RMG ban a wake-up call for the industry to rethink what is game building

As India bans real-money gaming, investors and studios turn to building creative and community-driven games, signalling a shift from gambling-style apps to genuine game development

Social gaming firms and studios are finding room for greater optimism as the Centre tightens its grip on the real-money gaming (RMG) sector, banning all forms of such games, including rummy, poker, and fantasy sports. The investment thesis is now shifting towards studios and publishers that are building categories of games such as AAA and casual ones.

 

Pune-based SuperGaming raised a Series B funding round of $15 million in August, following a $5.5 million Series A in 2021. What’s common in both rounds is the participation of lead investor Skycatcher, a global investment firm with portfolio companies in sectors such as video games, on-chain finance, crypto, and others, including ride-hailing platform Rapido in India.

 

Sia Kamalie, founder of Skycatcher, details his bets on the game studio and publishing space in India, his reasons for avoiding RMGs as investments, along with SuperGaming co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Roby John, in an interaction with Business Standard.

 

Edited excerpts:

 

What is the opportunity that you see with different categories of games in India?

 

Sia: If you look at mobile game development today—especially in multiplayer—there are very few studios capable of tackling the challenges of mobile networking. SuperGaming holds a unique position, having built that tech stack from the ground up. I’d argue that outside of them, only Tencent and NetEase have studios producing games at that level of quality.

 

We’ve looked at many studios, but for us, SuperGaming represents a global opportunity, not an India-specific one. Gaming is a global phenomenon, and publishing remains its biggest challenge. SuperGaming has taken a unique grassroots approach to building communities. Many studios got drawn into real-money gaming without fully understanding what they were getting into—a space we’ve avoided from the start. This is a wake-up call for the industry to rethink what game building really means—you can’t just throw money at the problem.

 

Why did you take the approach of avoiding investments in RMG?

 

Sia: We have three major themes, with video games as digital playgrounds at the core. Some game titles have thrived for 10, 15, even 20 years, growing as players invest in digital skins (virtual identities). These games have become social spaces—places to hang out—which makes for a far healthier business model than ones where users lose money. The beauty of social gaming is simple: people are happy; they enjoy it. Spending two dollars on a skin is like buying a Coca-Cola—it’s small-scale, joyful consumption.

 

How do you look at creative breakthroughs or inflection points in a game’s journey to becoming a success?

 

Roby: The inflection point for us is finding creative breakthroughs in emerging games. We bet on the Battle Royale (Indus) because that’s where players spend the most time—it turned casual gamers in emerging markets into mid-core players. Today, India has strong creative talent. Many have studied abroad and returned to build world-class games. Our game MaskGun reached 100 million users on low-end devices with quick gameplay. Now, with Indus, we’re targeting more mature gamers who understand deeper mechanics.

 

We’ve also taken this playbook beyond India—to Brazil and soon the Middle East—adapting to each culture. Players love seeing their own culture reflected in games; it helps globalise our content. Affordability and joy remain at the core, built on years of developing our own game engine and what we call the shooter augmentation layer that powers it all.

 

Is continuous infusion of capital required from an investor’s lens since game development is a perpetual cycle?

 

Sia: I think it’s a misconception that creating intellectual property (IP) is capital-intensive—it’s not a money problem; it’s a taste problem. Success comes from getting the creative vision right. Once you have a hit, then you scale. Today, with artificial intelligence (AI) streamlining digital content, the barriers to building high-quality games have dropped. Workforce reductions in gaming reflect this shift, as much of the old content creation is now automated.

 

But creating original IP has always been hard—not because of money, but because of creativity. Anyone who thinks they can succeed in gaming simply by having deep pockets will quickly find out it doesn’t work.