Amazon Looking To Launch Prime Gaming Service In India

Even as Amazon has recently wound up many of its verticals in India, the tech major is now reportedly close to launching its Prime Gaming subscription in the country.

“With Prime Gaming (included with your Prime membership) unlock instant access to tons of exclusive content for your favorite games and a rotating collection of PC games…each and every month,” the company was quoted as saying on its website by Techcrunch.

However, as users trickled onto the platform, the website went blank with users unable to access the page. 

Interestingly, Amazon Gaming’s support page mentions India as an operational market for ‘Mobile offers only’ for its Prime subscribers. 

There was no immediate clarity on the timeline of the launch of the service in India. 

Prime Gaming is a subscription-based personal computer (PC) gaming service that comes bundled with the Amazon Prime Video plan. It allows users to access multiple gaming titles for free, along the lines of its similar service in the US and the UK.

This comes nearly two years after the ecommerce major debuted its mobile gaming service in India. So far, users can only access free in-game content such as collectable characters, upgrades, in-game currency. However, Amazon plans to tap into the burgeoning gaming market in the country with the full-fledged launch of Prime Gaming.  

It is pertinent to note that Prime Gaming is a revamped version of Amazon’s Twitch Prime service, which was originally launched in the US in 2016.

The move to debut its gaming service in India comes at a time when the ecommerce major has been on a spree to cull its other verticals. In the last one month, Amazon shut down its edtech platform, pilot food delivery service and wholesale ecommerce vertical in the country. 

Despite the consolidation efforts, the tech giant has set its eyes on the growing gaming space which has seen a spurt in the past couple of years. 

India’s Burgeoning Gaming Market 

From being a niche market, online gaming in India has taken massive strides in the last few years. The growth has largely been driven by mobile gaming which has seen massive adoption owing to rising internet and smartphone penetration. 

A higher disposable income, the pandemic-led growth and the emergence of games as a pastime has also powered the growth. As per Inc42, the number of online gamers in the country is expected to zoom from 481 Mn users in 2022 to 657 Mn users in 2025. 

With the introduction of immersive technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR), the space has received further interest and more and more opportunities continue to emerge from the growing sector. 

The mobile gaming sector has minted unicorns such as Games24x7, Dream11, Mobile Premier League in India over the last few years.

The latest development comes close on the heels of Reliance Jio launching its new cloud gaming platform JioGamesCloud in beta mode on its JioGames app.

Meanwhile, the space continues to be mired in controversy and regulatory scrutiny. A Group of Ministers (GoM) is reportedly likely to recommend imposition of a uniform GST of 28% on online gaming, inviting criticism from the industry. 

Additionally, the union government is also working on a national framework for online gaming platforms. 

Despite this, online gaming continues to grow and evolve and is expected to reach $5 Bn by 2025.