Gaming
Lumikai & Loco partner to host Game Night on 26 Nov
New Delhi: Gaming has emerged as one of the extremely promising categories of the future and is entering into the mainstream. Starting from equipment manufacturers to game creators and gamers, the industry is expanding rapidly with every passing day. Youth is now beginning to opt for gaming as a full-time career and agencies are now working very closely with brands and game developers to create a synergy.
The category has created a lot of excitement in the marketing community. Multiple brands across categories are now utilizing games as a medium to connect with their audiences as they understand that people, especially youth, are spending their time gaming. The category is slowly catching up pace in the media mix of a brand.
In the last few years, India has emerged as one of the top five gaming countries and most of the players prefer mobile over a personal computer. Interestingly, India is a mobile-first gaming market. Today, gamers include both males and females. Several experts have also suggested that the average age of a gamer in India is less than 20 years. There is a lot of younger audience and it is the freemium model that is leading to the growth in India.
With an idea to expand the gaming ecosystem, Lumikai and Loco have organized a Game Night on 25 Nov for gamers, start-up founders, indie studios, and creators for a chat about gaming, entrepreneurship, building content and India’s growing games ecosystem
The night is hosted by BeYouNick (YouTuber) along with Justin Keeling and Salone Sehgal (Lumikai), Anirudh Pandita (Loco), Ashish Aggarwal (Google India), Sameer Pitalwala (Epic Games), Anurag Khurana (PayTm First Games), Poornima.S (Zynga), and Oliver Jones (Bombay Play).
Tune in live on Loco on 26 November at 5 pm.
Gaming
Dream Sports sees 100 plus exits after gaming ban forces overhaul
Company splits into eight units as real money gaming law hits revenue.
MUMBAI: For a company built on fantasy leagues, reality has suddenly rewritten the rulebook. More than 100 employees have exited Dream Sports, the parent of Dream11, after the company reorganised its operations following India’s ban on real money online gaming. The shake up came after the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 came into force in August 2025, prohibiting games where users deposit money expecting winnings. The regulation struck at the heart of the fantasy gaming industry and dramatically affected Dream Sports’ core business, wiping out about 95 percent of its revenue and all of its profits.
In response, the Mumbai based company shifted into what chief executive officer Harsh Jain described as “startup mode”, splitting its operations into eight independent business units in December.
Around 700 employees were reassigned across these newly formed ventures based on their experience and interests. However, roughly 15 percent opted to leave the company.
A spokesperson for Dream Sports said many of those who exited were experienced professionals accustomed to running scaled businesses rather than early stage ventures.
“Since some of these employees were experienced with running high scale businesses and not startups, around 15 percent chose to leave and join other scaled companies or start ventures of their own,” the spokesperson said.
Despite the departures, the company noted that the attrition rate is only slightly higher than its earlier level of around 10 percent before the ban. Dream Sports now has close to 950 employees and is not currently hiring, choosing instead to focus on stabilising its existing workforce.
The restructuring has transformed Dream Sports from a fantasy gaming company into a broader sports entertainment platform. The eight units now operate independently, each focusing on different segments of the sports and technology ecosystem.
These include Dream11, sports streaming platform Fancode, sports travel service DreamSetGo, mobile game Dream Cricket and artificial intelligence initiative Dream Sports AI, which includes sports analytics platform Dream Play.
Other ventures include fintech product Dream Money, open source initiative Dream Horizon and the philanthropic arm Dream Sports Foundation.
As part of cost saving efforts, Dream Sports also relocated its headquarters from Bandra Kurla Complex to Worli earlier this year. The new office, called Dream Sports Stadium, brings teams from its various brands together under one roof to improve collaboration and operational efficiency.
Jain had earlier said the company removed bonus lock in timelines for employees hired in recent years, allowing those who wished to leave to exit with pro rata payouts.
“We want people who are fully into the startup mode and willing to work for it, and we will share that reward if it comes,” he said.
Founded in 2008 by Harsh Jain and Bhavit Sheth, Dream Sports was last valued at 8 billion dollars after raising 840 million dollars in 2021 from investors including Falcon Edge Capital, DST Global, D1 Capital Partners, RedBird Capital Partners, Tiger Global Management, TPG and Footpath Ventures.
The new gaming law has forced several companies in the fantasy gaming sector to either shut down or pivot their business models, signalling a significant reset for one of India’s fastest growing digital entertainment industries.
