A Mahindra electrical SUV driving via a digital battleground, a Sting Power drink showing as a power-up and common leisure characters turning into playable gaming properties level to a altering promoting alternative in India’s gaming business. Manufacturers are not gaming merely as one other platform to purchase digital impressions. They’re more and more exploring methods to change into a part of the gaming expertise itself.
This shift is opening up a brand new industrial proposition for gaming corporations, advertisers and leisure companies. Whereas gaming platforms are constructing promoting infrastructure to monetise their rising audiences, manufacturers are experimenting with product integrations, interactive campaigns and collaborations with established mental properties (IPs).
Leisure producers, in the meantime, are extending tv and movie properties into gaming, creating extra touchpoints for model partnerships.
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The FICCI-EY Media and Leisure Report 2026 states that promoting emerged as a key monetisation lever for video gaming, with promoting revenues rising 12% in 2025. It initiatives video gaming revenues to succeed in ₹9,200 crore by 2028, at a compound annual progress charge (CAGR) of 13%.
The Recreation Developer Affiliation of India (GDAI), in its GameDev Outlook 2026 report launched on the India Recreation Developer Convention (IGDC) in Chennai, estimates that India’s video gaming market generated $1.04 billion in income in 2025, registering 14.8% year-on-year progress and reaching 511 million gamers.
For advertisers, the attraction lies within the alternative to succeed in an viewers that actively participates in content material quite than passively consumes it. Gaming permits manufacturers to construct associations via repeated interactions, product discovery and experiences inside digital environments, probably creating longer-term recall than a traditional promoting publicity.
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Seddharth Merrotra, Head of Enterprise Growth at KRAFTON India, mentioned manufacturers are more and more shifting their advertising and marketing methods from conventional media in direction of gaming as a result of it provides entry to a extra engaged and interactive viewers.
“Gaming permits manufacturers to attach with youthful customers who will change into decision-makers of their households and buying journeys over the following 5 years. There may be additionally a long-term model recall alternative. A client who encounters a model of their favorite sport right this moment could keep in mind that affiliation 5 years later and be extra inclined to attempt the product. That is the sort of worth that gaming can create past fast promoting outcomes,” he mentioned.
From model placements to promoting infrastructure
The rising curiosity from advertisers is prompting gaming corporations to construct devoted promoting infrastructure to transform participant engagement right into a extra organised promoting enterprise.
KRAFTON Advert Platform India (KADP India), the Indian subsidiary of South Korea-based promoting know-how firm NEPTUNE, has formally launched its promoting know-how enterprise in India.
Established in April 2026 following KRAFTON Inc.’s acquisition of a majority stake in NEPTUNE in April 2025, KADP India will concentrate on bringing NEPTUNE’s promoting know-how and operational capabilities to the Indian market.
As a part of its India entry, KADP India has partnered with KRAFTON to handle promoting operations for Battlegrounds Cell India (BGMI). Its mandate consists of promoting stock planning and design, marketing campaign supply and optimisation, and operational administration via NEPTUNE’s proprietary know-how platform and native staff.
The event signifies that gaming corporations are starting to construct the know-how and operational capabilities required to handle promoting stock, ship campaigns and optimise model spending inside video games.
BGMI has already been experimenting with model partnerships throughout cars, FMCG, know-how and life-style classes. Partnerships with Mahindra and Hero MotoCorp have introduced automobiles such because the BE 6 electrical SUV and Xtreme bikes into the sport as playable property. PepsiCo’s Sting Power turned the sport’s official in-game power drink, showing as a power-up for gamers. Different associations have included Dolby Atmos and realme.
These collaborations additionally prolong past the sport via co-branded merchandise, retail activations, contests and digital campaigns, permitting manufacturers to attach digital engagement with real-world client experiences.
Merrotra mentioned there are two distinct alternatives for manufacturers in gaming: interactive model integrations and standard promoting or product placement inside video games.
“We’re at present testing promoting codecs to grasp how customers reply. BGMI has historically been a free-to-play, level-playing-field expertise, and we don’t wish to introduce promoting in a way that irritates customers. Now we have began with a restricted variety of promoting exposures, and the main focus is on understanding person reactions,” he mentioned.
He added that interactive integrations require appreciable time as a result of the corporate undertakes intensive high quality checks throughout gadgets and working methods to make sure that the expertise works seamlessly for each person.
This creates a distinction between promoting promoting stock and creating model experiences. Whereas standard ads may be launched via designated placements, interactive integrations require manufacturers to suit into the sport’s mechanics and retain the curiosity of gamers.
Leisure IPs add one other layer to model monetisation
The promoting alternative can also be increasing as leisure companies take established characters past tv and cinema and into gaming. For IP house owners, this creates extra income streams via sport downloads, in-app purchases and promoting, whereas giving manufacturers alternatives to affiliate with acquainted characters.
Gada Electronics, the cell sport primarily based on the tv present Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah, accomplished two years on October 30, 2026, and has crossed 20 million downloads, in response to producer Asit Kumarr Modi.
The sport follows a free-to-play mannequin, producing income via in-app purchases from gamers who wish to progress sooner and ads from those that desire to not spend cash. In keeping with the corporate, income is sort of evenly divided between the 2 streams, with roughly half coming from in-app purchases and the opposite half from promoting.
The corporate mentioned the sport is at present incomes greater than it spends on progress. Its blended return on promoting spend (ROAS), throughout paid and natural gamers, stood at roughly 1.5x over the previous 30 days.
Modi mentioned a preferred character can appeal to gamers, however the gaming expertise determines whether or not they keep.
“One of many key learnings from our journey is that whereas a preferred character could draw folks to a sport, the gaming expertise itself has to provide them a purpose to return. Gada Electronics, which accomplished two years on October 30, 2026, has crossed 20 million downloads. This demonstrates the significance of sport high quality, easy efficiency, steady innovation and multilingual entry in constructing participant engagement. In-app purchases additionally stay an vital a part of the enterprise mannequin,” he mentioned.
He added that established characters may discover new audiences throughout codecs and generations, citing franchises similar to Aladdin, Pokémon and Spider-Man as examples of properties which have constructed lasting recognition throughout platforms.
For advertisers, such properties provide an extra layer of viewers familiarity. Quite than constructing consciousness round an unfamiliar gaming title, manufacturers can probably affiliate with characters that have already got a longtime following.
The model integration problem
The enlargement of leisure IPs into gaming can also be elevating the significance of how manufacturers are built-in into the underlying content material. For producers, the industrial alternative can’t come at the price of the property’s id.
Hanuman Ansh is shifting past cinema via an unique worldwide partnership with nCore Video games. nCore subsidiary Dot9 Video games will develop and publish three titles for PC, cell and console platforms.
Namrata Singh, Producer of Hanuman Ansh-First Movie, mentioned the technique is to construct the IP round Lord Hanuman, which has recognition throughout geographies, languages and cultural affiliations.
“Hanuman is among the most universally recognised and extensively cherished characters, reducing throughout geographies, languages and cultural affiliations. The world now we have created lends itself to storytelling throughout a number of codecs and markets,” she mentioned.
Singh mentioned gaming provides a language-agnostic and geography-agnostic alternative for the property, with cell being the pure place to begin given India’s giant smartphone person base.
“Our technique must be mobile-first as a result of India has a really giant cell phone person base, with virtually each family having a number of telephones. Gaming on cell is subsequently a pure extension of the IP,” she mentioned.
On model partnerships, Singh mentioned the movie has just one affiliation, with Haldiram, due to the inherent reference to the identify Ram. She mentioned model collaborations should have a real reference to the underlying property.
“If you end up within the enterprise of empathy switch, which is what movies and video games basically are, model associations should have that empathy constructed into their design. It can’t merely be a case of a model investing cash and anticipating visibility. There must be a real join,” she mentioned.
The business’s promoting alternative, subsequently, rests on two complementary developments: gaming platforms constructing the infrastructure to promote and optimise promoting, and leisure IP house owners creating properties that manufacturers can meaningfully affiliate with.
The following part of progress will depend upon whether or not gaming can translate its extremely engaged audiences into sustained promoting budgets, with out turning the expertise into one other cluttered digital promoting setting.