For Indian gamers, a quick play experience is the gateway to gaming

Chess games became more action-packed in the mid-80s thanks to the quick-play format. Quick play may not necessarily mean a quick gaming session all the time.

In gaming nomenclature, quick play is now mostly associated with the play mode, where you can quickly start playing without much effort or hassle. When it comes to casual games, you can start and stop at any time. Quick play is easy with Fruit Ninja, but not so much with an elaborate multiplayer game like League of Legends. But then came along the quick play mode.

The Fast and the Curious

One of the most popular online games among Indian gamers is Ludo. It is true that for almost every Indian, learning Ludo is a part of growing up. But apart from the familiarity, Ludo is quick to start and complete. The preference for Ludo is not isolated. Indian gamers have a strong affinity towards casual and hyper casual games.

If we exclude the high revenues of real money games for a moment, it is casual and hyper casual games that seem to generate the most revenue. Between FY23 and FY24, the revenue from these games increased from $0.7 billion to $0.8 billion. It is expected that casual and hyper casual games will grow at a healthy CAGR of 23% in the next five years.

A common feature among most of the games in this segment is that you can start, pause and resume playing these games as and when you like. A feature that other gaming segments are also keenly adopting.

The Quick Play Experience

Unlike casual and hyper casual games, many gaming segments need a longer game time. Many of these games have come up with quick-play formats to appeal to on-the-go gamers. League of Legends, for instance, is a free-to-play, multiplayer online battle arena game that has a quick-play mode. In this mode, you can select up to two champions or positions and play who you want and where you want.

Soccer video games and popular e-sports, such as the Rocket League, are easy to start, with a lot of room to improve. While the game is popular among Indian gamers as well, many of them also opt for its Quick Play mode. A 3v3 standard match can be played through its casual playlist in the Quick Play mode.

Take the popularity of Garena Free Fire Max in India. Apart from the quality graphics and gameplay mechanics that appeal to gamers, you can play it in short bursts. Its match duration is much shorter than other popular battle royale titles.

The overwhelming popularity of Candy Crush Saga was down to the fact that it is easy to pick up and can be played in between breaks. While the colourful graphics added to its popularity, the game continued to engage players with updated levels and challenges that run into hundreds. The endless runner game Subway Surfer gained a lot of popularity among Indian gamers for the same aspects - the ease of starting, pausing and resuming the game.

Even real money game platforms come with the quick-play options that Indian gamers love so much. Popular poker online platform Pocket52 offers free poker practice games. It serves as a great means for familiarising with poker game rules and is a welcome break from the more cerebral real money poker games.

In Small Packages

The gaming community in India has swelled in size in recent years. In developed markets like the USA and Western Europe, gaming has been a part of popular culture for decades. People are willing to go through dozens of hours every week to complete the full circle of a game. In India, on the other hand, internet penetration has been a recent phenomenon. The rapid smartphone penetration has meant that most gamers went for mobile gaming straightaway. When they start gaming, they follow the expected rite of passage.

Indian gamers are trying out new games and genres every day. This is reflected in the largest number of downloads by a country in a year, where India stands in front with 9.5 billion downloads in 2023. Like trying out a spoonful before proceeding with the full meal, Indian gamers are keen on the quick-play experience. For now, the good things come in small packages for the Indian gamer. The game developers are accommodating this requirement with their quick play features.

Quickening the Play

With millions of Indian players opting for quick play experiences, the casual and hyper casual games in India are receiving much fanfare. Despite many of them being free-to-play, they are churning out enviable revenues through advertisements and in-app purchases. For the mid and hardcore games, the challenge is to provide pint-sized experiences of their game attractively. As the Indian market matures, quick-play options are expected to convert into long-term gaming engagement between the gamers and the titles.