The emerging regulatory structure is designed to prevent psychological harm to users, particularly children, through age-rating and time limits. It seeks to curb addiction and financial loss in real money games. And the games being offered in India should not suborn ‘national interest’. These are fairly consistent with content rules in other media formats and the safeguard mechanism is, in keeping with tradition, self-regulatory. In Krafton’s case, the desired local ownership, self-regulation and data localisation levels were achieved through negotiation, which sends out the right signals for both government and industry. Since then, fresh regulatory clarity has emerged. The online gaming industry should have a free run – as long as it stays within these guard rails.
GoI’s concerns are not excessive, given the size of its young population and the dominance of online gaming by Chinese companies. The rules provide protection to consumers and producers. GoI had to build an elaborate consensus among stakeholders to be able to offer the industry a growth runway. Krafton saw the writing on the wall when it moved its operations into India, agreed to address issues of addiction and juvenile mental health, and committed capital to local gaming startups. As anyone adept with a console knows, that’s how you move ahead.