All India Gaming Federation (AIGF) CEO Roland Landers has decried Google’s decision, announced last Friday, to hold off for the present its plans to expand and allow new kinds of real-money games (RMG) list on the Play Store in India and globally.
The tech giant had cited the absence of a central licensing framework and the complexities in developing an appropriate monetisation model for its decision.
It is to be noted that Google began onboarding a wider range of RMG apps on the Play Store with pre-existing licensing frameworks in 2021. In January this year, it announced plans to relax its Play Store policies to allow more types of games in the RMG category to be listed on its app marketplace.
Landers argues that Google’s “arbitrary decision” reinforces the immediate need for ex-ante antitrust regulations.
Landers stated, “We are highly disappointed by Google’s arbitrary and anti-competitive decision, primarily affecting pay to play games’ smaller developers and distributors. As the oldest and largest representative body of online gaming in India, we were the first to welcome Google’s progressive pilot program to allow Pay to Play skill games on the Play Store. While we were initially concerned Google’s decision to limit the pilot to certain games, we understood that, as an early initiative, it would eventually be expanded to include all Pay to Play skill games.”
“To Google’s credit, they extensively engaged with the industry over the past year and announced earlier this year that they would onboard all skill based Pay to Play skill games. Given that the Google Play Store conservatively holds 90% of the app distribution market, it exerts tremendous control over the Indian mobile market and is a ‘must-have’. In this context, not having an inclusive policy and discriminating are forms of gate keeping and market distortion. A private entity’s disregard for Indian law, encouragement of anti-competitive practices and limitation of user choice are alarming. Their decision grants them unchecked control to pick winners in the market, favouring large companies and preventing small and emerging start ups from effectively competing in this sector,” he noted.
“We will continue to engage with Google and hope that they will work with us to find a quick solution, soon implement the policy and the level playing field, which can go a long way in democratising gaming in this country.”
“Additionally, this situation underscores the imminent need for ex-ante competition regulation and the swift implementation of the Digital Competition Bill, and we will continue to push for the same with the Government stakeholders,” Landers said.
