Gaming industry to add 1 lakh new jobs in FY23: Report

Mumbai: The gaming industry is likely to add one lakh new jobs by 2022-23, across domains, including programming, testing, animation and design, according to a report.

The sector is likely to grow by 20-30 per cent and add one lakh direct and indirect new jobs by FY23, TeamLease Digital said in a report - Gaming: Tomorrow's Blockbuster.

Currently, the sector directly employs about 50,000 people of which 30 per cent of the workforce are programmers and developers.

Over the next year, the sector will add new jobs across domains like programming (game developers, unity developers), testing (games test engineering, QA lead), animation (animators), design (motion graphic designers, virtual reality designers), artist (VFX and concept artists) and other miscellaneous roles (content writers, gaming journalists, web analyst).

From a salary perspective, the highest-paying profiles in the gaming industry include game producers (Rs 10 lakh per annum), game designers (Rs 6.5 LPA), software engineers (Rs 5.5 LPA), game developers (Rs 5.25 LPA) and QA testers (Rs 5.11 LPA), the report said.

"Gaming industry is the next sunrise industry due to its increasing user base and the opportunities that this industry is set to offer. It offers jobs across sectors, and that makes it more in demand.

"Despite facing hurdles owing to frequent regulatory changes, the gaming industry is expected to create 1 lakh jobs by FY23 and grow 2.5 times by 2026," Teamlease Digital CEO Sunil Chemmankotil said.

The gaming industry is at the cusp of exponential growth and is on the trajectory to grow by 20-30 per cent by FY23 and expected to reach Rs 38,097 crore by 2026, TeamLease Digital Business Head-Specialised Staffing Munira Loliwala said.

"With a 480 million strong gaming community, India is the second largest globally, after China. To address this growth, employment in the sector is going to significantly increase.

"Today, we have a 90 per cent millennials and Gen-Z workforce and the majority of these professionals are aspiring to work in emerging sectors like gaming. By FY23, close to one lakh new jobs will be created in the sector and this is further projected to increase by 50 per cent taking the industry's overall growth trajectory to more than 113 per cent by 2025," she added.

Currently, in terms of revenue, India is placed in the sixth position on the world's biggest gaming market index (global market revenue is approximately at Rs 17,24,800 crore).

The sector is expected to attract FDI to the tune of Rs 780 crore by FY23, the report added.