Digital gaming is bringing the consumer angle back in Laptops

Gaming has beyond doubt surfaced as one of the main use cases of highspeed Internet. Since the inception of 4G, gaming has become increasingly regular activity for consumers across demographic sections. A recent techARC consumer insights research had found that 70% of Smartphone users were playing games regularly on a daily basis, making it 2nd category of applications used just after Social Networking.

The Smartphone Industry has proactively reacted to this development and we have seen in 2018 especially some of the Smartphones either specifically launched for gaming or the phones being optimised for gaming experiences.

However, this is still for casual gaming. Professional gamers want better graphics, sound, platforms and of course the screen size. This was so far available only in console-based gaming. Recently, laptop makers have seen this as an opportunity. This has been possible also due to broadband penetration where users can play games in real time without network lag affecting the experience. Hence, GaaS, Gaming as a Service.

Leading laptop brands including HP, Dell, Asus and MSI all have come up with their dedicated gaming series. Some of these include HP Omen, Dell Alienware and Asus ROG. These laptops have high end specs with dedicated graphics processors along with surround sound to give users the best of the gaming experiences. Besides, the hardware built is also designed to keep gaming in mind. Professional and serious gamers are looking at these devices to pursue their hobby or career. This is just similar to professional or hobby photographers going for DSLR cameras even though some of the Smartphones may have great cameras.

This has come up as a great news for the stagnating laptop industry. Estimated 10% of laptops being sold in India are now gaming laptops. This is not only pushing consumer driven sales in this category of devices, which after the advent of Smartphones had become more of enterprise affair. The other good thing for the industry is premium ASPs. While a good configuration laptop is for Rs 55,000 and above, a gaming laptop costs at least double of it. This is helping the laptop companies to get more revenues or at least maintain the levels with declining sales.

Smart TVs could also potentially become a competing device as users could get a bigger screen there as well. However, the gaming laptop has more to offer than just a large screen. Its graphics and sound quality are indeed optimised for gaming. Further, the trend of real time gaming does involve multiple players but each user is unique to a device contrary to earlier dual user games.

Gaming is becoming a blessing for the entire ecosystem it seems. It has some monetization prospects for telecom operators, new stream of revenue for app makers, premium for Smartphone companies and additionally revival in terms of revenue as well as direct connect with consumers for laptops.

2019 should witness more growth in the gaming laptop sales and all the leading vendors are geared for it. eSports is already becoming mainstream in terms of recognition at Olympics as well as Asian games level. This is only going to increase the adoption of digital games meaning more opportunity for the laptop makers. Also as 5G is nearing reality in India, gaming will get an additional boost and more real time gaming platforms will emerge and evolve in the country only making this trend stronger.