Social media giant Facebook is carving out a niche for itself in India's fast-growing and extremely competitive online gaming and streaming sector. Meaning it plans to offer game publishers and streamers a simple solution and that is, one app for users to play games, stream games, and grow a following.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, casual gaming app downloads have surged, and esports contests have become the new trend as a result of fewer entertainment options.

During the months of July and August this year, Facebook observed around 234 million gameplay sessions in India, making it the third-most-played-in country. Around the same time, the social media giant said that gaming groups had over 20 million active members.

In India, the number of people watching live gaming videos has increased by more than sixfold in the last year.

While Facebook did not provide audience figures for India, it did say that more than 200 million people around the world watch live gaming videos each month.

Advertisements and fan subscriptions have been added to the social media site's revenue capabilities for games developers and streamers.

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, stated that he wants the Facebook platforms to be the best spot for millions of creators to make a living. "If we can achieve this, our services will offer the best content across many different sorts of media from text and photographs to audio, gaming, and video”, he explained.

In October, Facebook will hold its first-ever gaming conference in India, with keynotes from the company's global and Indian executives.

According to a recent study by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), OnePlus, and RedSeer Consulting, the viral outbreak has accelerated the organic growth of digital gaming, with mobile app downloads increasing by 50 percent and user engagement increasing by 20 percent.

Even though casual games remain the most popular genre in India, greater gaming time has fueled the growth of hardcore gamers, according to the study.

"We've been quite serious about growing for the last two years, and our figures show it. What we haven't been doing is going out and talking about it as much”, states Manish Chopra, Facebook India's director and head of partnerships.

YouTube, Google's video-sharing platform, has long dominated the game streaming industry in the country, but companies like Loco and Rheo TV have also carved out a niche.

Glance, a lock screen option from mobile ad service platform InMobi, which is supported by Google, is also attracting gamers for live streaming content.

Chopra added that Facebook is encouraging Indian game publishers to create HTML-5 versions of their games in order to attract a worldwide audience.

"We've seen a lot of growth in the last few months, which is considerably larger than any of those platforms dedicated solely to gaming”, remarked Chopra.