Brands need to level up to partner with female gamers

According to the report launched by EY in 2022, the number of women gamers grew by 18 percent in 2021. And it is expected to grow by 20 percent by the end of 2022. Image: Shutterstock

Video game streamer and content creator Magsplay, aka Mansi Gupta, spent around 6-7 hours playing games such as PUBG religiously during the lockdown and eventually decided to start her channel—a mix of video gaming and lifestyle content. Magsplay has partnered with big brands such as Dell, Realme, fintech brands and international gaming publishers.
 
“Recently, there has been a lot of interest from brands towards female gamers. And they want female representation in their marketing campaigns. However, 10-20 percent of audiences still have a bias towards women playing games,” she tells Storyboard18.
 
Gupta is among the top female gamers in India, along with streamers such as Monika “Sherlock” Jeph, Shagufta “Xyaa” Iqbal (streamer and female game developer), Shazia Ayub (Mysterious YT), Pooja Khatri, and Saloni Panwar (popularly known as Meow16k).
 
Due to the massive surge of female gamers in recent years, further accentuated by the Covid-19 pandemic, women are rapidly straddling multiple roles in the online gaming industry—gamers, streamers, game creators, and entrepreneurs—making it a more diverse and inclusive ecosystem.
 
According to the report launched by EY in 2022, the number of women gamers grew by 18 percent in 2021. And it is expected to grow by 20 percent by the end of 2022.
 
“Women are increasingly entering the gaming industry by engaging in genres like real-money, skill-based games, esports, and casual games. While there is a prominent rise in the number of women players participating in major esports tournaments all over the world, other genres like RMG (real-money gaming) also gave the sector an ensemble of pro-players like Muskan Sethi, Nikita Luther, and many more who have been representing India at a global stage,” says Roland Landers, CEO of All India Gaming Federation (AIGF).
 

Upsurge in demand

 
Sooraj Balakrishnan, head of marketing, Acer, tells Storyboard18 that over the last two years, they have seen many women spending more time gaming due to work from home (WFH) and hybrid work. They initially start on mobile phones and then transition from mobiles to PCs when they want to take gaming more seriously.
 
“The average spends by women consumers when it comes to gaming laptops is between Rs 80,000 to 1 lakh when they want to take gaming more seriously. There is also discretionary income and easy financing to make this kind of purchase less of a burden. We have also seen dual-purpose usage of gaming laptops at a more entry point of Rs 55,000 where they use it for college and other use while gaming at leisure time,” he notes.
 
Acer organised an exclusive tournament for women in its flagship Predator Gaming League tournament last year.
 
Various gaming publishers, video gaming streaming and esports platforms have also witnessed a steady surge in women gamers.
 
Rohit Raj, co-founder and COO of EsportsXO, says that the ratio of male to female gamers was less; however, this has been changing, and it is now 20 percent.
 
“To elevate the status of women gamers in our vast community, EsportsXO is working on interesting IPs that will revolve around and celebrate female gaming in India,” he adds.
 
Live community gaming platform Tamasha Live said that it has more than 1,600 female game hosts and more than three lakhs female gamers on its platform, who mostly play casual board games (Ludo), and community games (Tambola). Around 30 percent of gamers are female. More than 50 percent of active hosts are female, outperforming male hosts in building and engaging communities on the platform.
 
“We currently don't have ways to let anyone monetise through brand collaborators on the platform, but we are planning to build tools in the future where women creators can host branded tournaments and monetise through brand collaborators. They would also be able to stream their tournaments on YouTube or any other social platform,” says Saurabh Gupta, co-founder and CEO of Tamasha Live.
 
Currently, at the beta stage, Qlan, a social networking platform for esports fans and gamers, already has 9 percent of its total gamer base as women.
 
“We’ve invested a substantial time to break down and understand women gamers from the core. The first step will be to build a community of women gamers on Qlan, helping expose them to a larger spectrum of opportunities on Qlan, ensure higher discovery of these women gamers and empower them to pave their own path in the gaming and esports industry,” says Sagar Nair, co-founder & CEO of Qlan, The Gamer's Social Network.
 

Brand collaborations

 
With high engagement, brands are following the female gamers as well.
 
Pranav Panpalia, founder of influencer marketing agency OpraahFx, says that on average, a leading female gamer observes about 8-14 percent of engagement on their YouTube videos.
 
“Roughly, a female gamer with about over 500,000 subscribers on YouTube would charge about Rs 3-5 lakh for an integrated video. Female gamers endorse brands from gaming to tech, consumer goods to fast food, finance to personal care. People have a stereotype that a female gamer would sell female-specific products, but no. The majority of their followers are male, but they also have a fair ratio of females. Hence women gamers prefer to promote brands and products for both,” he adds.
 
OpraahFx is working with a few aspiring gamers and helping them with game training, content strategy, and partnership with bigger gamers and brands.
 
Rohit Agarwal, founder and director of Alpha Zegus, a marketing agency specialising in the domains of gaming and lifestyle, shares that on Instagram, women gamers are driving equal or more engagement than their male counterparts. Because they bring a perfect mix of gaming and lifestyle communication to the content they put out.
 
“Not only are women gamers coming on par with male gamers in terms of endemic brands, but a lot of non-endemic brands (such as L’Oreal, Maybelline, Tinder, and so on) are seeing the value of collaborating with women gamers, and are betting big on them,” he notes.

 

Key challenges

 
Even though the Indian esports landscape is exponentially growing, there seems to be a lack of a regulatory framework to address complaints of harassment and misconduct faced by female gamers. While platforms claim that they do have in-built technology to prevent any such occurrences, they can suspend and/or disqualify the accused player’s account or user content or restrict their participation in such events if the issues are raised on the platforms.   
 
“Therefore, in the absence of any specific provisions or guidelines, these gaming platforms fall under the ambit of Internet Intermediaries and Digital Media platforms, thereby required to comply with the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, thereby appointing a grievance officer to address the complaints of the users in specific manner and timeline,” says Santosh Vikram Singh, partner - IP and Sports Law, Fox Mandal & Associates. He adds, “Additionally, the other viable remedy for the victims is to initiate a criminal complaint against the perpetrator under the Information Technology Act 2000 and the Indian Penal Code, 1860.”