dentsu India Gaming Report 2025

India's pure-play gaming industry, valued at over ₹8,248 crore, is positioned for rapid expansion, with projections of a compound annual growth rate above 23% through 2027 and the pool of pure-play gamers rising from 16.63 crore to roughly 24.68 crore within three years. The dentsu India Gaming Report 2025 attributes this momentum to affordable smartphones, deeper digital penetration in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, the spread of UPI payments, and free-to-play monetization. The report frames the sector as shifting from a back-office development hub toward a creator-led ecosystem with homegrown intellectual property.

The analysis is broadly optimistic but candid about constraints. Regulatory ambiguity, particularly the distinction between gaming and gambling, persists alongside difficulties in monetization, funding, technical quality, piracy, and limited access to global publishing networks. Women make up more than 40% of the audience, and genres are mapped into winning, high-potential, dormant, and low-priority categories based on popularity and engagement. Esports, creator-led marketing, and culturally rooted IP are identified as the most significant growth avenues, with the potential to make India a global creative exporter.

Findings draw on a gaming-native Gen Z and Gen Alpha population and on talent migrating from VFX, animation, and real-money gaming following the ban on the latter. Policy signals such as the National AVGC-XR Task Force are viewed cautiously but positively. Stakeholders consistently emphasize storytelling, accessibility, and India-origin IP as the strongest levers, with midcore games, sustainable monetization, and patient capital seen as the main opportunities for moving the sector from service provider to IP creator. The report's methodology combines a quantitative survey of pro-gamers with qualitative interviews across developers, publishers, and brands, though extraction limitations leave specific sample sizes and research dates unclear.