The All-India Gaming Federation had forecasted more than five years ago that rural gamers will surpass their urban Indian counterparts in the near future. Despite such indications, a non-metro presence of 66% in the 2024 gaming population can easily be deemed as unprecedented. Millions in rural India are embracing card games through the likes of the RummyTime rummy game app. Apart from poker and rummy apps, the popularity is also noticeable in all types of casual and hyper casual games.
The popularity of online gaming in rural India has mostly been circumstantial. However, the role played by leading platforms like RummyTime has had a transformative effect too.
Gaming in the Hinterlands
Online gaming was originally envisaged as a predominantly urban pastime. Rural India was not expected to invest in consoles and gaming PCs, understand the gaming ecosystem and participate en masse. The number of rural internet users surpassed the number of city users in 2019. At around that time, cities had 205 million internet users, whereas rural India had 227 million users. Internet use, in itself, was not expected to be a big influence in gaming, considering that gaming also needed significant hardware investment.
The scale shifted towards rural India only when the combination of the internet and smartphones became synonymous with gaming. As mobile gaming became an option for rural India, hardware investments shrunk, and soon (almost) every smartphone user was busy gaming. Cut to the present day, and 90% of gaming in India is mobile-based. This is no surprise, as two out of every three games are played in rural India.
The smartphone adoption rate in India was galloping at 15% per annum during the pre-COVID years. Initiatives like ‘Digital Village’ were bringing high-speed internet to rural India at an affordable price. Notably, the internet data charges in India continue to be one of the lowest in the world. As the 5G network continues to reach the interiors of India, gamers in rural India have all the tools they need to play. No wonder a significant portion of the players in popular Teen Patti and rummy app are from outside the metros.
Platforms Make it Better
The penetration of gaming into rural India got a massive boost with the telecom revolution that has swept across the country during the last few years. However, it was the smart strategies of the leading gaming platforms that got rural Indians into gaming in a big way.
Take the RummyTime platform, for instance. It has enticed rummy enthusiasts to try their passion for the popular card game in a digitised format. Skill games like rummy and many other card games have a loyal fan following in India. These games have been played in living rooms and clubhouses across India for several decades, if not centuries. What this means is that when platforms like RummyTime decided to introduce a rummy app as the digital reincarnation of the game, a user base was already in place.
Indians have been used to playing skill-based games in a face-to-face scenario. However, this had its perils. There would be sleights of hand, collusion and disputes that would ruin the gaming experience. Online skill gaming platforms had the potential to eliminate these real-life gaming issues. However, these platforms can also easily become susceptible to these and various other issues.
Real money gaming involves financial transactions, which makes users doubly wary of dealing with it. Legitimate platforms like RummyTime have been influential in quelling such concerns and providing a secure gaming ecosystem to the players.
Watertight Security Measures
Rural India’s penchant for card and other skill-based gaming has been carefully offered in a secure environment by established platforms like RummyTime. The ISO 9001 and 27001-certified platform is also an SSL-certified platform. While ISO certification provides quality and efficiency assurance, the SSL certification provides an encrypted and secure exchange of data.
RummyTime ensures a 24X7 fraud detection and monitoring mechanism and an internationally recognised certification for game randomness to ensure fair play in the rummy games. RummyTime has been the first choice for more than 1.7 crore rummy players, the bulk of whom are from non-metro locations. To cater to the service needs of players with different linguistic backgrounds, RummyTime has implemented 5-language customer support, which is available round the clock. With free games, different rummy game variants, and big weekend tournaments, RummyTime is equally attractive for beginners as well as seasoned rummy campaigners.
Skill Gaming Across India
Through the state-of-the-art gaming ecosystem provided by platforms like RummyTime, people from across India can now follow their passion for rummy online. It is with the success of platforms like these that real money games in India surged to become the biggest revenue contributor in the Indian gaming industry. Given its steady penetration to rural pockets of India, platforms like RummyTime are expected to maintain a steady CAGR of over 8% for the rest of the decade.
