Dream Sports and the Future of Cricket

[Music] welcome to the novic gaming podcast where it is our mission to explore the business and future of video games we bring together the industry's brightest Builders investors and thinkers to keep a pulse on current events dissect emerging Trends and games share Lessons Learned and have a great time this podcast is also part of novic growing ecosystem which ranges from free and premium research to Consulting and AD advisory services for more information visit [Music] www.nic.edu Europe and Asia with its dedicated gaming practice light speed gaming the firm is investing from over $7 billion in early and growth stage Capital making

it by far the largest fund focused on gaming and interactive technology Light speed's Team combines deep expertise in gaming with a global multi-stage investment platform and a culture that truly puts Founders first selected Investments include epic games snap and stability AI as well as game designers and producers who led the creation of titles like fortnite Call of Duty League of Legends valerant Starcraft 2 and many more for more information simply go to gaming. lsvp docomo everyone and welcome to the novic gaming podcast I'm your host Alex te and this is the interview and insight segment so dream Sports is one of India's biggest Sports and technology companies for anyone that follows fantasy sports you've heard of dream 11 one of the world's largest fantasy sports platforms for Fantasy soccer volleyball football and more dream 11 has raised hundreds of millions of dollars and is honestly just one part of

the dream Sports family the dream Sports ecosystem consists of fan code dream Sports Foundation dream setg go and finally dream game studios the CEO and founder of which is joining us today and we're having this conversation because for as much as we cover PC and AAA and mobile something we don't talk about too much on air or sports games and we know that they're some of the most popular sports genres of games in the world the market size for V Sports video games is around 20 billion USD and extensively some obious juggernauts are EA Sports FC Madden and NBA 2K but today we're going to discuss sports games with a finer pen towards geography and Innovation and there's interesting Innovation going on in sports game at the micro level mechanics and Graphics enhanced realism lots of personalization andem merging real world players with games but what is the next lateral expansion is it just making more sports games are these territories pois for growth I of course don't have the answers to these questions but I'm excited to welcome rooh Gupta founder and CEO of dream game

studios to help us figure it all out welcome to the Pod thanks Alex great to be here excited to be here and really appreciate this opportunity yeah I'm pretty excited to record this episode because um something we'll talk about later in the episode today is dream Cricket 24 and although the Olympics will be far pass over by the time this airs I was watching and Bumm that I didn't see any Cricket in the Olympics this year but apparently that Cricket will return in 28 um yeah Los Angeles you're excited about that yeah um I also heard it's remarkably popular in the US of all places Texas um Cricket is huge so yeah definitely I mean you see the last World Cup that happened happened in the US right and there is like major cricket league uh which is which major league Cricket sorry uh which has just come up right so exciting times for Cricket like as a sport which has been very popular in India

now having a blue footprint yeah yeah and we'll definitely talk about like whether or not those Tailwinds at at some point in the episode um but before we kick off um I'd love for you to tell the audience a little bit about yourself and how you came to found dream game studios yeah so hi everyone I'm the founder and CEO of dream game studios I would say one of the most exciting mobile games company coming out of India right now uh very specifically we are building AAA Mobile sports games right right we are a sports gaming company that's we are that is what we are doing that is what we plan to continue to do uh me personally has been building games for 17 years now uh prior to dream game studios I was the founder of rule games uh who was the pioneer of midcore games from India uh we won multiple International awards for some of many of our games from 2010 2016 including the international mobile game Awards in

Barcelona where we won the People's Choice Award including the game of the year at I and many more right uh interestingly we were also the inventor of an Edis award-winning Tech called as ruler Motion in 2014 I'm not sure how many of you have heard of that back then but uh it is a very interesting Tech that converts your phone into a Nintendo V kind of an experience right uh and yeah dreaming game studios I would say is even more groundbreaking than rer more ambitious than ever uh so yeah amazing yeah thank you for that that context there um because it sounds like uh you know this is something that is part of the overall dream Sports strategy and so we're going to talk about how dream games um the studio specifically folds into that strategy um before we kind of start running down that pipe um dream Sports as I mentioned in the intro has a has a lot going on um so as a larger conglomerate it holds stream 11 a fantasy sports platform fan code which is a digital Sports

destination dream Sports Foundation which is a philanthropy arm dream set go which is a sports travel and experiences arm and dream game studios which you just describe now but before we start talking about dream game studios I'd love to understand the general holistic journey of dream Sports how did it begin like what's its Mission um and kind of how did it grow into all of those different um how did it grow and acquire all those different pieces sure so if you look at dream sport it's a very mission-driven company right and the mission is simple right to make Sports better uh that is what we are here for that is what dream 11 is doing that is what fan code is doing dream Seto is doing dream game studios is doing and I mean it has very humble beginnings uh back in 2008 dream Sports was founded by haran babit uh so both of them like grew up uh playing IPL eepl fantasy league right and the question they ask

themselves is why not have it uh for Cricket right and that is how the dream 11 started uh currently if you look at uh dream Sports in 2024 it is the leading Sports tech company right uh and very likely to become one of the leading in the world in time to come to talk about the different uh business verticles that you see right so first if you look at sports right Sports is very big uh there are like so many verticals which is possible right uh like as a sports fan you would let's say watch a sports match on a TV right you would play a fantasy you would buy merchandise right you would maybe go and watch a sports game in a stadium or you might play a sports games right so there are just so many verticals which is possible in sports and for dream Sports to become let's say the world's leading Sports tech company they have to have a very 360 degree approach right to be able to

capture all these word so if you look at dream 11 it is already world's largest fantasy sports platform right fancode is like a digital Sports destination it's more like a streaming platform like merchandise if you want to watch A Match you can go to Fan Cod you want to buy merchandise you can go to Fan Cod and dream set go like you mentioned right it's travel Sports travel Sports tourism for the people who likes to experience physically the sports right what dgs is we F the vertical which is sports gaming right uh so just like dream Sports as ambitious we want to become one of the largest Sports geming company World it walk shoulder toh shoulder with some of the big names which is out there I know it's a very big Vision might take a decade or a two but yeah I mean that is what we're building for and what really differentiates dream Sports I would say is a Founder Le approach right I mean definitely all these verticals were set up but we also understand and that to

truly disrupt a vertical you need to have a Founder approach to be able to build businesses from 0 to 1 to 10 to 100 or things like that right so yeah I mean uh this is just a start I would say there is like many more exciting things to come in the future got it yeah that's great context to talk about you know what the overall MCH and yeah of course it seems like sports stitch together everything it's a as you said very well um a 360 view um um I would love to little unpack a little bit about also how the company is structured um you know how big is the company at this point and theoretically like do is all are all of the verticals sit separately um with different heads of business for each business unit um looking to understand like what's the collaboration like inter between uh fan code and dream 11 uh dgs Etc sure so first of all uh there's a parent entity which is dream sports right and all of us are part of

that pent organization right whether it is dream 11 whether it is fan Cod dream set Quin dream game studios right one thing that I mentioned earlier it's a Founder Le approach right so every business unit right has a Founder so think of it like a corporate start right in which we are here to disrupt a market uh we are here to disrupt a vertical right so uh we have a very similar structure when it comes to any typical startup right so so we have a board right it's a very professional board we have like regular board meetings that happens right uh geographically uh from the location perspective it all depends upon uh where does it make sense to have that office in fact we call our office our Stadium right so we'll have like you might hear a lot of uh sports related terminologies that we use internally so uh we have offices in Mumbai and in Pune right so dream 11 fan code in dream setg

go is based out of Mumbai and the dream game studios is based out of Pune like so if you look at Pune right it's one of the uh like one of the top destination for game development in India apart from Bangalore and Hyderabad right so we have like some of the big studios like Ubisoft uh in Pune uh we have Reliance games we have super gaming got it I see and so all of the as as the founder L Mission all of those companies were they birthed in house or were they acquired so it's a mix of both right so there were some companies who were born internally right so they were first incubated within dream Sports and then uh we realized that hey this could actually become like an organization and entity itself right and that is how they were formed in case of dream game studios it was formed through the acquisition of rule games uh back in 2021 yeah I think it's interesting to unpack this because because this is kind of like a big company I guess what we

call entrepreneurship um where you're trying to create that entrepreneurship experience but sometimes inside big companies and this is you know your structure is lending towards that approach yeah um before again we go back to dream game Sports um I want to talk a little bit about dream 11 um because for those that are unfamiliar with fantasy sports would love for you to explain you know what players are doing on the platform um and you know and where the basis of what comprises the majority of their play time as a on the fantasy sports platform as it may inform our discussion about dream gam studios's approach um dream 11 currently has like 220 million active users at this point but you know what comprises the majority of the Playtime and and what are people specifically doing on on the app okay so uh being a founder of dream gam Studios I'll definitely give you some insights into dream 11 but that would again be limited to a certain extent right so

first of all uh just like any other fantasy platform uh and going with the vision or the mission of dream Sports which is to make Sports better right so dream 11 is to actually enhance the Sports Experience that you have while watching a real match right here is your opportunity to really put to test all your Cricket knowledge right and pick the best team uh from let's say in case of cricket there are like 11 players playing on both sides so from 22 players you select the best performing 11 players right based on your Cricket knowledge based on the past performance of those players uh based on the different Dynamics between teams and things like that and when the match starts your that knowledge is truly put to test so it's like a leaderboard right in which uh different points are given based on how the match goes so for example if you score a run you score a point right based on this points your ranking is determined on the leaderboard

right and definitely the one who wins was able to have the best knowledge of uh the entire experience that was expected out of the match got it yeah that's and that's great context though because I think for some of um our audience that may not be familiar with the fantasy sports betting platform to separate it from what a video game is um and so this is more of like a companion app where you're tracking real players real matches making bets Etc assembling like you know a dream no pun intended roster and seeing sort of how how you do and I'm sure that there are some synergies there with what we what you guys are doing in dream Cricket 24 which we will eventually get to um and there is definitely one point I would like to add your since you mentioned that like the betting part of things but if you look at Fantasy it is actually much more than that right yeah uh it is it is not just about selecting a single player it is more about selecting a roster of 11 players right to be able to let's say in

a cricket game right just like like any of the sports there are different roles that different players play so for example you have batsman you have Bowlers you have Wicket keep you have all-rounders right so to be able to create a team of these players requires immense Cricket knowledge and understanding of cricket right to be able to finally select that team into top that leaderboard right so got it yeah it's but it's it's very much like a Team Construction team roster team management and a kind of but it's not a management Sim game which is separate from yeah you know like as those do exist is connected to the real life right what is happening uh in a live match versus what is happening yeah in the game in the game um but that actually pivots us back towards Dream deam Studios um and we talked a little bit about the what prompted the idea of building theit building an in-house Studio which for you guys was we want to have it 360 coverage on the entire

Sports Market which for includes Sports video games um but I would love for you to tell me a little bit about the studio um you know what games you have built so far and how big the studio is um and you know where obviously we talked about where development takes place but you know talking a little bit about the studio strategy for Innovation and building games okay so there is a common DNA that we have inside dream Sports right uh that is followed by almost in fact that is followed by all the business verticals and all the startups right within the dream Sports EOS system which is to solve real problems right and if you look at what dream games is trying to do uh is also trying to have a very problem solving approach right which might sound a bit weird when it comes to building games right you might say hey what is the problem you're trying to solve by building a game so when we started dream Gap Studios first we set out what that and this is

something that we identified a problem right that there are 2.5 billion Cricket fans which is out there and there is not a single game who is able to provide them the gaming value or the entertainment value that they truly deserve right if you compare it with a lot of other sports which is out there let's say football basketball there are like so many great games out there you mentioned two of them FC mobile maen is there and then there is NBA 2K right so so we asked a question to ourselves like why should football fans have all the fun or Baseball fans or maybe basketball fans we like hey let's build a product which gives Cricket fans an experience that they truly deserve and that was the start of it definitely there were a lot of business angles to it right first a large addressable Market uh secondly if you look at sports genre right as such you would see that historically right

whether we go to the start of the gaming industry in general when FIFA or ES Sports started FIFA I I don't know if you know this but FIFA was first started in 1993 right I mean it's been 31 years and that is one IP that is still number one and like e football is also there so there is like a huge Market which is able to actually hold multiple players in right so so from a business angle if you see dream game studios wants to build a very sustainable longlasting and profitable business right and sports genre give reduces that risk when it comes to building a legacy right which is what we are after we are not here to build a game for one year three year five year we're here to build games for decade right uh I mean we often say this but we are actually not building for 2024 we are actually building for 2054 right that is that is where we see dream Cricket uh in the future that's

the ambition at least and that is how we make decisions internally right I I mean I see that I don't know if uh like maybe in 2054 I might have retired I don't know maybe I want to like sit on a beach sipping a beer and playing dream Cricket 2054 right that's that's trly the version and uh if you look from a size of the organization we are currently 70 people strong and growing right dream Cricket is the first game under the dream game studios umbrella if you look at rule games it also started as a gaming company we build a game for squash badminton tennis bowling and a lot of other sports games right in addition to that we also build uh games in other genres as well like a zombie shooter uh we built we built a dance game right so very varied in different genres and ultimately realize that Sports is where

we extend truly and that is where we'll double down on right uh I hope I have covered almost everything with respect to dream game studios yeah I think so um and so I mean in summary right the stud is around 70 people dream Cricket is the first um it's the first game to that is out by this studio um and you shared a lot about you know why build a cricket game Etc um I think that double Taps into you know specifically you mentioned there's you know you're trying to build a business as well right and you're trying to tap into what is potentially like a blue ocean in in in the cricket Sports gaming market right right now there's a problem it's a problem statement for sure um players are currently being underserved if they're into Cricket um and so I want to talk a little bit about that market specifically the India Sports gaming Market because although we just mentioned in the beginning of this episode that uh the cricket is actually very popular the US it's obviously

significantly more popular in India so how big is this Cricut Market um in India versus the rest of the world and also what are those players what are their spend behaviors like in this market um I I'm just curious as understanding a little bit about the demographics of the players that you're serving um and and then Market specifically it's probably very different from the West sure so firstly you mentioned blue ocean right I I agree with you on that it's a blue ocean yet red ocean right contradictory statements but the reason that I say that it's a red ocean because there are so many cricket games out there in India okay and it is natural right because a fan base of 2.5 billion right definitely you would want to address that at the end of the day the thing is what is unique is that majority of these games are built by Studios and indad right uh primar because it is a very India it has been a

very India specific sport is now growing internationally as well if you look at the market overall all these cricket games has been able to accumulate almost 400 million downloads overall from a sports games perspective right uh there are definitely two categories one is arcade sports games uh cricket league from mini clip is the one who leads that almost 130 million downloads uh maybe somewhere around like 10 Millions monthly active uh then we have realistics cricket games right uh which is historically has been or traditionally has been real cricket and world cricket championships right so real cricket and wccr both build by Studios based in India right dream Cricket if you see we fall in the realistic Sports category that is what we are trying to go after from a monetization perspective that's a different story altogether right so if you look at uh the overall Sports gaming or overall

gaming Market in India uh you can say somewhere around a billion dollars right uh but if you look at sports it's a very small or very small part of it right uh currently the gaming Market in India from a revenue perspective is largely dominated by Battle Royale games right whether it is GMI or pubg or free fire right now and that is where the blue ocean comes right because there is like just such a huge opportunity when it comes to uh monetization when it comes to games but then the games local games in India have been unable to unlock the true potential of monetization right when it comes to gaming in India particularly and particularly the sports games I'll also talk about maybe why that's the reason maybe as we move forward in this conversation interesting yeah I think um it's interesting to hear you know

because again one of my other questions that you that you already answered was you know what is the games what is the games Market cricket games Market currently comprised of um and it sounds like it's actually ultra competitive there's lots of games that have been made in India for Cricket um and so therefore your problem statement is we still don't feel that any of those specifically maybe in the realistic genre are satisfactory towards the actual experience um can you we're going to get there about talking about why What specifically you know platform gameplay Etc about what that difference is before we move off the the Indian gaming Market uh I do want to do a little bit of a compare and contrast between the RO Sports market and India like if you had to give me like three differences between rest of World Sports video game fans and India Sports gaming fans what are those um as I think it will inform um the last piece of our podcast discussion sure so rest of the world I'll definitely give you a bit of

a limited view right primarily because we are very much focused on India that is what we are going after but definitely we have some decent understanding of how the global Sports gaming look like right so from a market perspective it's somewhere around $2 billion right some of the major players you had mentioned that uh FC mobile is huge right Maiden is huge uh uh NBA2K is huge right uh if you look at from from a Gamers perspective what differentiates let's say the sports gamers in India versus Sports Gamers uh outside uh India one of the biggest thing that stands out is the volume right there are just like so many sports fans in India when it comes to Cricket and a very young demographic right uh again right it it comes down to the shift that we're seeing in India right now right there is just like so many Millennials jeni and Jen Alpha who are just coming getting

digitally adopted where we see the growth when it comes to sports gaming is going to be significantly larger in India versus rest of the world got it yeah I think I think the ones that would pop up to me are there's I think uh I've did an episode on the India gaming Market as a general whole with the lumai fund and a couple of other Founders that are building different games not sports games but one of the biggest one is the aptitude for is the heavy aptitude for Sports in general right people just really like sports the heavy aptitude also for um RMG which is probably very it's very heavily present in India versus somewhere like the West not that there is no like DraftKings Etc and also just the platform that people are playing on right like all of those games Madden NBA 2K eafc are like predominantly console games versus mobile experiences um and so it's curious because those have different spend beh those those behaviors obviously inform the kind of

game that you decide to ultimately build um and maybe that's an opportunity for us to take us there about you know dream Cricket right is you know tell me about the platform tell me about the actual gameplay um you know i' would also love to understand you know how important given that you said that it's a real in the realistic genre how important is it to have actual real world player representation so the players that are actually out in the real world that people are betting on in dream 11 are they present are those IP and likenesses is present in um in dream Cricket yeah so lot of ips are present inside dream cricket and in fact if you look at the vision of dream sports right it's ultimately the ecosystem that we're trying to build in which like in the in the future that you see all these things will be interconnected right whether it is dream 11 whether it is dream Cricket whether it is F code whether is dream C right so it's a it's a single destination for sports fans to just enjoy everything right so imagine like that uh a match starts right in a real

in a real life uh you create your team uh and the match starts right now after that you don't have to do anything on dream 11 because the match has started you open dream Cricket you have your dream from dream 11 and sight dream cricket and then you start playing with them right and then you enjoy it so much you like the kit and all you go in the merchandise store on fan code and you just buy it from there and things like that it's a long-term Vision that I told you about when it comes to like connecting all the dots in the ecosystem but I have to specifically talk about dream cricket and its current alar right now then what do we really differentiate on first are some of the pillars that we extensively focuses on right what we truly wants to give like I mentioned in the past in sometime back as well that we are trying to give the cricket fans what they truly deserves right so it has to be a 360° experience that you have to create right so there are multiple

pillars that we have identified which will allow us to give that 360 de experience right the first pillar being the visuals right uh I I told you about the realistic game genre so when it comes to the visual it it it covers almost everything right whether it's the best looking Graphics uh whether it's the best looking players as close as possible to realism you can say let's Ultra realism or hyper realism right we pride ourselves in saying that we are trying to build a AAA Mobile sports game right so trying to like juice up the processing power of a mobile phone using the best inclass tech which is the second pillar for us right be able to combine everything together when it comes to the visuals whether it is animations whether it's the stadiums whether it's the characters whether it's the audio combining it all together and give you the smoothest experience possible which also brings to another subvertical of check which is let's say

a multiple experience right it has to be a very seamless competitive experience that we're trying to build then best gamep play and to connect all of these things together the best meta right so the problem that we're trying to solve from a meta perspective we're trying to actually solve for in fact in a lot of sports people have this dream to build a team which they feel is the strongest in the world right think of it like their dream team that is the solve that we're giving to the users hey here is a game here is a platform where you can go and build your dream team it doesn't matter where that player comes from right it can be a current player it can be a player from 2019 90s 1980s doesn't matter right yeah if it's if it's Cricket build the dream team that you always dreamt of right and by the way there is no such best dream deam possible right because it is very subjective right at the end of the day

you might think that this is my best dream deam or someone might say that hey this is the best dream team and that is what creates like such unique experiences especially in multiplayer experiences got it yeah so in the multiplayer experience I just want to just confirm that you are you're slaying up a a roster of 11 against another roster of 11 so it's a PVP framework where you're playing this game against somebody else you're not Co-op playing with someone running half your team and you're running the other half yeah I mean that's that is something that we have been discussing a lot internally currently it is definitely One V one but in the future let's see whether the co-op comes or not one one thing that I'll I'll mention Alex right what we're trying to do differently is we are lifeb building the C what that really means is that if you look at dream Cricket the game is not yet complete but we still decided to launch it right in our main market right we

said hey and it was a strategic decision with lot of advantages that we see we say that hey let's build this game with the community right let's listen to the users what they want so it is more about balancing what the user needs and balancing what user might know not know yet what they need right and it has been like a fantastic experience for us right uh in which we have seen like a steady growth as we move towards uh our road map right and like we live in an age where the games are never complete right it's more like a game as a service right it's a live game so it will continue to go on but you if you if you play the game you would notice that there are lot of features which are not there yet and it is intentional we are taking a very uh problem solving approach uh and a kpi driven approach to product development is very unique inia yeah um and I I actually

want to talk a little bit about like the the current games launch in reception but you know you mentioned this you're double tapping on this thing you said the the three pillars you know Advanced Tech uh heightened realism um and one of them was being like again like we want to fulfill people's dream of building their dream their dream team right I actually found that fairly interesting because um I was under the impression that a lot of people played sports games because they wish that they were the athlete they were like oh I wish I could have been a basketball player oh I wish I could have been a soccer player but in reality it's ALS it's more to correct the wrongs of the real world um and so people are like oh my gosh like if uh you know so and so Barcelona lost and now I go into eafc and I'm gonna go correct the past I'm gonna queue Up This Man City versus Barcelona match and I'm going to fix things and so I think that's a really interesting core fantasy for the game um but I think what's important in that is obviously having that real world

player representation and so I'm curious from the business side um you know you just mentioned that you could have a Cricket player's likeness from like n you said like 1980 or something like that um how are you getting all those likenesses in the game um and what's the business model around licensing those those images and likenesses especially if the players are currently alive and it's probably even more complicated if they're they're not alive yeah so definitely uh when I said 1980 definitely we don't have any licenses from 1980 yet right I definitely spoke about the longer Mission but we definitely have lot of licenses when it comes to retired players right let's say okay from the 2000s right or from uh let's say the 10 uh from the decade which uh ended in 2020 right uh it's it's very interesting because if you look at uh the licensing business bit of things right when it comes to Cricket it's actually very fragmented right uh

as opposed to uh what you see in let's say NBA or FIFA right in FIFA you will have like fif Pro it's like a association of football players where it's the single organization that you have to interact with and you get let's say all the licenses right uh in cricket it is still a bit fragmented right so we are still trying to figure out how to like piece everything together we see definitely a lot of I would say progress or improvements that is happening in the cricket ecosystem right with the cricket associations and things like that so it's definitely exciting times uh but it's a problem that we need to solve as we build along right it's it's not not a problem that soled entirely yet I see yeah because I would imagine it being quite complicated because even on it's definitely in the in on Sports like football and and soccer I I'm under the impression that there's also even some challenges with licensing those players because there's team ownership there's

like a team license so like oh I can have the um the Tottenham Jersey but then there's the actual individual person specifically and that's also an extra extra layer of complications so all these like licenses that have been structured um for many many years and this is also like why with with eafc and then Fe and losing the FIFA license they didn't lose any of their players um they still had all the rights to the players Etc um so it's curious like how that dynamic is working for Cricket um yeah because it also just is a lot of governance and overhead for the studio to manage but on the other side perhaps there's synergies from the dream um Sports Group yeah that that helps a lot right that goes a long way uh in fact that's the Strategic Advantage right that we as dream game studios can actually go and say that hey we'll build the most authentic cricket game out of India right being the startup right and dream Sports plays a huge role here right and it and see Alex it's it's an ecosystem shift that is happening right

it's a very different approach that we're taking to product development to everything right so definitely it's like a think of it like a wave that lifts all the ships so uh that is what we're trying to do right hopefully uh cricket ecosystem will become as matured as what football or basketball and baseball is in time to yeah makes sense um and it sounds like for you guys you know you're thinking about Cricket to India or you know dream Cricket potentially as Madden is to the US um but I and but you also are doing a very different development and you know go to market approach than maybe something like a Madden which boxes it up spends a couple years on it ships it out and then does that annually every year um what has been challenging about this style of launch for you and what has been challenging specifically about dream crickets launch and reception as you've worked on this product live over the past couple of months so in fact it has been very interesting right this entire lifeb

building strategy uh that we went after uh we definitely had some apprehensions uh before uh when we decided to go ahead with it but then there are so many pluses that we saw uh going ahead with it the biggest shift or the challenge I would say it is the mindset shift that the entire team was able to get just by launching the game out there and to be able to see that you are out in the open right and people can actually publicly criticize you for example right publicly can say things about your game right for example when you're are in closed beta or when you're in open Beta you still get the reviews from the users you still get the feedback from the users but then the public in general is unable to read those reviews right so right so what you can do is you can go hey I mean it doesn't matter what the rating is right you can be least worried about what the public perception would

be right because no one is aware what people are talking about but when you do live when you go live then everything is out in the open right people can criticize a game which is half developed and we took that bet uh we took that approach uh turned out that in first few months or maybe in a month or two it it was like crazy we had our ratings going down right uh but then that is where the team comes together right all ultimately comes down to the people who are building this game right they automatically understood what is the priority right uh in fact I I'll maybe talk about some of the culture values of dream Sports and dream game studios work forward but one of that is user first right and that mindset shift when it happen people automatically realize right what is important for the game what is it that we need to focus on and instead I mean you know you have

been in the gaming industry for so long it could get overwhelming for the number of features that you have to build right it gave us that Clarity on what we really need to focus on right so from a challenge perspective I would say just the phase that we went through where the ratings were going down to the phase where we are now right so if you look at Google Play Store we are somewhere around 4.3 Stars right uh we were once around 3.7 and that is truly a team effort uh a truly a focus effort to truly focus on what like the user needs are user wants and what we believe user wants right so that has been the experience I would like strongly recommend going with that approach every to other game studios as well uh it's it's definitely a bit counterintuitive but has worked out pretty well so far yeah I mean it's it's it's it's like they say feedback is a blessing and a curse right I think you boys your

backlog probably prioritized really well cuz all you have to do is check the comments and you're like people care a lot about this and we need to fix it immediately versus kind of being in your own unit of 70 kind of postulating about what the priority might be so it's very helpful to that extent but at the same time like you said people are you know unfortunately judging a product before it's completely final right and then you know they might be saying like oh and it's hard for people who don't work in the in the business of making games to kind of see through where is this thing going right they're like they're judging it right there at face value and being like this thing is broken or this thing doesn't work the way that I would expect it to um and that could be hard like you said for your team to receive that feedback especially to receive it publicly yeah but yeah that that was just interesting and to knowing because I think it's you've had this this launch and reception and you're obviously building and also launching into a crowded you know cricket cricket gaming market so a lot of people are also probably comparing your game which maybe have a younger life cycle to older games

that have been out for multiple years yes and and one would thing I would like to mention here right the focus that I was me talking to you about so whenever you launch a game right there is a ex there is like a inherent pressure that you have when with respect to user acquisition you're like hey this is my opportunity the launch has to be big it has to be like so huge uh and you don't know how the users are reacting to it right so you don't know whether the product Market fit is there or not right so when we did the life building the entire burden of user acquisition went away right because we were like hey we why are we doing this in first place right we are doing it to collect the user feedback right publicly and to also have a mind shift in us as a game developers right and there was no user acquisition that was involved in it the good thing was the kind of reception that we got from users was amazing right now almost 6 million downloads right 6

million users that we were able to get without user acquisition right okay and without tapping into the dream Sports ecosystem yet right it was purely organic uh purely based on the communication that Community thing that I was telling you about 6 million users 1 million month more than 1 million monthly active users so yeah got it got it yeah um and this is again mostly targeted obviously in India specifically um do you think that um and I'm guessing this is more cards the question of like what does success look like for this game um like how do you plan to grow do you think that dream Cricket can go cross borders and if so you know what lends you to believe that yes definitely it can go cross borders but India is going to be the media market for us right uh in time to come uh uh if you look at I I I already told you about the the user base that a lot

of other games has been able to get when it comes to game right 400 million uh cative downloads of all the games if you look at cricket league 130 million right we are still at 6 million right so there is like such a huge uh user base that we still have to cater to right and predominantly these users are are from India right if you talk about cross border then definitely there are many more countries which are Cricket crazy right just like India and if you look at like let's say Europe right then there is like UK right uh if you look at let's say Asia Pacific then there is like Australia then there is South Africa and if you look at like Cricket fans I mean we we live in a global economy right Cricket fans you will find everywhere in the world the end of day uh uh we at the start of this podcast right we spoke about uh how the World Cup happened in the US right and how there is like Major League cricket

which has recently started so we see lot of interest in cricket and lot of cricket fans in the future for Cricket so definitely Beyond India there is lot of uh growth that we see for cricket games or specifically dream Cricket uh as well all right that's perfect and actually a great segue to talk about our final topic which is kind of just the global Sports gaming Market you know taking Cricket aside right what are the opportunities for sports games in general to innovate um and also maybe what dream sports groups role is in all of this but um before we get there I kind of want to run um the couple ideas I had a conversation with a sports gaming VC about this I'd love to get your take on you know what is potentially next for the future of sports games in general um so the first would be lateral expansion just make more sports games um so like you said like what you guys are doing expand into Cricket um bad Mitten um squash uh and

tap into like those underserved players underserved sports for people who would be interested in playing those video games um that that sport a video game right um the next thing would be to create more interesting game modes within one sport so like the 3v3 basketball by tensent um Etc there's been a lot of innovation specifically in basketball games for um mode mode setup and like non nonre World Sports Dynamics and and team rosters um the third would be platform expansion so put sports games in VR or something like that um and the fourth would be a deeper integration of video game Sports and the real world um so combine Sports and video game Sports to make an entirely new sport such as I saw drone racing at the Olympics or some or somewhere uh it's not not the Olympics I think another competition where like you run and then you race a drone and then you like put it back down and then you keep

going um so those are my four ideas uh what are what are your ideas sure definitely right so I would say instead of calling it let's say the small like the sports which has lesser uh fan base let's say you talked about squash you talked about Badminton right there are a lot of sports which has let's say longer fan base but they are yet unserved okay an example of that I will give you a sports which is an India itself right I don't know if you have heard of the sport called as kabi right oh no you have not right no I have not it is actually the second most popular sport in India right and yet there is no sports game built out for that right so one such opportunity would be right for let's say as a global sports game industry right you see India uh as a market uh for gamers to be growing right

one opportunity could be to let's say build games for sports which are underserved right uh because that is what will give you a lot of volume and ultimately lot of business as well right whether you should create uh games for sports which have a smaller fan base it all depends on the organization and the goals of that organization right at the end of the day right there are definitely Niche gaming Studios right who focuses on let's say smaller fan base but then they're able to like Drive lot of value from that smaller fan base maybe the arpus would be much higher in that case right so that that could be definitely one strategy uh what I feel that going forward uh Innovations in game play would be I I believe the biggest one right because the popular sports in the world for example football or soccer with around 3.5 billion fans you can't

compete with them on volumes right what you can do is to convert more of these 3.5 billion fans to start enjoying sports games right not 3.5 billion users or sports fans all of them doesn't play sports games yet right so maybe improve the Benet improve the accessibility and things like that third thing you talked about was platform expansion right or something that uh we are very bullish about as well right I definitely see in time to come uh provided that we are able to sort a lot of issues with respect to VR uh that is something that could give one of the best immersive experiences right uh but then there is Hardware plan here right uh because once the hardware problems are solved with respect to VR and that is a critical mass who is able to adopt that Hardware right when we see that disruption uh that is when I think it will be a good

time to start diversifying into different platforms right apart from consoles and mobiles and things like that and deeper integration in the real world uh I mean I Haven this is my this is my most Frontier idea can you can you like give some more idea about it I have I Sly not have thought a lot about it but what are you thinking like how how thises work is it like Pokemon go kind of thing yeah maybe I mean so I I I don't know it's like you know like in heptathlon I'm also like on this because I watched the the Olympics was very recent um but like there's Heep tap on there's deap on and so there's like a sport where you just run run run run run and then all of a sudden you start shooting at targets right like why would we not be like okay run run run run run play a Call of Duty game run run run run run throw a javelin like why would that not be part of the sport um okay maybe to do with augmented reality I think that is what you're right yeah

yeah yeah I think augmented reality is still some typ to uh from again like so the problem with this Tech right or I wouldn't say like problem it's the evolution of any Tech right just like we have seen with mobile uh this Tech Will evolve right but the stage where they are in right now I think they are unable to reach that critical Ms right so whether it is VR or whether it is AR uh lot of lot of interesting Innovations happening in those space uh but let's see how that plays up yeah well I loved your responses and reaction bringing me kind of back down to earth um I'm I I rode division one crew in college um so I spent nine years being a rower um and I'm still waiting for my rowing video game um no one has made that so not that we're a very lucrative Market um and I actually don't think that there's a ton of overlap between those that play video games and those that Ru crew I actually think it's probably like very asymmetric but um still waiting for the that's very interesting actually because like if you

look at Olympics right Rover is a part of Olympics uh so if you're able to create let's say a game of Olympics right uh it it will have let's say considerable volume right because it's the small like what would be the right word it's like like small drops which makes up the ocean right it's like small all the sports combined together could be like pretty big there are a couple of uh uh Olympic Games out there right now as well right we have we have seen that but not yet achieved a critical mass I think the innovation in game play will go a long way right uh along with a very strong meta right why why should I like keep playing uh Olympic game right and in which I can like roll or I can like play like Javelin through or whatnot got it all right um well as a final question to wrap up this topic I want to hear a little bit from you about what you think the whole role of dream Sports have in

the innovation of of the macro Sports gaming Market you know we're doing like you said you're approaching this with this 360 holistic approach um but what are you most excited for uh and how do you think that dream Sports Group is gonna have the where do you think they're gonna have the biggest impact in driving innovation in the sports space okay so couple of things I I'll mention before that right so if if you look at dream 11 I I told you that it was first founded in 2008 right uh it's been almost 16 years now and when dream 11 was able to find that product Market fit and if you look at like 2024 it's been like almost 8 to 10 years more or less 250 million users it is still a leader right by a huge margin right and like if I mean if you dissect why why is that is it is it because of the first mover right we have seen historically multiple

times that the first mover necessarily is not thing in fact to reach number one is one thing but the more difficult thing is to actually retain that position right what I'm really coming to is the entire approach that dream Sports has when it comes to solving a problem right it is it is about the culture it is about the people right ultimately dream Sports is able to see a big picture right it's able to big uh in a market right where such things is actually required right now in fact definitely there are more startups like dream1 uh who is trying to like disrupt the overall way in which India in general builds products right and become let's say a truly Global organizations as such right uh so and if if you look at the approach in general right first thing like a founder Le approach right which I spoke about right uh like a very

Mission driven uh startups right within the dream Sports ecosystem right uh and to be able to let these organizations to provide that strategic guidance uh because see they have seen that Journey right what it takes to become dream 11 right and what we are trying to build here is we are trying to build more dream 11 right uh fan code dream set code dream game studios maybe we could become as big as dream set Cod and we are uh we have that strategic guidance we have that strategic wisdom right that we get in that ecosystem right at the end of the day so yeah that is that is how we see the future from a collaboration perspective maybe I'll just touch upon that as well right so we don't have to reinvent everything right inside the ecosystem for example when it comes to building a backend right if you know this then dream El has one of the

biggest concurrency when it comes to users right almost 15 million concurrent users right now they have been able to build such resilient back systems and it wasn't built in a day right it took time uh might have failed worked right and ultimately it reached a time where it was it reached a maturity right when we look at dream cricket and then we say that hey we want to reach a critical mass right dream Cricket as well maybe 200 million users going forward now if we want to build a system who is able to handle so much confidency we don't have to build everything from scratch right we double tap on dream 11 we double tap on their learnings we double tap on their wisdoms and we work together to finally build a system uh that will withstand the future like kind of future proof and this is just one example that I gave you backhead uh licensing is something that we already spoke about

user acquisition right uh 250 million users we are currently at 6 million right so much growth opportunity which is out there and it is something which is available to every portfolio company every startup with it inside uh the dream Sports ecosystem right yeah yeah definitely a deep distribution advantage in in Bill audience with the dream 11 for sure um yeah well was amazing uh and thank you for sharing those like final concluding thoughts about dream Sports Group um it was great to hear a little bit of how the how the structure and all the subsidiaries have come together um the vision for for Cricket um or dream Cricket in general um and also a lot about you know the de the differences and the nuances between the India gaming market and the Western Sports gaming Market um I've definitely learned a lot and I'm sure that our audience has as well um there's clearly so much opportunity here and it's amazing for you to share your journey um as a concluding thought in if in case there's anybody in the in the audience

that is interested in getting in touch with you or chatting with dream sports for any reason how can they how can they reach out I mean there are multiple ways right we live in a digital world now so there are like so many ways in which uh you can definitely reach out uh we definitely have a website but I think the best way to reach out would be LinkedIn I believe uh so yeah just just send a connect request we' be happy to connect uh speak it out brainstorm right uh whatever awesome all right well as always friends if you have um feedback or ideas hit me up at alexander. I'm always open and that's the end of our episode thanks roit for coming on thank you Alex for having me here it's been a pleasure thank you so much awesome if you enjoyed today's episode whether on YouTube or your favorite podcast app make sure to like subscribe comment or give a fivar review and if you want to reach out or provide feedback shoot us a note at podcast nov.

or find us on Twitter and Linkedin plus if you want to learn more about what novic has to offer make sure to check out our website www.nic.edu and advisory Services again that is [Music] www.nic.edu and we'll catch you in the next episode