and products and of course other stuff. As Rupee brand, brand rupee has been looking to, you know, we position ourselves as cool, sporty, contemporary, modern looking and therefore for us, sports is an inevitable space that we have tried to occupy as a brand. One of the top BFSI brands that actually works on sports. Naturally gaming and e-sports is the next step for us because we believe that e-sports is sort of an extension of sports. Today, a large portion of media that exists is divided into entertainment and sports and within sports it's now getting steady towards the e-sports and the gaming portion. So for us that is the next place that we're looking to explore. We have done some trial and error this year or in the gaming e-sports Metaverse, slash, et cetera, et cetera space. We are still exploring. We are learning. We are developing. Hopefully we will be taking some steps soon. So in the two parts to this, right, there's the overall sort of a way to access gamers through being part of the e-sports community and then there is the co-game, in-game worlds which are being developed as branded experiences, whether it's inside of your Minecrafts and Roblox, and you did something with Roblox recently. That's right. What we did is we created a Metaverse because we were IPL sponsors. What we did is we created a Metaverse in Roblox where we developed the cricket game where people could come on, play the game, win awards, win vouchers, engage with them, and it was actually quite an experience that we had. We had a lot of learning curve. We're trying to expand that into larger Metaverses because we would like to move out of that closed-door community and perhaps do a lot more there. So our experience has been, there's of course a learning curve for a brand that I believe that as gaming is a completely different community via versus the other community, other stuff that you do as a brand. Well, it's easier to perhaps predict OTT television. Gaming has its own slower curve, its own celebrities, it has its own set of people that you would, you have to carefully take a step. It's a completely different strategy that you're looking at. Yeah, and speaking of that, great segue into Suyash who's using those insights to create a whole new line of bags. You're creating a new line of luggage for focused on gamers. Tell us a little bit about how did that come about and what insights led you to that. See, we all know VIP as first brand we see when we want to carry something. So we saw this whole community growing and for us sky bags is a brand which addresses to the youth, to the youngest possible generation with dispensable income. So we got the insight that they are into gaming and they are passionate about it and they want to make a career out of it. We had to ensure that whatever accessories they have, they fit in a backpack and they can carry it with themselves. So what we did was we took one of the stalwarts in the gaming community and we said tell us what our needs and we would want to know how we can design something for people who want to carry. They just don't want to fit in to the backpack's luggage that they have right now and make something very specific, very customized for them. And that started our journey and today we are building something which can cater to around 60, 70 million of these gamers in India who always struggle with something how to carry a particular accessory, how to carry their laptops which are high and how to cushion them well. So yeah, this range is probably coming around August, September time and we have great plans for it. So our association with gaming has come out of need to provide for the community rather than choosing them as a cohort in a marketing plan. So that's how we are treating gaming. That's interesting. I think the running theme will always be about how gaming on the consumer side is probably far bigger than and it's under indexed on the ad-exite. So to that, piyush, pockets been around for many years and we have been providing solutions for folks to advertise with casual games. How have you seen that change now? Do you think it's become sort of a form of niche, it's become more mainstream and any comments on the size of it to educate marketeers about what trick they are missing? Yeah, hi. I think the change, the shift which has happened post-COVID in the last three years, as you said, niche has become mainstream. The numbers are talking and numbers at our server, we get up close to $280 million since last two months in a monthly number, which is 20% of India's population. That's reflecting more on the casual game side of it, what we get at the consumer brands and wherein they take their message to reach out to them using the vehicles which are available in the casual gaming ecosystem. And this is also growing fast along with what a hardcore game ecosystem is also growing. So the media consumption habits, we also perceive it has changed a lot. We've been hearing from CPG brands wherein they internally have done a lot of research and insights in their teams that there are caught cutters which are shifting from television, from linear television to gaming also and OTT platform also, which is directly landing on digital, wherein there is no more. I could see in my vicinity also, none of my cousins are on television. There are about 13 cousins I have. Nobody is on. Hello. So that is a major shift which has happened. I see, though I am hooked up to television still, but my kids 17 and 13, both, none of them are on television. Either they stream or they play. These are the two activity on any screen. That's how the major shift has happened and the supply, the reach is among us, but the brands also need to embrace in terms of so that the mainstream can be utilized and they become early adopters and then they can leverage more out of it. So before we get to Srishti, I would love to talk to you, Aniludha, about this because you've been around for seven odd years now and you must have seen it's gone from endemic brands like your mobile phones and PC, hardware and OEM manufacturers to non-endemic brands. Are you seeing that growing now? Is it becoming acceptable, especially when it comes to eSports? Is it big enough as the category now that you're seeing traditional advertisers reach out for this? Yes, you know gaming is a very wide and very established media right now. It is now becoming, very much becoming like cricket in India where acceptability for content is very diverse. So it is able to promote and also get to the brands and also to the audience which is able to consume a lot of products in terms of FMCGs as well, in terms of travel now, for example, VIP is getting into it, Mercedes is getting into it, MG is getting into it, and these are not endemic brands which are out there. Previously we used to see that there was AMD, Microsoft, all the endemic brands which are coming in, but right now people are seeing that the consumer basically who was out there watching a different kind of media before, watching television now, now it has moved on to gaming and it is moving in very quickly right now. And it provides a range of audience which starts from an eight-year-old which goes to 35, 40-odd, right? And all these people who are out there are spending approximately three to four hours on gaming, which makes gaming an alternate media for every brand to get their eyes on. And also it is a particular sport which has a range of people who are also having a range of spending power as well. When it says spending power, I am talking about people who can buy a one lakh rupee phone to a particular product which can be as cheap as a 17 rupee fingertip glove which allows you to game better on phone, right? So that is the kind of range that gaming basically offers and has space for every brand, every consumer, and I think that that is media which is one of the greatest, great, I would say that it is one of the times wherein India is observing a great media transformation wherein gaming tech and lifestyle is coming together. You know, Shrishti, you seem to be somebody who has been born digital with their strategy, right? You have kind of in many ways, you know, not somebody who needs to be converted. It seems like it's a co-pillar to what you guys doing at Monster. Well, when you looked at differentiating your brand from others in the same space, what made you want to look at gaming and especially eSports within gaming? I think gaming is a really broad term, but within gaming eSports, what made you want to kind of look at that as your co-pillar? So, you know, globally, Monster, what we do is we have various pillars that we actually look at for our brand, and that ranges from gaming to motorsports to music, dance, everything, and that's all going to be region-specific and country-specific. But there was a team globally who sat, researched what is that one common pillar which is going to be running throughout all the countries, and I think that was when gaming actually won the bet because, and even in India, we see, you know, especially after the pandemic, the kind of transition that has happened to gaming and with everything becoming so cheap, you know, like the smartphones, free internet, so that is when we decided that gaming is going to be the co-pillar for us in India specifically, especially because of how people have now moved on into that smartphone segment because everything is so cheap and the free internet service as well. And, you know, one of the things it's going to ask is, when you look at the broad category of gaming and you're thinking about, and this is to anybody on the panel, there's a bunch of verticals, there's obviously esports, then there's influencers, then there is, you know, just inventory buys on video, then there's in-game worlds where you can actually create these worlds inside of these. How are you all thinking about the mix because otherwise it's just like very sort of 30,000 feet at gaming, right? When you look at each one of these verticals, is it developed enough as a market that you're thinking of each one of these as a mix or you're just saying broadly, here's my spends, out of them this much is gaming, and within gaming, esports is dominant so that's what we're going to put money in. Are you all thinking with more texture around this? Is it evolved enough right now for you all to think about it? I can take that, you know. So I feel that it totally depends on the kind of consumer again that you're targeting. For example, at first gaming is content creation, right? You are creating content in different kind of segments. Be it esports, it has tournaments and it has a skill level content that is out there on a POV level and also on a tournament level. Then there are casual games which allows you to be, which allows a particular brand to be inside a game and promote itself in a very diverse kind of audience. And then there are segments to it which are probably games in which you can promote your brand inside also. For example, there's this game which is very popular amongst kids which is a ChotaBeam game in which a ChotaBeam basically has to run like a temple run, right? So for people who are playing that particular game, they're very young. So how you can promote a product is by placing a apology inside it, right? So instead of coins, you're basically going ahead and collecting apology biscuits. That's for younger people, right? And then moving forward from that particular aspect, moving to a game which is Battle Royale, when you have to energize yourself, you can have a drink like Monster in it, right? So that comes as a second part to it. And that comes in a part wherein it is a very rushed game. It's an e-sports entering game, right? So you have to have that kind of energy levels to play that game and hence Monster can see itself inside the game. And then if you look at casual gaming, an era wherein you are just going ahead and simply playing out and chilling right now. So you have IPs like Spider-Man which comes into play where you can have a game which is totally IP based in terms of you see a movie character out there and you can live with it also inside the game. Or you can also go ahead and drive a car in the game as well. So, Lalitans, when you're looking at sort of which titles to go after, are there any ones which come to mind, ones which may have been banned or returned, and ones which have been banned for a while. So you'll pick and choose between, to Anirut's point there's a gradient, right? There's hypercasual, casual, mid-code, AAAA then there's another vector which is PC, mobile, console and then there's cross-play. So when you are thinking this through, when you go through all the filters, which ones are part of your strategic plan? So, you know, just like he said it depends upon not just the target segmentation that you're looking after. It is also where your brand is standing at that point of time. That's Rupee. Where do you see it for this year? Exactly. So, to answer that question is actually very tough because for me it's a very complex layer I have to navigate. Do I have to do surround content? Do I need to go after influencers? Do I need to do in-game branding? Because in-game branding is a long game. It's a very long game. Am I looking at doing e-spots which is touch and go? Or am I looking at creating? So basically this needs a five-year strategy. It's not something that can happen over a period of time. Even five years may be less but because you're going to start building for some place for a brand like Rupee, we have to establish my brand first there. So, for me it's a very complex answer which I haven't actually thought through completely. We are learning and going about it. But we do know that when you talk about Rupee, we are talking about credit cards, debit cards, payment systems. Now in that, if I have to go after a target segment, my age group that I'm looking at is only a particular above an age. The current gaming segment starts at eight years of age and my gaming, my segment actually begins much after 20. In the gaming world if you're above 20, you're considered the older gamers. And in my world, I'm new to credit, new to banking, new to payment systems. So it's a little bit of a balance which we are trying to figure out because we can't go after a 13-year-old for obvious reasons. But then they have parents who pay for that. So all of those answers we have to figure out. And Suyash, you're interested because you're also designing products and also marketing to the same. So what is your view on the list? So just to give you a fair idea of our category, we are just 12% penetration in India. So for us, using any of these mediums, cohorts to advertise or to create awareness is the primary goal. The mix is such that we want to reach out with a particular set of products with a particular cohort and we are designing for them. So if you ask me if I want to do a long-term equity association with any game, I wouldn't think so because this generation changes its trends as soon as a quarter ends. And that's how we also have to be agile, nimble with our designs and their requirements. So we primarily look at gaming as a design solution to pick up insights of the gaming community and then market them products just to increase awareness that we are here to offer what they want to relate to. Because today Gen Z wants to carry something, a bag for them is an accessory. And they want to use it as a part of their character, a personality that they carry. So if I tomorrow release a spider-man series for somebody who plays valorant, it will be totally, totally not sync it with them. So we have to be very nimble and agile with what the community wants and we advertise to them. And our involvement is that it wins off as soon as the trend changes. Yeah. And you know it would be a miss given that there's been a big announcement two, three days ago with a new computing platform now launching and the topic is how do you see this next wave of media consumption beyond the obvious things that it's too expensive and it will take a while. What do you generally think about when it comes to your thinking about these new form factors and how you think they will be adopted. It's a while away for it to launch but just a little bit of future gazing before we open it up to the audience to ask questions. So it's again, for us it's a way, as you said it's a way to watch we are a product company and we pick insights from the consumers. If you ask me, these platforms, these technologies more will come through and it will consolidate into something which will give us an insight of saying that we have to start building products which will be in sync. Like today we don't do mixed reality or we don't do artificial reality, augmented reality for that matter. The thing is that we are in a weird and watch game when these things will be scalable and people will look at a product and would want to have an experience in that. So it's too early for a product company to make a judgment on that. But yeah. Think of it as now that this is something, are you beginning to experiment or thinking about experimenting with the more here and now things like augmented reality filters just to get warmed up with playing around with these mediums as marketeers and seeing what it means to do that and Lalitha, that's for you and Srishti, it will be great to hear your thoughts as well. So you know, National Pavement Corporation of India is a tech first firm. Technology excites us literally. So anything that we can do in that space connects inevitably with our ethos. Just there, we're just hoping, waiting, watching the tech scene all the time. What you said about the entire AR, VR scene, we're watching it and like you said the first reaction was it's too expensive. However, the adaptational adoption towards it may grow inevitably and we see that AI is something that we are waiting, watching. We are trying to understand it again. It is a far more evolved space than if I may say the gaming community in India for the simple reason that in India the acceptance towards AI may be far higher. But we are also waiting and watching but technology-wise it could be an alternative that we are also exploring in the various output as an output device which we are using for even marketing. Shashi, what's your view? So AI not currently for us in India but that's again... AR and VR also is something that we have started discussions about and everything but that's not something that we are going to focus on this year itself. We may over a period of time and like Lalitha mentioned that it is something that is not just very expensive but that's something that people in India also need to start adopting. So we need to take away, we need to think about it properly and then take a call as to how we want to go about it and so instead of that the things that you were talking about the different verticals like onboarding brand ambassadors or doing in-stream brandings those are the things that we are actually looking at doing because that's something that will be easily adopted in India specifically. So Lalitha kindly avoided that question but I'm going to ask all of you which games are you excited to partner with going forward in this year in order to be associated with communities that you want to work with. Do you have any picks and choices which you think are going to be ascendant? Team Soul. Sorry? Team Soul. Got it. I mean they are core people. Yeah. That's something that we are assuming you have to be agnostic but in terms of just as a you know business owner which ones do you think are going to grow well? Teams you are asking? Teams and games. Which games do you think are going to be ones which are ascendant over this year? So I can like it is very evident that PGMI is on the roll right now. Yeah. Right? What we have also seen is that gaming has also kind of adapted its way when the game was not there. So it was doing fairly well and when the game BGMI was not there it was rather which was prevailing. Yeah. And the GTA is another? Yeah. GTA was also one of the games which was basically. The top three would be? Yeah. So if I have to talk about PC right it would be Valo. Yeah. GTA right and all the casual games as well they are also very nice. And then if I talk about the mobile games right I would say I would count my bets on Ludo also right. Yeah. Very popular very nice very interactive as well. But if I talk about viewership and consumption of that particular game then it would be BGMI and free fire of course. And be you sure inventory view of the world would be which ones do you think are going to? I think so we are not obsessed with this particular game we have been serving ads in every other game. So by and large any title you name it a little bit of hardcore keep moving away from advertising because they have an app purchase model they keep running tournaments so the time they remove the ads but 90% of the ads are running on all the games and Ludo King is one title which has been there consistently in the top 10 since last two and a half year during COVID. The popular games for the advanced demand Candy Crush, Temple Run, Survey Server they go by the name they see that much of consumption each individual game is having I think 40 to 50 million per month consumption. So that's the game they look for and then ultimately it's audience targeting what we look for. We don't go by selling in terms of game specific as a title audience targeting and then you have the various other filters on affinity and all which you can look for. So that's the approach. The brands are also now embracing it. We've been also pitching that way. And that's... And Suryash what are you thinking when you're designing your next line of products when you're picking up influencers to co-design this with which games are you thinking of? So for the current range we are looking at BGMI and Valorant because those are the accessories that they carry and that's why they would need our bags but having said that we are designing for smaller accessories also. So we are going to do smaller carry cases and much more. So I would say any game for that matter works for us. But I'm very bullish on BGMI coming back. It will get a wave of new age gamers who haven't seen it for a while and adopting gaming very now. So that's... BGMI is one I'm looking forward. Lalitha would you want to add any color to this? So depending upon the genre of the game we are going after if it is FPS we will probably choose the top ones there which is obvious from the download list that you see. Same goes for strategy games. It would probably be Dota or Clash Royale or Clash of Clans or something like that. Depending upon the segment the genre that we are going at we will probably invest in it. But again like he mentioned that the problem with core gaming is ad blockers and all of those things that come into play. So inevitably the strategy changes. But personally I would have a favorite game but when it comes to company level we are not so discriminative if I may say that. I don't want to ask you which one it is. Let's open it up for questions from the audience if there are any. Are there any? We have somebody there. Hi this is my name is Pankaj. I represent the QU media. We have just entered into the gaming sector just couple of months back. Pankaj Rai this is from QU media. We have just entered into the gaming segment couple of months back and my question is to Puge that where do you see the gaming ecosystem in terms of advertising and the revenue that in the next three years what should be the pie of advertising through gaming in the entire digital ecosystem. And how this is going to be I will say how it is going to be phase out in front of the overall edX if we compare it from the television media because what is happening is right now people talk about a lot that I see and by around surroundings environment people are consuming more of games and less of televisions. Obviously I come from a television background I know that what is happening over there also and we have entered into the gaming segment so I know what is happening over here also. Where do you see in the next three years that this is the estimated numbers which should be the advertising pie in the overall digital ecosystem from the gaming segment. So roughly from the digital edX what the last reports have come out close to around 40,000 crore is what the digital edX in India is also surpassing the television number I believe this year is what it has been aiming to. The gaming is almost contributing 15% out of it as of now what we from our understanding and the reports which has been reflecting the pie should go in the next two to four years what you said it should cross easily 25% of that with the way the casual gamers numbers and the hardcore gamers numbers are growing and when the brands are also embracing it pretty well I really see this will cross 25% in the next two to four years. Any other questions? Actually Samir I want you to answer that as well what do we what do you estimate as I think 302-400 million is the time in terms of advertising overall it's a 3 billion dollar market 2 billion is coming from RMG 1 billion is from in-app purchases and the rest is about 300-400 million I would say is 1.8 is RMG 200-300 million is what I would say is currently growing at about 30% cago so 300-400 million in terms of in-game ads any other questions? all right great thank you everyone for your time oh there's one my name is architect palavi I am the founder of the digital pod which is a marketing and innovation company across globe my question here is because we have so many gaming it's in a gaming industry so many people are coming up there are ads which are going to run on gaming platforms so what is the challenge when it comes to the gaming industry and what is the challenge as an advertiser on gaming platform because this challenge is going to be there when you have so many players to bring a competitive advantage so how you bring that competitive advantage when we have so many gaming platforms and even it is going to be used by so many people for advertisements anyone wants to take that? I think that you should just email anirudhadrat everyonegaming.com that will solve everything for you so you know that is what we basically do we help brands to invest money in the right directions in the gaming ecosystem because it is very diverse as we are discussing right so it is filled with casual space e-sports and semi-casual and triplet titles and everything and it has different IPs and different type of contents as well so to understand that fully I think you should definitely get into the space also learn about it yourself as well and also hire an expert to help you with that and with the previous experiences I think that anybody any brand which is out there who wants to place themselves like VIP is doing right now they are riding the wave of the gaming ecosystem and the viewership right now and what they are basically trying to do is that you have to be very specific what is the market fit for you and then target the right kind of audience that particular game has to offer and that is a simple statement and then there are top complexities that an agency can help you with and if you want programmatic solutions you can get in touch with Piyush alright thank you everyone for taking the time and thank you for being such great listeners