India’s DPDP Act is Rewriting Data Strategy for Gaming Businesses

• DPDP Rules, 2025, bring a new phase of privacy accountability for India's digital sector.
• Gaming companies must overhaul consent design, data retention, and security systems.
• Experts call for a change in culture across developers, platforms, and publishers.

The Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Rules, 2025, were officially notified on Nov. 14, marking the complete operationalization of the DPDP Act, 2023. For the Indian gaming industry, now one of the fastest-growing segments of the digital economy, this legislative milestone is far more than a compliance marker. It effectively redefines how gaming businesses collect, store, and use the personal data of players, users, and partners in a way that prioritizes transparency, accountability, and trust.

The government’s phased approach, designed around an 18-month compliance window, is meant to help organizations transition without disrupting operations. But for studios, esports organizers, and publishing platforms that run on high volumes of behavioral data, they will feel the impact immediately in governance, consent design, and vendor relationships.

We spoke to Deep Chanda, Chief Officer at Ampcus Cyber, and Apurv Agrawal, Co-Founder and CEO at Squadstack.ai, and gained valuable insights on how businesses can adopt the new rules around data security.

From Players to Data Principals

Under the DPDP Act, every gamer, streamer, or user interacting with a platform becomes a “Data Principal.” The platform or publisher then assumes the role of “Data Fiduciary,” bearing full responsibility for collecting and processing personal data. These designations shift the balance of accountability sharply toward gaming companies.

The Act requires that consent be clear, informed, and easy to withdraw, something gaming platforms often overlook by burying permissions in long sign-up flows or game client updates. According to Chanda, many businesses “are still approaching data governance the wrong way, particularly around consent, collection and storage.” He cautions that consent cannot remain a one-time ritual but must evolve into an ongoing conversation between companies and their users.

For gaming entities that thrive on analytics and engagement metrics, this means building transparent, user-centric consent journeys. We need interfaces where users can easily view, modify, or withdraw permissions without friction. Retaining more data than necessary, Chanda notes, often exposes firms to unnecessary risk, especially now that the DPDP mandates stronger accountability for third parties and breach reporting.

Rethinking Data Collection and Storage in Gaming

Gaming businesses routinely handle sensitive identifiers— from login credentials and purchase records to behavioral analytics. The DPDP rules make it clear that every Data Fiduciary must issue a consent notice that explains why and how such data is used.

Companies must also define specific retention periods and follow clear deletion policies. Under the new framework, storage limitations and security safeguards are not optional compliance points but core operational principles. Encryption, restricted access controls, regular audits, and deletion automation should serve as the new industry standard. 

“With the DPDP Act coming into full force in 2025, many companies are still approaching data governance the wrong way, particularly around consent, collection, and storage. Instead of being a continuous, open commitment to consumers, consent is frequently reduced to a formality. Simultaneously, businesses continue to gather more data than they require and retain it in ways that are unclear in terms of retention, minimization, or protection,” said Chanda.

Many international gaming publishers already follow such norms under General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). However, for Indian operators, the DPDP Act now brings similar expectations domestically, which should put a stop to unnecessary data collection. 

Agrawal talked about how adopting the DPDP Act requires a “purpose-first data strategy, where every piece of information collected has a clear, communicated intent. Consent must be granular, revocable, and written in simple language. Companies also need to invest in centralized, encrypted data infrastructure with strict access controls, regular audits, and real-time monitoring of all third-party processors.”

Besides internal safeguards, the Act also demands clarity in how platforms handle third-party data processors, vendors managing user analytics, push notifications, or community interactions. Under the Rules, companies are liable for breaches originating in these external systems, unless they prove due diligence and continuous monitoring.

How the Industry Can Move Beyond Checkboxes

For much of India’s digital sector, compliance has often been transactional, where forms are filled, policies are drafted, and audits are postponed until required. The DPDP framework aims to change that mentality by embedding privacy into every layer of design, communication, and leadership.

Agrawal talked about the necessary cultural shift, stating, “DPDP demands a cultural shift in how Indian organizations view data, moving from a growth resource to a sensitive asset that requires accountability at every level. For many companies, privacy is still owned by legal teams or IT alone, which is no longer sufficient. Businesses must embed privacy-by-design into product development, sales workflows, customer engagement, and AI model training.”

In the gaming context, this cultural shift could be transformative. Esports platforms, for example, handle vast volumes of personal data during registrations, match tracking, and prize distribution. Similarly, mobile game developers use telemetry data to fine-tune engagement, creating large pools of identifiable information. 

Chanda explains that businesses “need to build clear, user-centric consent journeys, collect only what is necessary for a defined purpose and strengthen how data is stored, accessed and eventually disposed of.” 

This involves stronger internal governance, stricter access controls, and comprehensive employee training. Gaming companies can also incorporate modular data privacy reviews during development cycles, ensuring compliance before a game or feature goes live rather than after.

Under the Rules, any personal data breach must trigger immediate notification to both the Data Protection Board of India and the affected individuals. This means gaming companies, especially those operating cross-platform ecosystems, need rapid-reporting procedures and incident management workflows.

Equally critical is the scrutiny of vendor relationships. Studios frequently rely on ad networks, payment gateways, data analytics firms, and cross-border servers, any of which can introduce compliance risks. Establishing strict encryption standards, mapping data flows, and enforcing vendor audits become essential practices.

Within competitive industries such as gaming, where community trust drives retention, reputational damage from a data breach can outweigh even the largest statutory penalty, which can reach up to INR 250 crore ($2.78M) under the DPDP Act.

Aligning Privacy with Growth

Perhaps the most overlooked advantage of the DPDP framework is its potential to create stability. A transparent, well-regulated data ecosystem can foster greater trust among advertisers, investors, and users. These are key elements critical to scaling gaming platforms. When companies visibly commit to privacy-by-design principles, they strengthen both their compliance posture and their brand reputation.

The Digital Personal Data Protection Board, now fully digital and capable of online complaint resolution, also adds a layer of predictability for grievances. For the gaming industry, this helps in resolving data disputes efficiently, cutting down legal uncertainty that often arises in high-volume service models.

By integrating cybersecurity controls with privacy governance, gaming companies can develop a unified data protection framework that is resilient against breaches, adaptable to policy changes, and increasingly trusted by players worldwide. India’s DPDP Act, therefore, is not a roadblock to growth but a blueprint for sustainable innovation in digital entertainment.