Highlights
- Community-first spending is set to reshape monetization in 2026, with identity, status, clubs, and creator-led rewards driving greater user participation.
- AI-native production, cloud access, and cross-platform ecosystems will accelerate content pipelines and expand access to mid-core and competitive gaming.
- Tier 2 and Tier 3 players are emerging as key growth engines, with rising aspirations around performance hardware, fair monetization, and long-term progression.
India’s gaming industry is entering a phase of consolidation and maturity. Growth is no longer defined only by downloads or player counts. It is increasingly shaped by behaviour, motivation, and the systems that support long-term engagement. The shift is structural, moving from gameplay toward community, from access toward aspiration, and from hype cycles toward sustainable ecosystems.
To understand how this change will unfold in 2026, we spoke to three leaders who operate across different parts of the gaming value chain: Parth Chadha, Co-Founder and CEO of STAN; Roby John, CEO and Co-Founder of SuperGaming; and Vishal Parekh, Chief Operating Officer of CyberPowerPC India.
Their perspectives reveal a common trajectory. Indian gaming is evolving into a socially anchored, performance-driven economy, powered by creators, competition, and identity. The broader direction is clear: gaming in India is no longer a passive pastime. It is steadily becoming a cultural, technological, and economic layer in everyday life.
Community Will Become the Core Driver of Spending
According to Chadha, India’s gaming economy is undergoing a fundamental behavioural shift. He said, “we’re entering a phase where India’s gaming economy is no longer driven purely by gameplay, it’s driven by community.” He identifies three distinct shifts that are already visible today and that will define spending behaviour in 2026.
The first shift is the move toward community-first monetization, where belonging and participation influence spending decisions as much as in-game rewards. “Gamers increasingly discover titles, choose what to buy, and justify their spending through their creators, squads, and clubs,” Chadha explains. He notes that this behaviour is clearly visible within STAN. “When creators drop club-only perks, run quests, or launch limited missions, users organically spend more, not because of the game itself, but because the community experience feels rewarding.”
Identity and recognition are becoming value drivers in themselves. The second shift is linked to regulation and how users perceive risk and value. With real-money formats facing stricter oversight, Chadha expects spending in 2026 to move toward safer, engagement-led ecosystems such as in-app purchases, subscriptions, community perks, merchandise, and brand-funded rewards.
“Our brand-integrated reward systems allow users to earn value through engagement rather than risk,” he says. “We’re scaling brand-funded quests and reward programs that let players unlock perks simply by participating, not wagering.”
The third shift reflects a deeper mindset change. Players are increasingly paying for identity, status, and belonging instead of competitive advantage. “Players will pay more for identity and status than for advantage,” Chadha says. He expects cosmetics, badges, club identities, and limited drops to outperform pay-to-win mechanics. “Our Club badges, progression systems, XP ladders, and limited creator drops already give users that sense of recognition.”
This trend is particularly strong among Tier 2 and Tier 3 audiences.
They are “showing unprecedented willingness to invest in creators, community memberships, and participation rewards that feel meaningful,” he explains. He also notes the rise of micro-spending tied to validation, such as leader board boosts, badges, and creator-led experiences. “Users increasingly want to earn while they engage. Attention itself is becoming a currency,” Chadha stated.
Taken together, these shifts indicate a transition from transactional spending to social spending within Indian gaming.
AI-Native Pipelines and Platform Fluidity Will Reshape Production
For Roby’s team at SuperGaming, 2026 represents a turning point in how AI supports Indian game development. “AI-driven content creation has become a genuine accelerator for us,” he says. At SuperGaming, artists use AI tools to prototype environments and generate variations more efficiently.
This reduces iteration time and frees teams to focus on creative decision-making. “Our teams can now spend less time on repetitive asset generation and more time on the creative decisions that actually make games feel distinct and engaging,” said John.
Chadha believes the shift toward AI is just as significant within creator ecosystems. “2026 will be the year India’s gaming ecosystem finally becomes AI-native,” he says. At STAN, AI is already embedded in moderation, behavioural insights, session summaries, and creator tools. “Creators will be able to produce five times more content with the same effort, and community engagement will be shaped by real-time AI insights rather than gut instinct.”
Both leaders see AI evolution converging with two adjacent trends: cloud access and cross-platform ecosystems. Chadha expects cloud gaming to make mid-core and high-fidelity titles accessible across India, regardless of device capability. Cross-platform ecosystems, he believes, will dissolve the traditional mobile versus PC divide, enabling experiences that move seamlessly between screens.
For Roby, this shift is also a strategic opportunity for Indian studios. “The real opportunity is using these tools to punch above our weight and bring Indian game development to the global stage,” he explains.
From Hyper-Casual Consumption to Persistent Game Worlds
Roby observes a major shift in how Indian players allocate their time and attention. “Players are increasingly gravitating towards mid-core and core games that offer long-term progression, competitive depth, and social play,” he says. Instead of spreading time across multiple hyper-casual titles, players are consolidating around a smaller number of games that feel meaningful to invest in.
The experience with Indus provided strong indicators of this trend. “Players are actively engaging with lore, skill expression, squad-based play, and competitive formats,” Roby notes. “The Indian audience is ready for high-quality, long-lasting game ecosystems built locally.”
Spending behaviour is evolving in parallel with this shift.
“UPI has fundamentally changed how Indian players spend,” he explains. With lower transaction friction, monetization has moved away from ad-heavy formats toward structured in-app purchases. Players are increasingly willing to pay for battle passes, cosmetics, and progression-linked systems that offer identity, personalization, and fairness. Tier 2 and Tier 3 users are now meaningful contributors to this revenue pattern.
Roby also highlights how gaming has become a social layer. “Gaming in India is not a solo activity anymore, it’s entertainment, competition, and social identity rolled into one,” he says. Creator-led events, custom community formats, and grassroots esports initiatives are becoming stronger retention levers than traditional marketing. Skill expression and social recognition now matter just as much as content updates.
Hardware Spending is Becoming Purpose-Driven
On the hardware front, Parekh believes 2026 will reflect a more informed and intentional approach to purchasing. “Gamers no longer see a PC as a one-time buy, they see it as a long-term performance partner,” he says. Decisions are increasingly influenced by consistent frame rates, stability under extended sessions, multitasking for streaming and content creation, and storage performance that reduces friction in daily use.
He also notes a shift away from spec chasing toward real-world value. “There’s a growing confidence in understanding components and investing where it actually improves the experience,” Parekh explains. Future-proofing and clear upgrade paths are emerging as critical expectations rather than optional features.
Importantly, this mindset is expanding beyond metro markets. “Gamers from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities are entering with serious ambition,” he says. They want reliable performance that allows them to compete, create, and participate on equal footing with established urban players.
Technological shifts in game production are reinforcing these expectations. As studios leverage AI and cross-platform pipelines to build richer, heavier games, performance standards naturally rise.
“These shifts are pushing the ecosystem toward higher standards... with performance, stability, and flexibility becoming central to how future games are built and played,” Parekh says.
New Genres and Participation Economies Will Gain Momentum
Across the ecosystem, emerging formats are converging around community, collaboration, and shared progression.
Chadha expects 2026 to accelerate community-first gaming genres, including creator-led modes, UGC-driven sandboxes, mini battle royales, squad progression formats, and social deduction experiences. “India’s youth want games where the squad matters more than the skill gap,” he says. Inside STAN Clubs, he observes strong behaviour patterns around micro-memberships, brand-integrated quests, reward economies, and attention-to-value loops.
Roby, meanwhile, anticipates breakout momentum in extraction-based battle royale. “You drop in, loot, complete objectives, and then face the critical choice: extract now with what you’ve earned, or push deeper for better rewards at higher risk,” he explains. The format supports flexible session lengths, persistent progression, and fair monetization structures suited to mobile-first markets.
He also expects growth in creator-driven game economies and skill-first competitive gaming, supported by regulatory clarity and improved infrastructure.
For Parekh, the next wave of growth will be shaped by aspirational players from emerging regions who now see gaming as a serious pursuit rather than a distant aspiration. Access to reliable hardware, stable infrastructure, and supportive ecosystems will play a decisive role in how these audiences scale participation.
Toward a More Intentional and Human Gaming Ecosystem
Across all three perspectives, a shared theme emerges. Indian gaming in 2026 is likely to be defined less by raw scale and more by meaning, agency, and legitimacy.
Players will spend where the community reinforces belonging. Studios will build game worlds that persist across sessions and platforms. Creators will anchor participation economies. Hardware will function as an enabler of ambition rather than an entry point.
If the previous decade was about proving that gaming belongs in India’s cultural landscape, the coming years will be about deepening its purpose and strengthening the systems that allow players, creators, and professionals to grow within it.
