Episode 5: Gaming, AI, Regulation & Creator Economy

Guests: Manish Agarwal, Piyush Kumar Chawla

Companies: KGeN, Rooter

Date: 2025-09-10

Summary

The Offline Network Episode 5: Gaming, AI, Regulation & Creator Economy (aired 2025-09-10). Guests: Manish Agarwal, Piyush Kumar Chawla from KGeN, Rooter. Manish: "And not just India, today we are in 60 plus countries, grown organically through a beautiful system of clans and clan chiefs, as we call them." Manish: "It has to be a larger community where there are people who, because of experience, because of what they're bringing are elder members, they are kind of helping this rocket ship to first get built and then kind of ready to fire." Topics: venture capital and funding, consumer brands and D2C, deep tech, gaming. The Offline Network is India's live show on startups, tech, and venture — streaming M/W/F at 4 PM IST on YouTube.

Key Quotes

"And not just India, today we are in 60 plus countries, grown organically through a beautiful system of clans and clan chiefs, as we call them." — Manish Agarwal (Kratos Gaming Network)

"It has to be a larger community where there are people who, because of experience, because of what they're bringing are elder members, they are kind of helping this rocket ship to first get built and then kind of ready to fire." — Manish Agarwal (Kratos Gaming Network)

"We wanted to always think like, because from the background of 20 years of game design, to me, it was gaming communities, micro community, how they come and organize themselves on their own within games." — Manish Agarwal (Kratos Gaming Network)

"In my opinion, the pivotal moment in India for this needle to move was COVID, where for the first time, entire family came together to play." — Manish Agarwal (Kratos Gaming Network)

"Streaming platforms were the second source of income for them because they wanted their fans to come." — Manish Agarwal (Kratos Gaming Network)

"Because when you are talking about world-class athletes, what Avinabh Inder has done or what JSW has done to produce, it is a serious amount of investment which goes on picking them young, seeing them through from a physical training to mental training, to coach, to games, to facilities." — Manish Agarwal (Kratos Gaming Network)

"And in fact, their life is more complex because they need an amazing amount of three faculties, eyes, hands and mind coordination happening at the same time in real time." — Manish Agarwal (Kratos Gaming Network)

"Because I may be a good game designer, and I may be a good backend engineer, frontend engineer, but my ability to kind of really publish, I don't know." — Manish Agarwal (Kratos Gaming Network)

Full Transcript

Dhruv Sharma: Hello and welcome to The Offline Network, TUN. This is our second stream of the week and today we're going to cover some exciting updates from Rapido, the iPhone launch, the Urban Company IPO and then after we are done with that we have two very interesting gaming entrepreneurs to speak with you today. So it looks like the ride hailing battle, it always has a heavy weight and someone who's just switching up the weight category, it looks like Rapido may just have switched up the weight category. What do we know so far?

Utsav Somani: So Rapido is a very interesting name. Even Uber CEO Dara mentioned the name as one of the biggest competitors in India. They actually brushed aside Ola to actually mention Rapido as their biggest competitor in India on the Nikhil Gawant show. So very interesting. Some of the stats look fascinating. They have 50 million monthly active users now in India compared to Uber's 30 million but that's also a factor that they're focused in the two-wheeler segment and two-wheeler segment is of course bigger. India's low on infrastructure so I think it makes it easier for people to get from point to point. Plus also the cost factor plays into this decision that two-wheeler rides are much much cheaper and easily available. India's one of the rare countries across the world and many other countries in Southeast Asia where two-wheelers actually make a dominant share of mobility vehicles. Bike taxi segment, Rapido's leading with a 70% market share. They've got, I mean, triple the volumes of Ola and almost 40% higher compared to Uber. So it's a very exciting name and why do you think they're working?

Dhruv Sharma: It has to be a couple of factors. One, like you said, I think the starting point for this company was bike taxis and at the time there was either no one doing this or maybe just very few people trying early experiments and not just in India but wherever you have dense urban sprawls and neighborhoods, bike taxis work a lot better for the first mile, last mile connectivity than cars do. And so not only is this offering more competitively priced for the demand side but even the supply side dynamics look very different. If you're someone with a bike and with a little spare time and you can turn that spare time into spare cash, why not? You don't have to go buy a car, take a loan for it. So I think just very different demand supply dynamics and of course the urban situation just in India but in other countries in South Asia, Southeast Asia as well, where bike taxis find favor. The other thing is they've also been very intentional about how they run trials and experiments and just having more fair economics for the riders and they have this, I don't know, maybe you know this, but they have a subscription model.

Utsav Somani: The fixed daily fees, yeah, I think you can pay instead of basically, I mean, the drivers get to keep most of their earnings in this model. So they've been able to solve supply problems because of this, I think.

Dhruv Sharma: And that was always a big bone of contention for all of us who've played an agony on to our Uber driver or our older driver. They will always talk about how much of the earnings they're able to retain and just having more, if it's a fixed fee basis, then you just have a little more visibility and a little more control. So maybe that's the reason. You know, another interesting thing, Utsav, so it's super cool that Dara brought Rapido up as a percentage of Uber's global revenues. India's part of percent. So Uber's global revenues, I think last financial year was something like $45 billion.

Utsav Somani: To even know the name Rapido, I think was not worth his time.

Dhruv Sharma: No, I mean, that's one way of looking at it. The other way of looking at it is Rapido's maybe very quickly becoming a case study for Uber. Even with Uber's war chest, they haven't won every market they've been in. You know, they've had to sell to Didi. They've had to sell to Grab. Middle East, I think they acquired Kareem in a competitive deal. And of course, they dominate the US over Lyft, Mexico, South America. But I think the broader point is the market is far from won and Rapido's a serious contender. The iPhone launches.

Utsav Somani: But wait, I mean, one funny fact that I want to mention, Swiggy owns 10% of Rapido and Rapido just entered the food delivery market as well. So that I think is fascinating that I didn't know that. Yeah. Swiggy owns 10% of Rapido and they're now, I mean, getting to compete with each other. So I think it's fascinating and advantage. One of the mobility focused funds of India because of rapid rise in Rapido's valuation, they've made a 50x return, which they publicly speak about.

Dhruv Sharma: So yeah, very impressive.

Utsav Somani: All right. So T1 colored iPhones just came out. Orange, cosmic orange, I think is what they're calling it. But I think there's a bigger story here where 50% of iPhones sold in US are made in India. India's accounting for 23 billion in exports for Apple. While they're made in India products, which they manufactured through Foxconn and Tata subsidiaries like Pegatron and many others. So why are they more expensive in India? Like, I mean, the top model, I don't know, retails are probably close to 2 lakh rupees. They're starting at 82,000 rupees. Even UAE or Southeast Asia. Some people actually joke on Twitter that it's cheaper to fly to one of these countries from UAE and buy your iPhone and then come back after a day.

Dhruv Sharma: Why are we paying more? I'll get into that and I'll have to hazard a guess. Look, I'm no expert. But did you see this coming out, sir? I mean, the T1 colors are starkly similar to... Do you think we should do a giveaway at some point? No, but to answer your question, I think Apple's only set up manufacturing in India just recently. And before that, there were, of course, import restrictions that made everything expensive. Again, the iPhone is a complex electronic device. It has, you know, assemblies, components, subcomponents. Even to this day, even if you pick up a device that has been assembled in India, a lot of the components have actually been brought in and they are subject to duty. And, you know, it's very interesting. A couple of years ago, somebody asked Tim Cook why he goes to China. And his response was very telling. He said, hey, if you think we go to China because of labor cost arbitrage, that China's, you know, it's China's gone past that moment a long time ago. He said, we go to China because of skill and dexterity. The type of work you need to do in fabrication and other areas. There's just there are so many people in China who can do that work. I could fill an entire stadium full of such people. In America, I'm not sure I could fill a boardroom. And so for the Apple facilities in India as well, like the ones they partnered with Foxconn in China, I think skilling is a big part of it also.

Utsav Somani: And a fun factoid. I don't know why I'm feeling all of these factoids coming out today. But Apple buyers and so many people from Apple actually travel to China, this region where they manufacture the iPhones. I think they're the highest spender on business class flight for that airline. I think it's the United or American Airlines. And they run exclusively because of Apple pretty much on that route.

Dhruv Sharma: If there's room for another fact, you know, another very heartwarming fact, like a lot of people who work in Apple factories don't actually own an iPhone. And so I remember once seeing this video where someone actually. Yeah, absolutely. So I remember seeing a video once where someone showed, you know, the factory worker the finished product and said, hey, this is what you build. And that person was so, so overjoyed. Well, see the fruits of the day.

Utsav Somani: But own company IPO day one at 12 o'clock. They were all subscribed on all categories. So I think it looks like it's sailing through. They're setting the price band between 98 and 103 gray market premium over 35 percent over the listing price. So issue price. So I think it should be a good listing. I mean, do you think it's a good IPO to subscribe to? And none of this is financial advice just for anyone tuning in. So just do your own diligence before you invest in any securities.

Dhruv Sharma: Yeah, I mean, none of this is financial advice. And again, I think I'm going to sit this one out just given the nature of the work that I do. But but an interesting company itself. And it's it's again, for if if you talk about just the employees who work there, this is not the first time this company is going to create a liquidity event for them or a positive outcome for them. They've done buybacks in the past. And and I mean, we're at this. Do we have numbers on how much of that's going to be a fresh issue versus an offer for sale? And who's likely to benefit from the OFS?

Utsav Somani: Yeah, I mean, many of the funds, of course, all the usual suspects, we've covered them in a previous episode. But one fact before we welcome our first guest, top 5% of urban company service professionals earn approximately $50,000 a month. That's putting out 5% on a bracket in India. So I think that while working 40 hours a week, it's not overworked work as well. So super interesting.

Dhruv Sharma: And these become recurring themes on the show as well, where you're formalizing the gig economy, finally giving people a dignified way to, you know, turn their skill, their talent into into income. And all the best to urban company and everyone who's worked there. All the best.

Utsav Somani: And yeah, I think let's well, I mean, talking about IPOs in public markets. Let's welcome Manish from KGen, who used to lead Nazara as well, which is one of the largest, actually the largest company in the gaming segment as well. And now he's doing something interesting at the intersection of AI and gaming. Welcome Manish.

Manish Agarwal (Kratos Gaming Network): Thank you. So interesting chat between you and Dhruv.

Utsav Somani: No, thank you so much. I hope our listeners enjoy as well. And we're looking to learn from you in this next 15-20 minutes that we spend with you. So, I mean, KGen is doing gaming. It's doing AI labeling. You're focusing more on AI right now. How do these two industries actually intersect?

Manish Agarwal (Kratos Gaming Network): Actually, I'll just kind of continue from where both of you left. It's giving a respectable outlet for people to convert their timing skill into economic benefits.

Utsav Somani: Okay, you got me again.

Manish Agarwal (Kratos Gaming Network): Exactly what we are doing. What we are doing is in the 18-25-30 age group, which is in colleges, which is on Discord, which is on Telegram. We are aggregating, giving them a kind of an identity, which is proof of human. And then we are kind of building a reputation for them, which they own. And then we are unlocking that reputation for a variety of purposes. It could be for data labeling, evaluation in AI. It could be for engaging in games. It could be becoming an athlete or a commentator in esports. It could be generating sales for a D2C youth brand. So it doesn't matter. Fundamentally, you are aggregating the ideal supply and bringing forth the skill. What I call, you're building a human AWS and a human intelligence system. And that's what we at Cajun have been doing for almost now 34 months. And not just India, today we are in 60 plus countries, grown organically through a beautiful system of clans and clan chiefs, as we call them.

Utsav Somani: And your title is also very interesting, right? Elder council member. Describe that for us.

Manish Agarwal (Kratos Gaming Network): If it's a community, think of it, they can't be a CEO or CXO. It has to be a larger community where there are people who, because of experience, because of what they're bringing are elder members, they are kind of helping this rocket ship to first get built and then kind of ready to fire. And eventually you want to become dispensable and you want the community to really progressively take decisions which are important for running of this whole network state, as I'll quote and borrow from Balaji. Balaji, yeah.

Utsav Somani: Dhruv, what do you have for us?

Dhruv Sharma: I do have a question for Manish. But Manish, the elder council member thing, when I first read it, to me, it made you appear like a character straight out of the Lord of the Rings. And that's why we want to ask you that question. So very imaginative, that framing.

Manish Agarwal (Kratos Gaming Network): You can see our name is also Kratos. It's Kratos, Kratos Gamified Engagement Network. And Kratos, god of war, gaming. We wanted to always think like, because from the background of 20 years of game design, to me, it was gaming communities, micro community, how they come and organize themselves on their own within games. And that's how we kind of really designed this whole system.

Dhruv Sharma: I have a bunch of questions for you, Manish. But maybe the first one is a cultural one, right? Where, before I get to the question, so for instance, food delivery apps, right, for the longest time had to battle this perception that eating out in India is, A, it's expensive, 2, it's unhygienic, 3, it's unhealthy. And it's only in recent times that, you know, people have made their peace with those three facts. And same thing with gaming. For the longest time, again, speaking of elders, our elders have thought, hey, gaming's a thorough waste of time. It's bad for your eyes. You're not putting in that time into studying. And that, of course, it's an incorrect perception. And people who hold that perception maybe don't know how big gaming is globally. So one, is that changing? Two, if it is, how is it changing? Why has it changed? And three, I also want to know, are there, at this point in time, are there gaming academies where people who want to be professional gamers can go get coaching, get lessons, and just go down that career path?

Manish Agarwal (Kratos Gaming Network): So yeah, you used the word incorrect perception. I think that's an oxymoron in itself. Perception can't be correct. Realities can be, factual data can be correct or incorrect. Perception is what one makes of it. And if people believe that gaming is bad, they believe gaming is bad. If they believe that gaming is good, they believe gaming is good. In my opinion, the pivotal moment in India for this needle to move was COVID, where for the first time, entire family came together to play. Now, whether they're playing Dodo, or they're playing Candy Crush, or the parents for the first time knew what is PUBG or BGMI as it's called in India. Because before that, kids used to play in their room or on their mobile devices. And parents didn't understand what they're playing. So I think COVID was a pivotal moment for making gaming mainstream in Indian household. And that also kind of gave birth to a feeder. Like in any other sports, it happens from enthusiasts to amateur to professionals. And within gaming, especially the multiplayer games like Free Fire, BGMI, Valorant, you saw emergence of leagues, because people were, there was no physical sport. So there was only, you couldn't do these kind of leagues or these kind of sports. You couldn't play cricket league, you can't play hockey league or soccer league. So these were the leagues which became popular. And then parents understood, oh, man, there is, our kid is watching something, which is like me watching cricket, they're watching some new sport. And hence it penetrated in their houses. That has led to some, I will not say cricket took 30 years, and IPL was the biggest motivator for coaching academies to mushroom in 100 cities of this country. But it at least led to certain appreciation of what is esports. It also has a massive amount of fandom. Mortal became a name which some parents started knowing. So in my opinion, this is an evolution which got really catalyzed by the COVID. And today, you would have the top 5, 7, 10 athletes making very respectable earnings.

Utsav Somani: What would those numbers be for Indian athletes?

Manish Agarwal (Kratos Gaming Network): Yeah, the problem statement also in that number is that number keeps fluctuating and Piyush will be more apt to talk about that. But the earnings were really high before BGMI ban or TikTok ban happened. So there have been one step forward, two step backwards in this whole area.

Utsav Somani: Would it be more streaming revenue? Or will there be sponsorships? Or will they actually be like sponsorship money more than the prize pool?

Manish Agarwal (Kratos Gaming Network): Absolutely. The teams like Godlike and the top 3-4 teams, they're really kind of breaking in a couple of million dollars or more than that. Actually, much more than that. Three years before. Just 22-23, they were absolutely on a peak. Streaming platforms were the second source of income for them because they wanted their fans to come. And that was a consumer acquisition money they were spending for these users to come in. So yeah, Dhruv, this is a journey which has started. As always, sports has to become popular. Sports has to become mainstream. Then it's viewers. Viewers creates professionals. Athletes and professional athletes create a flywheel of academies. So I think that's the cycle which India is seeing. The behavior is a lot more to do and a lot more to happen for it to change. And I think with the recent emphasis on video games, with government wanting to kind of really promote IPs, entertainment-driven IPs, esports, I think that could also act as a catalyst when industry and government can work together to promote it.

Dhruv Sharma: Yeah, I mean, even the online gaming bill, I think a lot of the heat, a lot of the emphasis was around real money gaming companies, but that the same bill equally formally recognizes esports as a new avenue for youngsters too. And I'd love to see if, you know, online gaming in India and professional gaming in India can have the same moment that chess is now having.

Manish Agarwal (Kratos Gaming Network): So I think the chess is beautiful. The only innovation which is needed is how to make it more viewable. More viewable. Interesting.

Utsav Somani: What people did with Kabaddi, they need to fix on chess. Yeah. In your opinion, I mean, now that we've got, I mean, recognition for esports, what will it take to like, I mean, put Indian eathletes, so to say, on the map, like globally? What's up? I think government policies or will it need more private partnerships or private push? Like what's lacking so far in the journey so far?

Manish Agarwal (Kratos Gaming Network): It is just a serious intent to be the world leader, right? And for that, we need resources. We can't have these individual teams really kind of running around for their own livelihood. Because when you are talking about world-class athletes, what Avinabh Inder has done or what JSW has done to produce, it is a serious amount of investment which goes on picking them young, seeing them through from a physical training to mental training, to coach, to games, to facilities. I think all of that requires investment. And that is what one of the thing which publicprivate partnership and combination of K-India or whatever has to happen. Because if you want to be the top team in PUBG, CSGO, Valorant, Dota, I think we have the talent. It is just a sustained intensity and coaching which is required. And you would need some of the... Because we don't have that kind of quality of trainers. We'll have to import some of those trainers and that's again expensive.

Utsav Somani: But why trainers? Like, I mean, all of this can be done remotely via the internet as well, right? I'm guessing these games are played online and people have access to... Internet is a great leveler as well that you can access the best minds in the US or best minds in Korea or Japan. So what's really stopping them from access?

Manish Agarwal (Kratos Gaming Network): Game mechanics is online. But when you're talking about a human, you need a mental coaching. You need a physical coaching. You need a certain amount of environment in that room. You need co-living there. So in my opinion, I've seen esports for last 15 years. One common thing which people make mistake is esports athlete and esports athlete are different. No, they are not. They're exactly the same grind they have to go through in all of things. And in fact, their life is more complex because they need an amazing amount of three faculties, eyes, hands and mind coordination happening at the same time in real time.

Dhruv Sharma: Manish, you might just be the right person to ask this. But you know, as e-athletes, I'm going to borrow that term from Mutsum. They train for, you know, stronger reflexes and better dexterity. Can you share with us some training drills, some crazy training drills or something you've seen them perform? Yeah, I don't know.

Manish Agarwal (Kratos Gaming Network): I've not been to the team houses so much. So I don't know. What I've seen is the difference in setup when international teams came to India for championships. Yeah, they were. I was really that was an eye opener for me. And then I felt really that Indian teams and the facilities which they get is like so different.

Utsav Somani: And I mean, so globally, I mean, given your role at Nazara, of course, that companies become prominent in the gaming space. What will it take for India to actually, I mean, we've spoken about esports, but just create unique IP, like how do we build these studios like Activision and stuff which are pushing out these AAA category games? Like, is it again, lack of talent, lack of funding or what is the blocker there?

Manish Agarwal (Kratos Gaming Network): It's a combination of three things. One, you need high skilled game designers, but that is where you really, really, you really need to work multiple nuances of multiple aspects of game design, right? The second piece is patient and perseverance capital. It's not an Excel sheet in which you could say that game will be launched by this date and will make so much money. It's like even Mr. Sanjay Leela Bansali's movie could be a flop, right? Here, the game probability of succeeding is pretty low like any other content. So you need to have a mindset of patient perseverance capital, which needs to give a long rope of 6-10 years. And then the third thing is you need to really have a huge amount of support in terms of publishing the game. Because I may be a good game designer, and I may be a good backend engineer, frontend engineer, but my ability to kind of really publish, I don't know. And those capabilities of publishing, where I'm supporting you for the experiments, which you might do in terms of multiple ways, all three things have to come together. And that's what is you have seen successfully being done in Turkey. This has been done in Finland, successfully being done in Canada and other geographies in Korea, where there is a national gaming. It's a national game. Gaming is a national agenda. And there is an organization which helps promote, incubate, publish, grants, all of that. So in my opinion, it's an evergreen capital, which is invested in skill development, is invested in incubating mentoring. And it is attractive for experienced talent to come and work with the local talent. So I think all of that is missing here. And I'm very happy that now with the focus squarely and fully on the video gaming industry, all of that should really pan out.

Utsav Somani: And GTS 6 finally has a release date as well, right? So the internet meme was that things that you will get before GTS 6, I think that was doing the rounds for a while. But finally, I think hopefully next year, we'll all be able to play that.

Manish Agarwal (Kratos Gaming Network): The only thing which would match was Bangalore Metro.

Utsav Somani: And yeah, I mean, Dhruv, any closing thoughts?

Dhruv Sharma: Not really. Manish, this has been illuminating hearing you talking about gaming. Thank you very much for joining us.

Utsav Somani: And yeah, if you know any clan which is hiring, I was the best sniper in my Counter-Strike clan back in the day. I used to play a lot of Counter-Strike. So let me know if any positions are open in any clan.

Manish Agarwal (Kratos Gaming Network): Keep sending because for us, every clan, today we have 30,000 clans across these countries. So send it our way.

Utsav Somani: Yeah. All right. Thank you so much for tuning in.

Manish Agarwal (Kratos Gaming Network): Thanks, guys.

Utsav Somani: Thanks for having me, Dhruv. Bye-bye. Take care. Bye-bye.

Dhruv Sharma: What's up? Now I know why you were so thrilled with that. With PainPol, we once played on an offset.

Utsav Somani: Man, Age of Empires 2 and Counter-Strike, literally, I think were the two games that I've grown up on. So that's why now I have switched to Call of Duty. I mean, and funny thing is, dude, Elon Musk with all the time in the world that is going into his companies and stuff, he still makes time to stream. And he still somehow manages to be one of the best in the world at that game. I think he's playing...

Dhruv Sharma: He's World No. 3 or something, right?

Utsav Somani: Yeah. I think World of Warcraft or I think Diablo. I think it's a bunch of these games which are more like, yeah. Fascinating. Talking about streaming and gaming. Let's welcome our next guest, Piyush Upruta. Piyush, welcome to the show. Hi. Hi, Dhruv. Love the gaming, Ted.

Piyush Kumar (Rooter): What brand is it?

Utsav Somani: I'm guessing you've done your research. So what brand is that?

Piyush Kumar (Rooter): It's a brand called Cybart, which is one of my favorites for a long time. I have it in the office. I have it at home. Very, very comfortable. We used to work with them. Indian brand? It's an Indian brand. It's an Indian brand. And very, very comfortable. I think one of the brands that is used by most of these posties.

Utsav Somani: Amazing. So you sit at the intersection of gaming and creative economy. Two fascinating worlds coming together, right? Is it harder to build gamers? We've heard Manisha's perspective as well. But is it harder to build paying audiences? Or is it harder to build good talent? T-athletes is the word that we're using these days. What's harder in India?

Piyush Kumar (Rooter): See, I think I've been in and around the industry for the last five and a half years. We pivoted to game streaming in 2020. And we've seen it like how it has paved over the last five years. I think with India, one of the key things that we realize is the biggest challenge is how do you monetize the industry? And from that, everything else flows out. You know, so whether it is if you go back to a 2021-22, when the esports was at its peak, two, three streaming platforms had raised a lot of money. Altogether, we had about $80 to $100 million, and we deployed it with the creators. The kind of talent, the kind of production, everything was excellent. But to keep supporting that kind of an ecosystem, somebody needs to either invest constantly, which is either through an investor network or something, or platforms need to make their own money to be able to invest. And that is exactly the phase that I think we are going through. So to answer your question, I think, you know, creating gamers is always a slightly more easier one if you get the right game for the right market. Esports, at least, is something which is always going to happen as games start to grow. But the real challenge is who's going to fund all of this? And that, I think, is the phase where Indian gaming is right now.

Utsav Somani: So I see it that way. Where can it come from? Can it come from private investing? Can it come from sponsorships? Or can it come from, I don't know, big leagues happening, which are powered like the IPL of esports?

Piyush Kumar (Rooter): I mean, honestly, I think my learning as an entrepreneur for the last 8-9 years is that you can always rely on brands to sponsor tournaments or platforms and ads and all of it, and you can always go to investors to raise money. But the real businesses are backed and grow faster when there is a way that a consumer pays. And honestly, at Rooter, for the last two, two and a half years, that's the only thing we are trying to solve. We decided to purposely slow down, not raise too much capital, and just, you know, because unless you solve for that, at some point, things start to get stuck. So to answer your question, I genuinely feel, and we have seen that with one of our launches, which is one of the ecommerce stores that we launched, RooterShop, that Indian gamers can really pay. The only thing is that everybody needs to collectively come together and find ways for gamers to, you know, pay, and for that, give the right value back. Which is truly something that we are trying to unlock. So, and if amongst all the categories of users in India, gamers have the real propensity to pay. It's crazy how much they can spend money on gaming. So, sorry, and just to add one more point, even for e-sports, one of the things that we're trying to solve is, if e-sports can be treated like sports, where any content that is being given to the user can be put behind a certain paywall, you know, I think that will grow much faster. Currently, everybody's relying too much on either streaming platforms taking the cost, or organizers taking the cost, or brands taking the cost, which is a little bit of an off-the-cuff issue.

Dhruv Sharma: Is there something that makes a game better suited to be a spectator sport, where you'll stream it and people will join the stream to see what's happening?

Piyush Kumar (Rooter): Yeah, absolutely. I think games are very clearly categorized between games which are e-sports friendly and games which are not e-sports friendly. I'll give you a case in point, cricket is such a big sport in India, many games have come up which have tried to create an e-sports kind of an experience out of it, but nobody has succeeded. While there are games like BGMI, Valorant, you know, Call of Duty, all these games have gone on to become much larger in terms of e-sports. So, it essentially is about the layers of competitiveness that a game can offer, and a clear display of skills, you know, at every level, if you're able to create layers, you know, then I think it starts to unlock a lot. So, for sure, I mean, I genuinely feel, but yeah, the other side of the question, the other side of the answer is, every game can't be an e-sports friendly game. It needs to be thought through right from the beginning, and it can't happen in the midway.

Dhruv Sharma: Yeah, and e-athletes as competitive as physical athletes? We're sticking to that word.

Piyush Kumar (Rooter): Yes, I heard. Yeah, I heard the answer to this question, and I kind of agree. I think their lives are very, very tough. Honestly, you know, when a physical athlete goes out, and he has an environment to play on with, and, you know, lots of relative factors, crowd, all of that. Typically, an e-athlete is either in a, either in a, what do you call, in an offline environment, where very rarely, where there are a lot of audiences, it happens mostly in the West. India has had a few LAN events, but most of them are stuck in a room, mostly a dark room, where they're either sitting with their teammates or doing it alone, and therefore, I feel mentally, an e-athlete is, you know, it's far tougher for them to operate than a physical athlete.

Dhruv Sharma: And it's also like dopamine versus endorphins, both have adrenaline, I assume. So, another question for you, but back to Utsav for now, and I'll maybe get back to you.

Utsav Somani: Talking about attention, right? I think, I mean, you're building your own platform after the pivot, but all the attention is there on, I mean, now, I think short form content, like reels and videos and YouTube and Twitch, they have the eyeballs and the attention. What are you doing uniquely? You mentioned paywalls. I think that's something that you're exploring, router shop as well, that router is doing uniquely to bring the attention and eyeballs to your platform. I'm guessing it's a chicken or the egg problem, classic marketplace problem that you must have solved, getting the eyeballs, getting the streamers and matchmaking and building a thriving ecosystem.

Piyush Kumar (Rooter): What was the- Yeah, I mean, yeah, very, very, very nice question because this is exactly what we have learned in the last two, three years. So, one of the things that we learned is streaming for say, is a very difficult business scale unless you get either a lot of money to build a market for like five, seven years, or you are instantly getting a certain monetization done from brands or somewhere else. So, there are two, three learning. One is that from a streaming perspective, we are going slow and rebuilding the market in a gradual manner where we pick a certain sort of a talent, try and help them grow, then get more games and gradually do. Unlike like back in 22, when we were spending, like we spend about maybe $10 billion on creator economy. From a short form video perspective, interestingly gaming has not taken off from that perspective. So, like the reels in games, we launched it back in May, 2022. Twitch launched reels in October, 23. You know, and if you would have picked Roblox to launch a separate app for short form video content, just like I read the news about two, three days back. So, the interesting thing about gaming is that nobody has really cracked the short form video content globally best of what I see and I have learned. And that therefore is a huge opportunity for everybody to do it. We are also trying to do something.

Utsav Somani: And why is that? It just generally takes longer to at least see a move happen or what's the reason behind it?

Piyush Kumar (Rooter): I mean, there is, there are a combination of things. One is that, I mean, if you look at, it's very similar to the... So, eSports potentially can be transformed into short form video content pretty quickly. So, there are moments which are high and low moments and one could do it. Everything else is an entertainment and that entertainment factor needs to come from the creator themselves. So, let's say I'm able to cut through a reel which is 60 seconds or something. I need to be creative enough to make it like a trend. You know, so short form video content is essentially always growing because there are trends that are coming in every week, every 15 days. And once a trend... Sorry, sorry. Performative to some extent. Exactly, exactly. Yeah, it can be a song. It can be an animation. It can be an act. You must have seen Bacha doing one of these latest trends quite extensively. So, I think in gaming, somebody needs to crack that. We are a platform. We are here to distribute and we really want that to be done. It's one of our focus areas for the next six to 12 months.

Utsav Somani: Interesting.

Dhruv Sharma: In speaking with Manish and Piyush, I've been wondering, what are the picks and shovels businesses adjacent to gaming? Like we're seeing that great chair. What are similar pieces of hardware and similar companies making such hardware for gamers, Piyush?

Manish Agarwal (Kratos Gaming Network): But I think...

Dhruv Sharma: The other question to ask is, sorry, is like, what's the stack for a professional gamer?

Piyush Kumar (Rooter): Well, I mean, the stack can range from something as simple as having a good smartphone and it can go on to have one of the best setups for like a streaming or a gaming experience. So, yeah, one of the things that is happening is that increasingly people are spending a lot of money to make the streaming or the playing experience a lot better. So, for example, monitors have picked up a lot, you know, sound devices have picked up, audio devices have picked up a lot, cameras have picked up a lot, which is very similar to the other streaming is there. Gaming chairs and all are still very, very, you know, I'll say exclusive kind of an experience. It's not something which maybe the top 1% of the creators have it and can take it forward.

Utsav Somani: How much is the chair that you're sitting on? How much is that for?

Piyush Kumar (Rooter): Uh, this is for about I think 25 or 1000. But since I knew the company, they gave me a very good discount. Of course. And it's an extremely comfortable chair. Like it's the kind of things you can do with it. You can literally lie down on it and I'll literally be able to draw endorsement.

Utsav Somani: I hope the founder is tuning in today to see this.

Piyush Kumar (Rooter): Yeah, I mean, these guys are great. I mean, I really wish they expand pretty, you know, quite quickly. But to answer your question, I think I mean, I always answer this question in one way. 22, 2022, 23. Everything started to, you know, look very, very fast growing. Then things slowed down. And I think over the last 24 odd months, everybody's trying to make a foreseeable business out of everything on gaming, you know, whether it is hardware, whether it is games themselves, whether it is platforms like us, everybody's trying to now kind of restart and sort of. And particularly with the gaming bill, I think everybody's got what is going to happen in India over the next five to 10 years. So yeah, a lot of it will come up. We see many, many, many such brands now regularly advertising on router and trying to push their gaming products.

Utsav Somani: So do you know Mythpact, the gaming streamer? Yeah, a bit. Yeah, so I've invested in this company recently. He's building gaming products as well. I started with audio and I think now they'll do many of the product lines as well. So interesting to see gaming creators launch their own line of products as well. Yeah, solid. He's got some, I don't know, how many million followers on YouTube of his?

Piyush Kumar (Rooter): Yeah, and he's solved for one of the key problems of such categories, which is user acquisition. He'll be able to grow much faster. This is exactly what worked for us, by the way, not trying to bring in router here, but it's exactly what worked for us for router shop to scale. Because we had router streaming and we had a community when we launched shop, it took off very quickly. So I think very similar experiences will happen with them as well. What is router shop?

Utsav Somani: What kind of things do people sell? Is it like everything? So it's like a Shopify for gamers, basically. You can just launch your own store and monetize your fan. No, no, no, no, no, no.

Piyush Kumar (Rooter): It's it's basically like Amazon for all the gaming currencies, gaming IAPs. So what we are doing is we are selling in all the gaming in game currencies. Yeah, so right from a craft on Riot, PlayStation, Xbox. Pretty much everything. And then all the digital gift cards. So the entire digital gift card industry led by Flipkart, Amazon, Mintra, all of that. So we are basically selling all the digital goods under one roof, which is a part of the overall router product. And yeah, the idea here is to create to give one clear distribution, you know, platform for everybody to come and start selling here or we sell for them and for users to get everything in under one umbrella.

Utsav Somani: So it's a C2C marketplace, like customer to customer. You're just absolutely, absolutely, absolutely.

Piyush Kumar (Rooter): We are we are one of the largest ones here. And we've got a fly going pretty well here. It's a very, very large I mean, the in-app purchase market in India is almost a billion dollars right now. It's going to be a $3 billion market in next three years. We have seen it right in front of us, it growing from $300 million in 2022 to now a billion dollars. And this is Lumika's study and something that we have also experienced ourselves. It's a crazy market, which is going completely under the radar. Nobody's noticing that the real revenue in gaming is actually coming from in-app purchase. Everything else is more visible and people talk about it. But the real money that, you know, gaming companies are making are through in-app purchase. And that's where a marketplace like ours is going to help all gaming publishers reach out to a larger audience and really make good revenue.

Utsav Somani: Yeah, I've heard parents complain about how much their kids spend on Roblox. I've never played the game, but it's fascinating. Like, yeah. What are some of the top three, four games that people are paying? Like, I mean, over 25 year olds.

Piyush Kumar (Rooter): Yeah, so I mean, typically in India, you must have heard many gaming professionals talking about this, that now we have more than five games in India, which are doing more than $100 million of annualized revenue. So this is BGMI, Free Fire, Valorink, Call of Duty, Ludo is doing a lot of numbers. And a lot of such games. So no, Roblox and all is a much smaller audience. It's very, very like top of the funnel kind of audience vision there. But the insight itself that you shared is so, so true. Every parent today knows that the only place their kid wants to get, spend their money or get their pocket money for is gaming. And therefore, it's becoming a very large part of the culture of these young adults who are coming up.

Utsav Somani: Interesting. Dhruv, any closing thoughts?

Dhruv Sharma: I mean, Piyush, what's your sense when people join a stream to see someone play, why do they join that stream? What do they get out of it?

Piyush Kumar (Rooter): It's a question. It's an amazing, it's an amazing question. I've been answering since last five, five and a half years, where a lot of people think, even I used to think that why do people watch others play? See, there are two, three reasons. One is that it's very similar to the way sports is, you know, that the kind of adrenaline you get when you watch a cricket or a football or a tennis match is something very similar to what you get while you watch some other people play. So it's very similar. Even if you don't play a certain game and you like a certain kind of content and you start watching, let's say a BGMI esports tournament, you start to like it because of the commentary and the content and the way they're speaking about it and the way they coordinate with each other and so on and so forth. So that's one. There is a certain section of people who also watch others play to basically learn the game better. And, you know, it's a constant way to learn how to navigate through a certain map and all of it put together. But largely the real insight is that it's something that starts with you as soon as you start to get to a screen as a kid. And it continues to be one of the ways for you to get out of the normal mundane life and enjoy it. So and the best thing is it's live, you know? So when the content is live, it can be any content in the world. When the content is live, you know, it is not something which is there. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So, yeah, it's just a lot of fun.

Utsav Somani: I think people just enjoy watching it. Yeah. And in China, they stream like all kinds of things. I mean, the kind of market there is for all kinds of content there's an audience. Like, I think we're 7, 8 billion people in the world. So I think there's enough for everyone to go around with. All right. With that, let's close an awesome, awesome episode. Thank you so much, Piyush, for tuning in and giving us your insights and learning from building Rootup. Hope to have you back on the show soon. Have a good one. Thank you. Thank you. So thanks, Ruf.

Piyush Kumar (Rooter): Really enjoyed this conversation. Thank you for inviting me.

Utsav Somani: Have a good day. All right, Dhruv, close us out. Remind people that we'll be tuning in again on Friday as well.

Dhruv Sharma: Yes. Friday is when we when we see you again. But look, this is fascinating. I know very little about this world. I've been such a... I used to suck at Road Rash. So that's how bad my gaming skills are. And to be with two people who are pretty much, you know, shaping the industry has been fascinating. And folks, you must have you must have realized the many, many parallels between the term we've been using e-athletes and physical athletes. Both sports are demanding. You have to train for them. You have to show up prepared. There are wins and losses. And it's just like life. And that's been very interesting to hear from these two gentlemen.

Utsav Somani: All right, folks. See you on Friday.