Varun Gajjar – Founder, Whomp
The online fantasy sports and e-gaming has become more common in the last 2 decades and shockingly it has secured top gear in India. Ever since the pandemic and known with the fact that sports are put at a halt, the mass have shifted towards the exciting feature of online gaming. Now there are a lot of platforms for online Fantasy gaming in the market already but despite of that there is huge opportunity and boom in this sector. Since online fantasy gaming is the only feature in the gaming sector where a user can play any number of sports with their friends whilst communicating with them in real-time. It’s obvious that online fantasy sports startups have been a boon to all of the gamers and even, non-gamers too. And one of the emerging app in this business is Whomp. Whomp is a live cricket gaming app, where users can play a live auction in a gaming format. During an interaction with Pahi Mehra of My Mobile, Varun Gajjar, the founder of Whomp App shared the idea behind starting the app and how the gaming industry has changed in the past years.
What was the idea behind starting Whomp? Before launching Whomp, I was an investor in Gamerji, which is an esports tournament app that hosts games such as Clash Royale, Call of Duty, Free Fire, etc. Being a part of the gaming community, I learned about the various aspects of managing and running a gaming platform and it caught my interest and inspired me to launch my own gaming company. During cricket season/ipl would get together and play our own cricket auction similar to the IPL. At that time, we played keeping tabs on excel spreadsheets and paper. Thinking about having a streamlined process to this, I thought, what if there was an app or a platform that hosts live cricket auctions and also have cricket games? To cater to this, we did more research and found that a similar game format is played in the USA for the NFL. Taking insights and inspiration from it we designed a prototype and post evaluating and initial success we launched Whomp. Shortly after the launch, we added in the voice chat feature, so that players could communicate with their friends/ other players to strategise, plan bids and discuss through the app itself.
Cricket is one of the most loved sports in India, we wanted to offer this sport in a gaming format to people. Today, most fantasy platforms offer the same type of gameplay, we removed the real money gaming aspect from it and give users innovative games that they can play for free.
Can you tell us a little about your gaming company, how is it different from others? Whomp is a premier live gaming platform for cricket enthusiasts, one of the most unique features of Whomp is the live auction gameplay, which gives users a realistic feeling of actually participating in a cricket auction. Whomp also offers an in-built voice chat feature for players to interact while playing. At Whomp, you can play with your friends, rather than strangers. We are also adding more innovative gameplays in the coming months.
We are focused on games that are connected to live sports and are focusing on gamifying the fantasy aspect of the sport. Whomp is free of cost and is available on both android Playstore and IOS App store.
According to you how the gaming industry in India has changed in recent years? There have also several reports that suggest that India’s online gaming industry is on a consistent rise. A Google-kpmg report stated that it is expected to be worth USD 1 billion by 2021. We have also seen a rise in game-based offerings in the last few years, wherein game developers, designers, investors and marketers, entrepreneurs are working towards creating high-quality gaming experiences for a large market of gamers in the country.
India is a young country with over majority under the age of 45 years which plays a significant role in making it a large potential market for online gaming in terms of volume. We also have the secondlargest online market in the world with over 560 million internet users. Availability of quality and innovative games on mobile phones has also been one of the reasons why the online gaming industry is increasing, as initially, gamers would require a PC or Console to play most online games. Now as mobiles are affordable, internet packages are reasonably priced, portability, many people have shifted or adopted mobile gaming.
Also, the recent lockdown played a significant role in the growth of this industry, wherein people took notice of the gaming potential within India when there was a sudden increase in the number of online gamers & demand for mobile games rose rapidly.
In the last few years, several entrepreneurs and investors have taken interest in the online gaming industry in India, noticing the rise, several homegrown online gaming companies are now offering their games to the Indian market. Recently the Government of India and the Union Education Ministry has recognised and acknowledged the potential of the online gaming market in India. They have announced to support the students in the field of online gaming to generate employment opportunities for them, organise national level hackathon on ‘online games’. Initiatives like this, play an important role in the growth of the
online gaming industry of India and prepare the country to possibly become a leader in game development in future.
Mobile gaming is the frontrunner now, what are your views about this? Availability of mobile devices and cheap internet has made mobile gaming the number one choice for users to access their favourite games. Even most low budget phones can host the best of the games, which is at only a fraction of the cost of a gaming console or a gaming PC.
As mobiles are already in use, new gamers find it as the most suitable platform for gaming, eventually, these new gamers will advance over a period of time and may prefer mobile gaming over other ways. While still, traditional gamers today have PCS and gaming consoles, they may not completely switch to mobile gaming and will continue to use their preferred gaming methods.
Do you think Mobile gaming is slowly replacing the traditional consoles and PCS as the go-to device for gaming? Yes, mobile gaming will take over the majority of the market, due to its convenience. But traditional gamers will always stick to their preferred choice of console or PC for gaming. In the near future, there will be a space for both in the online gaming market.
How do you think the Indian gaming market is different from the around the world? From my research and understanding the markets and drawing comparisons, I have noticed that the paying audience is far lesser in India than other countries. But in India, we have high numbers of active users, which is not possible for other countries to have except China. If many Indian gamers are not paying, due to their volumes, gaming platforms have increased revenue from advertisements.
According to you what kind of gaming content is trending in the country right now and why? Presently as IPL is on, majority of the trending games are towards the fantasy cricket gaming side. But we have also seen a rising trend in games such as Ludobased games receiving immense amounts of attention and increase in users. Now with the ban on PUBG, several users have shifted to other FPS games. Also with the ban of several Chinese gaming apps, many Indian gaming companies have received the opportunity to take the centre stage and connect with their audiences.
What are your thoughts about Fantasy sports and E-sports? Esports is in its first year in India and it will take time to mature. Fantasy sports is now a settled market with users understanding the dynamics of every platform and are willing to spend money on these platforms, and consistently play
as well.
According to you what are the factors that drive the mobile gaming industry? Several factors drive the mobile gaming industry. Firstly being is the increase in mobile penetration (smartphone) in India, which is not only limited to the urban sectors but also rural areas. Smartphones have become a one-device for all, and people have been maximizing their benefits from it. Along with cheap internet access, and availability of quality mobile game, people across have adopted them and have been actively using it as a form of entertainment and leisure.
Along with that, gaming companies are building mobile-centric games, to cater to this demand, therefore leading to a boost in the mobile gaming industry in India.
Also, games loved by Indian audiences have gone online, attracting users, cardbased games, ludo-based games, cricket, etc. Many of these are social games that one can play with friends. In addition, several of these games, offer cash prizes to winners regularly. All of these factors are driving the mobile gaming industry in India.
How has the Covid-19 pandemic affected the gaming industry? The COVID lockdown increased traction and user base for the gaming industry. As people were restricted to their homes, and other external sources of entertainment were closed. They moved towards online gaming for their entertainment, and now soon have become active players. As of now, we cannot say if these users will sustain in the future, as eventually soon other sources of entertainment will reopen like sporting events, movie theatres, restaurants, etc.
Going forward what are your plans for Whomp? We are presently working towards increasing the number of users on Whomp, by focusing on user education, as Whomp’s live auction gameplay is first of its kind. By the end of the IPL season, we aim to acquire 300K users. Also, we plan to launch more 6 games on our platform by March and will be focusing on user engagement and user experience. We are planning to scale to 1 Million users in March to raise our seed round of funding. We also plan to expand into esports to become one of the largest players in this segment. ■
pahi@mymobile.co.in