Amazon Launches Prime Gaming Service in India

Amid reports that Amazon was looking to launch Prime Gaming in India, the ecommerce major has now quietly debuted the subscription service in the country. 

The gaming service will come bundled with Amazon Prime and will also allow subscribers access to a range of mobile, PC and Mac games. Besides, users will also get access to in-game loot such as weapons, characters, skins, boosts, upgrades, among others.

While Prime Gaming has been rolled out for Android users, the service will be available for iOS consumers beginning January 2023.

As per information available on the website, the service currently offers games such as Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0, FIFA 23, League of Legends, DeathLoop, among others.

“With the rebranded launch of Prime Gaming, we continue to make Amazon Prime more valuable for members in India. Gaming has become widely popular, and we recognize the need to provide a robust selection of games and content to enhance playing experience of our Prime members. The new and refreshed Prime Gaming, comes with a great accessibility to the latest games and we will continue to add new in-game content for other popular games, with frequent content refreshes,” said director of Amazon India’s Prime and delivery experience Akshay Sahi.

The gaming service can be availed by Prime subscribers, the subscription of which costs around INR 1,499 for a yearly package. 

Interestingly, the launch comes nearly weeks after it was first reported that the company was looking to launch the service in the country. At the time, it was reported that the webpage of the service was live in the country but as users logged in to check, the platform went offline. 

After much ado, the gaming service has now finally made its way to India. The launch comes two years after Amazon unveiled its mobile gaming service in India, which was largely limited to free in-game content such as collectable characters, upgrades, among others. 

The move to debut its gaming platform in the country comes at a tumultuous time for the ecommerce major. Amazon has already shut as many as three verticals in the past few weeks. The startup has wound up its edtech platform, pilot food delivery service and wholesale ecommerce businesses in the country. 

Eye On Gaming Space

The India launch comes as the tech major consolidates its operations and looks to grab a pie of the growing Indian gaming space. With big resources and titles already at its disposal, the move could enable Amazon to scale up quickly in the Indian market and grab a chunk of the space. 

Amazon’s announcement comes weeks after oil-to-telecom conglomerate Reliance Jio launched the beta version of its new cloud gaming platform JioGamesCloud on the JioGames app.

The industry has seen a major uptick in the past few years owing to the explosion of online gamers in the country and the growing appetite of online players. The space has also been buoyed by the introduction of immersive technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) has also led to a boom in the online gaming industry. 

Inc42 estimates the number of online gamers in the country to surge to 657 Mn users in 2025 from 481 Mn in 2022. The growth has largely been led by online mobile gaming which has led to emergence of multiple unicorns such as Nazara Technologies, Games24x7, Dream11, Mobile Premier League over the past few years.

As the space evolves and new players enter the industry, the Indian online gaming market continues to scale and is projected to grow to $5 Bn by 2025.

(The story has been updated to include comments from the company)