Gaming in India remains as popular as ever, even after the banning of PUBG Mobile. According to a report by Limelight called State of Online Gaming, Indians spend over 8.5 hours each week playing games. This was the third-highest number in the list of countries that were surveyed. Besides India, the list included respondents from China, Germany, Indonesia, South Korea, United Kingdom, United States, and Vietnam.
As mentioned above, only gamers in China and Vietnam managed to game more than Indian gamers over a week. Chinese gamers averaged 12.39 hours of gaming, while Vietnamese gamers averaged 10.16 hours of gaming in a week. Surprisingly, South Korean gamers only spend 5.88 hours a week gaming, which is the least of the lot. Considering the popularity of gaming in the country, it's surprising, if you ask us.
Even though gaming in India is still gaining popularity as compared to many other countries, Indian gamers seem to rate themselves pretty highly when it comes to their gaming prowess. The report notes that while 47.1% of Indian gamers consider themselves casual players, 36.9% claimed to be experts. In fact, when it came to rating themselves as experts, Indian gamers were in a league of their own. Vietnamese gamers had the second highest number of players rating themselves as experts with 27.5%.
Interestingly, India also had the second highest percentage of gamers calling themselves ‘aspiring professionals’ with 10.2%. Only Indonesia was higher with 11%. However, only time will tell if this will result in international recognition. Indian esports players are not yet regarded highly and teams have yet to win a notable international tournament. Hopefully, as the popularity of esports grows in the country, we will soon have more seasoned players competing for glory on the international stage.