Social networking giant Facebook is looking to capitalise on the gaming boom in India, its third-largest market in terms of game play sessions, according to a report. Encouraged by a massive growth in game play sessions in recent months on its platform, Facebook is pushing ahead with its India plans.

Facebook registered 234 million game play sessions in the months of July an August, Moneycontrol reported, quoting Manish Chopra, Director and Head of Partnerships at Facebook.

"What started off in the early days of the pandemic, has actually matured into a very secular growth that's continuing to develop and grow,” Chopra was quoted as saying by Moneycontrol, narrating the positive prospects of the mobile gaming industry in India.

Market size

According to a recent report by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), RedSeer and OnePlus, the mobile gaming market in India is set to grow to $6-7 billion by 2025 from $1.8 billion in 2021.

Though Chopra did not reveal the number of Indian gamers on the platform, globally there are over 380 million users playing games and 200 million watching others play video games every month on Facebook.

He, however, mentioned that around 20 million users in India were active members of various gaming groups on Facebook in July and August, according to the Moneycontrol report.

A game changer

In the past few years, Facebook has given a greater push to understand how its users play games and what creators expect from the tech giant. It has revamped its gaming experience by foraying beyond social games and adding new features and services such as game streaming, virtual reality (via Oculus) and cloud gaming.

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The social networking giant launched the app, Facebook Gaming, in April last year. In 2019, it had rolled out a dedicated gaming tab that allowed its users to play instant games, watch gaming videos and connect with members of other gaming groups.

Facebook is focusing on casual gaming, which is still its mainstay, and is not looking at competing with console makers or PC gaming.

A number of publishers are engaging with new gamers on the platform with instant playable versions of their games, hoping to attract users to their console-based gaming titles, Moneycontrol added, quoting Chopra.

Working with creators

To boost its game streaming service, Facebook is collaborating with gaming video creators and game publishers. The company is looking to bring more diverse creators onto the platform. It has also been working with large AAA gaming publishers such as Garena and Krafton.

Gaming event

Facebook will kick off its first gaming event India -- FB Gaming Press Start 2021 -- on October 19. The event, that will be held for two days, will deliberate on Facebook instant games and cloud opportunities, Facebook gaming services, Facebook gaming video programmes and monetisation from popular gamers in the gaming community.

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(Edited by : Shoma Bhattacharjee)