Draft Rules for Online Gaming

Why in News?

• The Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) has recently released the Draft Rules for Online Gaming.

Highlights

• The proposed rules have been introduced as an amendment to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021
• Online games will have to register with a self-regulatory body, and only games cleared by the body will be allowed to legally operate in India.
• The self-regulatory body will have a board of directors with five members from diverse fields, including online gaming, public policy, IT, psychology and medicine.
• There could be more than one self-regulatory body and all of them will have to inform the Centre about the games they have registered along with a report detailing the criteria for registering
• Around 40 to 45 % of the gamers in India are women, and therefore it was all the more important to keep the gaming ecosystem safe.
• It Is believed to be a great first step for comprehensive regulation for online gaming and will reduce the state-wise regulatory fragmentation that was a big challenge for the industry.
• The revenue of the Indian mobile gaming industry is expected to reach USD 5 billion in 2025.
• The industry grew at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 38% in India between 2017-2020, as opposed to 8 % in China and 10% in the US.
• It is expected to grow at a CAGR of 15 % to reach Rs 153 billion in revenue by 2024, as per a report by VC firm Sequoia and management consulting company BCG.