The nationwide crisis and the subsequent lockdown have affected our social and mental lives to a great extent. We have locked ourselves from the outside world, our physical movement out of the home, social distancing when outside the home, and restricted availability of most public services while sparing essential services. There was a sudden and drastic alteration in the daily routine, with many millions stranded in boarding houses and rental apartments, without work and far from home.

Naturally, in such a stranded situation, we have devoted ourselves entirely to the compass of digital media. Be it for work purpose – e-meetings through zoom call or skype or getting in touch with our friends, family or relatives; internet once again redefined its importance in this era.

To prevent from boredom, many of us have been hooked to online gaming. People in lockdown are finding gaming the best avenue to connect and socialize with family, friends and colleagues. Time spent on games has dramatically increased, more people are playing online games and more gaming companies are cashing in on the rising interest in India.

According to a Google-KPMG report, the online gaming segment is pegged at $1.1 billion by 2021. India is among the top five mobile gaming markets in the world with around 300 million

gamers. With Covid 19, this trend of more users and more time being spent on games is only multiplying.

Industry leaders are of the opinion that online casual gaming firms have seen traffic surge just days into the nationwide lockdown that began on March 25, as people spent more time indoors and as first-timers took the plunge into internet gaming.

The ongoing lockdown has also seen Indians top the list for most number of downloads of apps for ludo and carrom, as per tracker App Annie. After the government barred sales of non-essential items, a surge was noted in download of gaming apps. As per App Annie data for the period March 25 to May 3, download of game apps peaked at 197 million in the week to April 18--when the lockdown was extended-- up 75 per cent from the weekly average in Q4 of 2019.

During this period, download of non-gaming apps increased by 30 per cent. Not only this, sales of board games in India are soaring like never before, as housebound Indians bring back ludo, carrom, business and scrabble into the living room to beat the growing boredom from the lockdown.

New gaming start-ups are also entering the India market. For instance, Paytm First Games, gaming arm of the digital payments platform Paytm started in 2019 and witnessed 200 per cent increase in user base during lockdown.

Paytm First Games offers around 300 games and has over 20 per cent of daily visitors now paying to play. Some of the start-ups are also leveraging innovative technologies like XR (Extended Reality) and AIoT (Artificial Intelligence of Things) to create seamless game play experience for end customers.

Over the last few weeks, however, as the lockdown was eased and people started getting back to work, the time spent on gaming platforms has been declining. As companies started deferring salaries and letting go of people, discretionary spends have started to drop. Gaming firms are now looking at different ways to keep users engaged, even as the time spent starts dropping.