New Delhi, Mar 14: In an interesting finding, social platform Meta has found a rising prevalence of gaming in India in both the categories of casual and real-money gamers coming from non-metro cities.

Meta (formerly known as Facebook) held its inaugural Gaming Summit in India today to mark the rising importance of the sector, which is also among the top three business verticals for Meta, a company release said.

The company also unveiled key consumer findings from a Meta-commissioned study by GWI focused on Gaming. Among the key findings, the study calls out the rising prevalence of gaming in India with nearly half of the casual gamers and 43 percent of real-money gamers coming from non-metro geographies.

The study also called out reels, video ads on Meta and influencers as top drivers for gamers to discover and purchase new games.

“Gaming is poised to play a leading role in India’s techade, and we are thrilled to enable growth opportunities for gaming businesses at different stages of their journey.” Said Arun Srinivas, Director and Head (India), Ads Business, Meta,

The summit was attended by the country’s biggest gaming brands that shed light on the use of innovative cutting-edge technologies such as AI that has helped them drive growth for their business. They also highlighted the top trends shaping the gaming industry in India right now.

The Meta GWI study showed that more than three out of four casual and real money gamers in India discover new games to play and purchase on social media, and more than 90 percent of these do so on the Meta platforms.

The study revealed that key moments such as major sporting events and the festive period impact the types of games played.

According to the study, 88 percent of the consumers said that they’re more likely to switch from playing other real-money games to playing fantasy sports games during tentpole sporting events (such as the IPL and World Cup). This could play a key role during the upcoming IPL tournament.

UNI