Match On! A discussion on online gaming regulations in India
10:26AM Jan 13, +0000
Speakers:
Rahul Sharma
Amrita Choudhury
Kazim Rizvi
Salone Sehgal
Rachna Shroff
Nachiket K. Yagnik
Dr Triveni Singh
Shailendra Vikram Singh
Saumya Singh Rathore
Ranjana Adhikari
Abhishek Malhotra
Gowree Gokhale
Keywords:
gaming
game
intermediary
kyc
rules
online gaming
india
users
industry
government
skill
points
discussion
companies
views
srb
terms
spoken
real money gaming
law
We'll wait till 532 And then we'll start right and then people can
join
within the chat. Would you like to share the agenda just so that people
can have a look?
co host
don't hear you? Oh yeah, sorry Latina is a co host the others also I wouldn't do it once the start I think record I will start the recording and we will start in some time
yeah, just give me I'm going live
recording in progress. So hi everyone. And
welcome to this discussion today. My name is Amrita Chaudhary and I represent CCI. So on behalf of CCI and gray case, I welcome you to this online interactive discussion. match on we want to discuss the proposed amendments in the it ruins 2021 in context of online gaming and then deliberate on the path forward to make the gaming industry reach its true potential, while we also try to address the challenges, risks and house. So this session is being live streamed and recorded. And our objective for arranging this discussion is not only to discuss and provide stakeholders and the community a better understanding of what the proposed amendments propose, but at the aspects of the amendment which needs to be refined, but also encourage the stakeholders to make submissions within the deadline and also to discuss at large what the online gaming regulations should be. So as an outcome of the discussion report will be prepared with the key takeaways and plans, which will be circulated to the government and other decision makers and stakeholders with our submissions. Today we have an eclectic panel of distinguished speaker who will provide their perspective on this job, but from release would share more on it. And today, Rahul and I both would be co moderating this discussion and we have somebody who is actually going to be rapid cheering for this session. And I would request everyone to mute yourself if you're not speaking as else we have some audio issues. If you have any queries, you can put it on the chat. And you can mark it as query and if you have any comments you can share it mentioned comments and share. We would have an interactive session. So you can we will at that point of time, you can raise your hand and we will be asking you to speak but to mention your name and affiliation. We encourage you to participate and share your views but we'll be respectful and courteous to each other even if your views differ because we do have differing views and that's how it is no abusive language or personal attacks would be tolerated. And if you're not speaking, please keep your mic muted and with this raffle I forwarded to you so that you can share more on who the speakers are and what the draft agenda looks like. Though somebody has shared it in the chat.
So good evening, everyone. Welcome to this discussion. Much on where we intend to discuss the aspects of online gaming and how we the space has evolved over time. What are the regulatory aspects and what can we look forward towards in terms of putting in place nuanced provisions in regulatory ecosystems so that there is a win win ecosystem for all the paths? So today, the format we have chosen for this is more like a masterclass where we are going to get some overview by Saloni Sehgal from lawmakers who will provide her views on the overall gaming landscape ecosystem as it currently stands and where we tend to go from here in next 510 years. And like what is the growth like? Although like you would have seen the number of gaming players and both the companies overshooting past few years and that trend is not just likely to grow exponentially, but it's going to come down very significantly if we have the right ecosystem in place. Then we have asked razza who is gaming in tech lawyer to provide the overview of the what is the existing regulatory landscape for us in India, in terms of what the Constitution talks about it, what the what the central laws are, the state laws are? Those rules are what are some of the court judgments to just provide you with a snapshot on where we stand today minus you know, the draft rules which have been provisioned? Now we also invited Mr. Rakesh Maheshwari, from MIDI to come and talk about the goI view and his sharing his perspective on why these rules are the way they are and why we see them and what can we look forward in terms of going forward in terms of the regulatory landscape at a larger scale? So unfortunately, Mr. Maheshwari has expressed his inability to currently join but has conveyed his wishes and we hope that like if he's able to join for the last 10 minutes and then we can ask him to give some remarks, but if not, then I think we can go back with them to them with the recommendations that we have in place, post this discussion. And then we move on to Nazi Keith who's going to talk about the overall amendments to the idea of intermediary tools 2021, which have been proposed and which forms the basis of the discussions that we're having now. What we understand is that these rules have been drafted, keeping in mind what the existing regulatory ecosystem and challenges were not trying to grab the bull by its horns. But rather than looking at it in the moon, to ask me to come up with provisions which can be an additional fit to the ecosystem, so that there is some certainty provided to the operating payers in the ecosystem. And then you know, the other nuances whether it is going to be regulated by state level, gambling laws come into play, etc. Like you know, those those things will come into play. But this, this is like a step moving forward. And then we have an excellent panel of speakers who are going to share their perspective from a variety of views. So we have Mr. Shalini crimson, who is who has been with me for long and looked at aspects of cyber take data from all aspects and has contributed to many committees on the aspects. So gaming is once such area, which also has been significantly focused area for the government as part of the GCC initiatives, because we also saw an intermediate ministerial Task Force which deliberated on this aspects and provided some of the recommendations. So given that this subject in enjoys much attention from the policymakers, the regulators, the players, the the gaming companies, and the public policy professionals, and we have seen how this whole debate and discussions around this has exploded in first few months and in last few days itself. You have seen multiple discussions happening on this subject. You also have an update to anything from UK Police, who is an sp with a special task force was going to talk about some of the challenges with respect to gaming companies, especially in relation to betting and the challenges in cybercrime investigations. Then we have Shivani, who is going to talk about it from an esports player Welfare Association, what what the challenges for the players are how can harms be mitigated and etc, like the overall concerns from the community? And then we have Sameera, who is co founder Binzhou, who's going to talk about her perspective from a gaming company perspective on how these things are plus we have a stellar lineup of panelists, the lawyers who are going to talk about in in a more nuanced way. What are the issues and challenges with the way the regulatory landscape is currently set up? Is the intermediary regulatory framework, the right way to approach this current model? What can be the most optimal way and if we go ahead with the premium models, so what can be the nuanced tweaks that we can bring to make it better suited for, you know, making this law operational? So we have Abhishek Mitra, from TMP law practice we have Goehring Okay, from nishith Desai. Associates, and we have had an opportunity to work with Corey for various initiatives in the past. We also have ranching articles from industry, and she's going to share her perspective on the aspects as we go into the stakeholder perspective moderated discussion. And then we open the floor we we invite comments and inputs and suggestions from the stakeholders, but we have a few who have expressed their willingness and opportunity and we have invited them to come and share their views. So we have Kazim recipe who's founder of the dialog, and he also held the discussion on the subject yesterday, which was attended by large players. There were a lot of issues raised. We see a lot of open questions that still prevail. Then we also have the Pro Guha from the quantum hub. Again, they also held a discussion on the subject on Tuesday, and again, that that also led to discussions on nuanced topics, but again, some open questions that are still on address. And we also have Surjeet Singh from the mobile Premier League, who is going to share his views on how they stand first, then the floor will be open to all the participants to share their views and inputs on how we can move ahead. In terms of discussing this space, find out what are the areas of convergence, where we need certain clarity, and what are the ways forward and recommendations that we can propose as part of the recommendations that we finalize as part of the report. And then we sort of summarize the discussion and move ahead so before I pass on, bet bait into Saloni. So as we have seen on how gaming's apps in particular have become very popular in last few years, and I'll just give one figure when we had this border confrontation with China. There were few apps which were banned, including gaming app, and pub G was one of the apps which was part of the ban. And when pub G made a comeback, it's so more than five crore downloads in just over 24 hours. And that tells you this crazy demand it had built amongst you and with the enhanced computing power to in form of mobile phones increasing and then you know, getting proliferated and then we have 5G coming up. So it's going to be a completely different landscape in terms of how gaming ecosystem evolves, operates and how players engage in this space. So we'll have much more users, much more gaming companies. So to talk about it, we invite Saloni to share her audience.
Just one moment I will share my screen because Saloni has a presentation. Give me a moment solanine hope you can see this I will just put it on a screen share. Yes,
we see it thank you so much. Well thank you so much Amrita and Rahul for having me. It's It's my pleasure. And you know, it's great to see both public private as well as you know, the think tanks coming together to talk about gaming as an industry. Just as a quick introduction. I'm Saloni Sehgal, I'm the founding general partner of gnomic AI fund. We're India's first sector focus gaming an interactive media fund. So we invest only in in this as an asset class. And they just to give you a little bit of context behind the research and the methodology and the partners associated with with this as well is this is what we attempted to do with the state of India gaming report and we issue an annual report and we did this last year as well, is to essentially provide a very detailed view of the India gaming market looking at the various components looking at the various sub sectors, the sub verticals, and to shed light and insights on player behavior game of behavior, monetization, investments and m&a trends. We support this with primary as well as secondary research. In our primary research, we actually survey 2500 Plus smartphone users and gamers to be able to extrapolate results around player behavior, and as well as doing very extensive secondary research, looking at databases as well as doing very detailed analytics as well as speaking to industry experts and collating results from companies who are currently within the gaming ecosystem and also adding to it lumic proprietary research just as an opening word of why gaming is an asset class and why gaming is in in a larger context is so critical for the India market is if you look at anywhere in the world, there have now been two major shifts which have been driving the use case for gaming. There have been technological shifts which have resulted in a very big paradigm shift in terms of usage of of entertainment as a as a medium, along with demographic shifts where you have more and more people adopting to more immersive forms of entertainment, and gaming is no longer a fringe activity. It is no longer played by a certain demographic, the games have become much more ubiquitous, and for countries. Excellence is gaming in gaming often means standing at the vanguard of driving innovation. So as a sector, this is deeply deeply critical and as we've seen the emergence of gaming in the US and Japan, Taiwan China is also similarly great that we are now starting to take cognizance of gaming and its criticality to just Indian tech. In terms of just a quick overview of what the of what India's gaming market looks like, as per our estimates in India's gaming market, hit $2.6 billion in FY 2022, which is essentially the period ending March 2022. And we project over the next few years it's expected to hit a north of $8.6 billion. We'll slice the maybe we can see on the executive summary for for a minute. We'll slice the sector does the the overall industry down into key components of real money gaming as well as Midco gaming and casual gaming, but broadly, what we've seen is that the industry is accelerating almost at a 30% growth rate, year on year. Similarly, in terms of usage and gamer numbers and market size there are 507 million Indian gamers, which will have gone up from the previous year four 50 million. If you recall over the last three, four years after the let's say geolocation of the Internet because of very low data rates, the largest concern beneficiaries of low and cheap data have and speed, speed of data has actually been video content and gaming. And that has been demonstrated in demand of gaming and gaming becoming much more ever present especially with the advent of COVID people staying at home pandemics. Stress resulted in people adopting gaming as a pastime. Alongside that we also see emergence of paying behavior. Other 120 million paying users in in FY 22 As per our studies, which also represents a 24% conversion rate and both revenue supply of games and there is a higher willingness and propensity to pay from the Indian consumer and gamer that we see. India also interestingly has shown demonstrated a very, very strong appetite for consuming games both local as well as global India Indian accounted for 15 billion gaming downloads in FY 22. It has actually the highest share of game downloads, or beating countries like US and China. games played in India had 2 billion cumulative monthly active users in FY 2022 which also demonstrates the depth of the India market and this is across a consolidation of genres as well. As we mentioned, the market is exhibiting promising monetization trends is a little bit different from the narrative that we have potentially heard about the India market about Indian Indian gamers not monetizing However, research shows that the average revenue per paying user per gamer has increased to $20 per year, which is grown from 11% From $16. The previous year, and Indians actually demonstrate the fastest new paying users being added monthly on a monthly basis anywhere in the world. Where we also have some stats around average time spent by Indian gamers. We see anywhere between nine to 11 hours being spent on on gaming cross genres and we also over the course of the last two years seen a tremendous amount of investor interest. In the Indian gaming market there have been north of $2.8 billion invested in by domestic as well as global investors in Indian games companies. There is a notable stat which is not on this slide is also over the course of the last few years as a sector focus fun we have now seen over 1300 plus startups in the gaming and interactive ecosystem so hence also indicating a very strong supply of talent and entrepreneurial pool. We can quickly move on to the next slide. So this is essentially a slice and a slice down and a breakdown of how categories are impacting gaming and what is essentially break down off of gaming in terms of business model and monetization model. So in terms of category RNG, or real money gaming is the largest component, which constitutes a 57% of the indie games market. However very, very interestingly, we see casual, hyper casual mid core games actually progressing and growing at a much faster pace. In fact, we foresee that they're growing at a much faster pace than real money games. And obviously, last year, we saw the emergence of battlegrounds mobile, India, free Fire, these are much more immersive forms of entertainment which have gained a lot more popularity amongst the younger generations and younger demographic. Similarly, we see while RMG has a large component of the total revenue pool, we're also seeing a noticeable uptick in monetization in terms of in app purchase behavior, ad revenue and other forms of monetization, which is essentially implying that the slice of real money gaming revenues while it may increase, the largest part of the growth is going to come from other forms of monetization and other forms of gaming, and which is very important to recognize that gaming is far broader and has much more depth and breadth than is previously perceived. Real Money gaming is only one aspect of gaming there are also content, cutting edge technology platforms, which are also constituting the gaming universe.
Just the last slide
as I touched upon India's obviously demonstrated a very deep demand for mobile games. India gaming is largely mobile first. India, gamers are largely smartphone users and obviously with the advent and the proliferation of smartphone growth we've seen gaming usage also increase in that linear fashion. We have seen a demonstration of paying capacity where we can we've drawn up a funnel where we're seeing almost a 20 focus on conversion to paying users with a very high propensity to pay with respect to both across genres and categories of gaming, whether it's real money gaming, whether it's Midco, gaming, even to an extent, casual games, and mobile games downloads in India hit 15 billion in FY 2022. It was the fastest growing and the largest market of any in comparison to the world and number of gaming companies, content studios. building games companies have we've seen a geometric increase in the number of entrepreneurs and talent which has been building in this space. Just as closing words, you know, we have to appreciate and realize that India gaming as a very, very critical juncture. At this point of time, we've clearly seen some inflection markers, we're clearly seeing some very high potential for growth and if India has to emerge itself as a technological superpower, gaming is going to be standing at the vanguard of it. So one has to balance out regulation with respect to encouraging innovation. So any such regulations, norms, and frameworks need to take into cognizance that the market and the ecosystem is still very early. There is still a lot of startups being incubated and as a result of which, you know, the early stage of startups that it is it is very important for them to be agile, it is very important for them. To have ease of doing business. It is very important for these companies to be able to move swiftly build swiftly and as a result of which one has to balance out both the player Protection Regulation along with encouraging innovation and startup agility and you know, India's at an incredibly critical stage and where we're seeing incredibly fast growth in Indian gaming, and we would love to see and obviously it is fantastic to see this policy support and to see the government recognize gaming and making it mainstream and we would love to see more of that to continue.
Thank you Saloni. So I thank you for the detailed presentation and presenting the study with details. TELESAT these are really helpful. So one of the figures that you talked about was we have close to about 1300 gaming companies. Did we get this correct?
900 gaming
studios and 1300 across that we have evaluated as a as a fund, there are probably many more. But that's across the entire ecosystem of gaming and interactive, which has content plays, platforms, tools, tech infrastructure, as well as frontier tech.
There are probably many more.
All right, thank you for that pretty encouraging number these have these numbers sort of exploded in last two, three years, in your view?
Absolutely. Even with game development studios. You can see the statistics we've gone from, let's say 2530 Studios over the last five years to now over 900 So there has been a geometric explosion in the number of companies which are being built in the space the talent which is building and you know, just just board visions of an entrepreneur, entrepreneurial spirit that we've seen, especially over the last two to three years.
And these developments are happening not just for Indian gaming companies, but I am assuming that it's global right is global.
So gaming becoming mainstream is now global gaming globally is a 200 billion plus industry. And there are now 30 Plus global gaming specialized investors who invest in gaming as as an asset class or is as an asset class as well, is being being recognized. But you know, as I mentioned before, technology shifts as well as demographic shifts have really made gaming as a subculture very, very mainstream. So you know, it's almost as ubiquitous as as watching movies. So you know, there is, you know, earlier there would be people would say, Well, are you a gamer and are you a gamer, but nobody says Are you a movie or because it's so ubiquitous and this is this is essentially what is happening to gaming as well.
And that's across the age group. Gender,
age group, across gender, across demographics, across cultures, in fact, as well.
All right, so thank you so much.
Thank you so much Saloni for actually showing the landscape, the broader landscape that what we have and what we need to encourage to grow. And that is why we wanted you to give this because you've done this study to share, you know how this ecosystem is and the kind of opportunities it has for everyone. So we have blood snapper next president Shroff. She is a lawyer, she looks at gaming law, and that's not would be actually sharing with us that you know, given the opportunities this sector has, what are the current regulations etc, which is prevalent and what has led to the genesis of these discussions right now what do you if you want to share the screen?
Thank you every time I start sharing my screen and
let me know the screen is visible to you. That was a bit
So, thank you for having me on returned home. It's a pleasure to share this platform with all the people from the industry from whom I've directly indirectly interacted with and learn so much in great to share the platform today with them. So what I speak of and thank you Saloni for giving us those numbers and stats is that while working as an in house counsel for the gaming company for five years, that is what we thrive on and that is what has always given us a lot of hope. At TSR you know, we are making the right moves in this industry is here to stay. So while are looking at how did the gaming industry all shape up? Where does it find its base? What is the entire regulatory affair in India in terms of gaming?
Let's look at it.
So, these numbers have already been spoken by Saloni I'll skip this and I will move ahead and the first one when we think about gaming you know the question gaming gambling it appears together and we want to understand where does it find pace basically. So the Constitution under Article 246 has been divided in this header in this day. And there it says that back betting and gambling you know has been placed in the seven schedule list two's entry 34 This is very tactical. But yes, there is no pleading, which goes before the court that this mentioned. And public gaming gambling Act is the act where, you know, we all have been as gaming lawyers working with the help of this Act which is actually a pre Independence Act. And we can be really been saying that it has been very outdated. And in today's term I should say it doesn't meet with the requirement or doesn't deal with any kind of issues that is being phased in this technological area. This Act gave an exception of the game of skills and game of skill led to a lot of help in running the online gaming
sector. Why
the gaming Act was there, there were a few judgments which happened in the in the initial days of gaming, and they formed the basis for the gaming industry to thrive when they were purely challenged with a lot of litigations before different courts. Till the apex. So this one of the most important judgments which I would say is the aren't determined by law, which I think is a Bible to all gaming lawyers where what has happened that this this particular case stated that you know, under Article Nine one g it is said that okay it is a business activity that is found that the game which is being played and that there is some money earned over it, it will be okay. And it will be not termed as you know gambling or cheating or anything as such, which is in the negative connotation. If the dominant factor tested passes in what was the dominant factor test? It was simply based that if there is higher relevance or while data mining that if the game has a higher relevance of skill, rather than chance, it will be termed as a game of skill. And in such games, it will be coded the sanctity of being a business and it will be afforded protection and article 19 warranty and the business can run it. So the exercise of judgment discretion and reason for also considered as factors to determine the game as a game of skill. And this became, you know the base for the gaming industry to run games of skill. Moving ahead, there were other two judgments which we will look at the status and reputation Satya Narayana case. So in the industry it is spoken as this hit enter and case you're the court was listening in relation to Rami and it said that the game which involves skills is memorizing the fall of the cards, holding them and discarding them sufficiently qualifies as a game of skill for the purpose of this gaming or gambling. So why did it say so? Basically, it is saying that do you see even if there is a stance of chance, but it is also so much a stances of instances of skill that you're memorizing those cards, you're holding them and you're discarding them and on what basis are you doing them? You're using your discretion you are analyzing you are strategizing. Right? So that's a skill. That's not a chance. And wherever there is preponderance a skill over chance, it will be termed as a game of skill. And this case also formed the base for the gaming industry. And the last one, if I can say so, has been KR Lakshmanan, which was devices the state of Tamilnadu it was based on the legality of betting on horse race, which said this is very an interesting paragraph and I would like to read that although all games may necessarily involve some element of chance. A game can be set to be one of scale. The success of a player depends principally upon the speed and knowledge, meaning and Shin jointness experience of the player even if the element of chance necessarily cannot entirely be eliminated from it. The term mere skill was interpreted as an exemption. So do you see the word superior knowledge training attention adroitness experience the player was given far more importance in this paragraph and it clearly set out that these are the skills if these are the qualifications found. And of course, it is a game of skill. This word mere skill was interpreted which is fine in the definition under the Act, that what is mere skill that mere skill was defined that if there is mere skill over chance, please note that that particular game is exempted and doesn't fall in the category of gambling. These three case laws I say at the Bible, any any gaming lawyers who are there, they just know the in and out of these laws are these judgments.
Oh yes.
So if we look at the current or the existing regulatory framework, certainly in the very recent we have looking at the in this today's discussion, we're going to look at that bill or the draft rules that is speaking about incorporating the online gaming industry. But sadly enough, we do not have a particular law in this industry today. We're still thriving under public gambling Act, which is too outdated. We are thriving on it data protection. But they also work still to shape up. The result of this has been that since this has been state adopted act in every state has taken it up themselves. It's very these last two three years have been very challenging for these industry because it was booming on one side in terms of number Tamers revenue, on the other side face a lot of challenges in terms of regulations, ordinances, orders and judgments. And this is where, you know different states who came up with different banning of the online forms of game without even understanding whether they are game of scale or whether they are game of chance. And there has been a lot of litigation around it. And one such mentioned which is still a you know, struggling and you can just read about it. It's an ongoing issue where the Tamilnadu gaming and police law was amended and they said we could do more of ban all form of online gaming. And they had the reason saying that, you know, the addiction rate was very high. There was a lot of the there was high rate of suicide happening in the that particular state so they went and they said this is forming bizarre because there is enough this particular gaming that is happening. So the move to the court and they said we want a ban. But however when the opposite side came up to the Madras High Court, it struck down a part of it and it says that the order, you know, it's not going to ban the entire part of it. There will be a certain part which will be you know, removed. And then this has been still challenged and it is pending before the Supreme Court. But yes, they the Tamil Nadu government is strong enough on its stand for the reasons of stating that there has been a lot of society to gaming, and we are still waiting for the Supreme Court to come up on this. And let's see what what the judgment is like. Similarly, it happened in the case of Kerala, that is February 2021. The Government of Kerala amended their act, the band or line dummy whereas Rami is one of the games where the Supreme Court has given its decision saying that it's a game of skill. There however this amendment is challenged by various companies in the Kerala High Court. She did to cause the amendment and then some bright subject to correction This is also pending before the Supreme Court. So, if I could say that this is the in charge of the existing regulatory framework, when of course Telangana, Andhra Pradesh during the times of COVID, they also come came up with their banning compositions, and those were also a challenge for this industry. Yes, if you have to look say Is there any particular law a particular law Sadly, no. Public gambling Act doesn't provides much to it in today's technological digital departments that we are dealing with as a gaming lawyer as a gaming industry in a sector. But yes, we are very hopeful with as we have a nodal ministry, which has come up as the drafter guidelines are coming up and then of course, we also knew about the online bill or regulation gaming bill which came up, we still to see the light, but we just hope that we will soon have a a particular law, which will speak about the online gaming sector, like you Amrita. That's where my son came to. That's
not there was a question as in, if you could take it up in the chat also, it's fine. One is how does the law look at giving actual prizes? See a bike at the end of the game just for all the audience? She was speaking about the existing laws. What now we will be actually having the ticket do is speak about what the government proposes next. So Akshay and Lucas Do you want that's not to address these questions? Or do you want that nine others to address it after we look at what the amendments propose you can put it in the chat which way you want it to go?
That's not too ambiguous.
Gish has a question that, does it mean that even casinos will be his question is with this should casinos also be legal in India? Oh,
that's a separate department located altogether, you know, because what I have seen while working as an in house counsel with gaming companies have learned that that casino have a different way. Of being treated by separate kinds of governments. So, it is it is not it is not yet legal in India. At Yes. time we do not know if it would be legalized. There is always a demand from the industry from the sector to legalize it, as there are many added factors to it of bringing a lot of revenue a lot of tax revenue to the government employment. Yeah, there are a lot of added factors. Right now is all I can say that we have to wait and watch because the legalization is not there there is onshore and offshore trouble and shuffle that is always there is a fight going on in that sector. But yes, the casinos think they are operating not on the land but on the seas. But I would surely say in this time. That let's wait and watch and see what happens. Will it be legalized in India?
Thank you so much. Now we would like you to stay on in case later you want to comment? Now I bring in an advocate who is from pre Law Legal netiquette. Can you give us an overview of what the amendments proposed and where the community is supposed to be actually commenting upon
this famously
just one environment. Let's check it does that so as you would be aware, the the online gaming as a subject wasn't in the list of business as the experts have talked about it. But in the amendment to the business rules, the musters related to online gaming were brought under the Ministry of Information Technology, and eSports as part of the multi sports event under the Department of sports, which falls into the Ministry of Youth Affairs and sports. So that needed some work in terms of clarification on what would regulate what and then after these, this notification was put out, we saw the ministry of IP and technology putting up this draft rules amendment to the intermediary contract to do on rules in context for the online gaming and
talk about it. We have netiquette.
So, first of all, I'd like to thank both of you for hanging here. And I would like to thank Russia and Salani for numerous insight in the in relation to the given market and the overview of the existing deeming laws. So this is my presentation on the proposed amendments to the it rules. I'm going to keep it I'll try and keep it short, but it's going to be a technical discussion, because just because of the nature of how the amendments have been proposed. So just to give a brief background exactly as our owl said, initially, gaming and gambling was a state subject it still is technically, but the government of India recently amended the allocation of business rules on 23rd of December and lock it in the businesses related to online gaming as committee so that means it can be the nodal ministry to frame policies with regard to the same and within a week of meeting becoming the nodal ministry. The draft amendments have been proposed, and public comments have been invited till 17 January. And the overall objective of these of these amendments is to bring online pay to play games under the scope of VAT rules and to safeguard users from potential harm. Now, the term potential harm is very interesting. It has not been defined under the it rules, but we'll look more on that. Now the key amendments that have been proposed is that online games have been defined as games offered via the Internet and accessible through a computer resource, wherein the user makes a deposit of cash or kind with the expectation of winning. Now there's a secondary explanation to this, which means that the term winnings will be considered to be a cash prize in cash or kind. That will be distributed to the user based on their performance in the online game. So initially, it seems that this is essentially only for games of skill because the winnings is going to be dependent upon the performance of a user in any online game. Then, Rule two one QB has been proposed to be inserted, which will define online gaming intermediaries as any intermediary under the it rules which provides one or more kinds of online games to users. Furthermore, there are existing obligations to that intermediaries are supposed to observe due diligence, which are also known as the due diligence of the obligations. And those obligations have been proposed to be extended to online gaming intermediaries since they have also been proposed, defined as a separate intermediary. Then we have rule three one B nine and 10 of which have been proposed to be substituted, which include that the rules privacy policy, the user agreement of online gaming intermediaries should inform the users of such intermediaries that they should not host this play, modify, upload, publish or share any information that is either in the nature of an online game, which will run afoul of any of the existing laws or information that is in violation of any law for the time being enforced. Then we have rule three one M A which is proposed to be inserted whereby as a as a requirement that any online gaming intermediary that is offering online games to its users should get mandatory certifications from a self regulatory body. Now the competition will come to the completion of the self regulatory literary body in your costs. But these, this certification will apply for each online gaming intermediary, as well as for every game that the online gaming intermediary proposes to offer to its users. And this requirement for getting certifications of registration from the SRB, which is, which is a term that I'm just defining here for is is that this this requirement will come to become applicable after the expiry of a period of three years, three months from the date of commencement of the proposed amendments and as we know the proposed amendments are just a proposal right now they have not been amended. So we have that. Then we have rules for a which has been proposed to be inserted to show to have additional due diligence obligations to be imposed upon gaming regulators essence gaming companies rather. So this will include displaying visible mark off registration of the intermediary as well as all games with with the respect to self regulatory body, then the rules and various documents in relation to the intermediary will have to inform the users about the refund policies, the manner in which winnings are going to be distributed, and what fees will be payable by a user for participating in a particular game. Then the same document should also contain contain disclaimers about financial loss and the risk of addiction in my work by just mere participation in online games, because we have recently seen an uptick in cases where in violent crimes have been committed, and online games have been named the reason of those crimes being committed therefore these disclaimers are absolutely necessary. Then we also talk about amendments also talk about the KYC procedure for followed by the intermediaries for for user registration process and there's also side note here that this KYC procedure also needs to be similar to the procedure adopted by the RBI. Because these games are largely going to be real money. Then we have the following documents of the intermediary should also provide for measures what measures have been taken by the intermediary to ensure that the deposits made by the users are protected and not subject to fraud. And it should all be policy the document should also show what is what is the policy framework of the OSI of the self regulatory body that the intermediary has been registered with and which has provided the certification to the interface. And so the same and obviously, there's also going concern that most of these websites have bots or the games are rigged. Therefore, all intermediaries must also prominently display on their mobile website or mobile app or the website the fact that these games do not have any chance of being read. And they should have a random number generation certificate and a no birth certificate which both of which should be issued by bodies of repute. It's not like any just any random body can go ahead and issue such certificates. Then the intermediary should also provide for identification and verification of the users and their identities at the commencement of a user account creation relationship. In relation though, in relation to any online game. And they should also provide for a system to have voluntary account verification by users through various methods, one of the most common of which is through their mobile phones. Then and for registered for author for verified users, there should be a verifiable support like a tick which is available on say Twitter right now. Then, intermediaries are also required to appoint grievance officers and a Chief Compliance Officer. Now the grievance officers responsibilities are are already present in the existing it rules. So they that is the same. Whereas however, the chief compliance officer needs to be a key managerial personnel of the intermediary or a senior employee, and he shall be liable for the compliance of the intermediary with the existing act as well as any rules made there. And he will also be held liable in instances where the military does not comply with the act or rules. And it will he the Chief Compliance Officer will further also be responsible for coordination with law enforcement agencies and compliance of any orders issued by them. Then we have fact with the on online gaming intermediaries must also provide a system for grievance redressal that users can raise with these intermediaries for violations of any sort that have been committed by the intermediaries under the I suppose they don't follow their obligations and the user should have an OB I have a mechanism to raise the same and the user should also be able to track their complaints and grievances. And ideally, it should all these grievances should all be done should all be resolved in a timely manner.
Further, we have the fact that online gaming in the intermediaries also have an obligation of providing information or assistance to any government agency, which has been which has the responsibility of protecting or investigating cybersecurity incidents. Now, there already was an existing obligation on intermediaries, but the window for the for providing the same was 72 hours. Now the proposed amendments say that this window for online gaming intermediaries is 24 hours. So that is something that needs to be kept in mind. And also this entire obligations under four a will also be applicable post expiry of a period of three months from the commencement commencement of the proposal. Now, Rule Four B has also similarly also been proposed to be inserted which calls for the establishment of one or more self regulatory bodies. This is where it gets a bit dicey. Because there exists the possibility that there will be multiple self regulatory bodies which is also the case right now. But and those bodies will have their own methodologies for registering games. So the risk of there not being any uniform receipt for installation of games or intermediary gaming intermediaries exists. So now the SRBs will also have the additional responsibility of evolving a framework to ensure that the games that they are registering do not run afoul of section 69 A of the IETF which has been informational technology. Now for those who do not know, section 69 A of the IETF we give the government a power to discontinue data or basically ban websites or apps, which they feel are going to affect the sovereignty and defense of India as a nation or affect our relationship relations with other sovereign countries. So it is interesting that the SRBs have been given the responsibility of evolving the framework here that they'll have to ensure that games are are not only compliant with and not running afoul of section 69 A but they will also need to keep evolving the framework as time passes. Now, for me also calls for registration of the office self regulating body with meeting and these self regulatory bodies can either be section eight companies on by gaming intermediaries under the companies or US society under the society's registration. And while considering the applications by these SRBs for getting registered with itself, matey will consider a number of criterias which are listed here, which is the number of gaming intermediaries who are already members existing members of the SRV the track record of the ESRB with respect to promotion of responsible online gaming, the general repute, sense of conflict of interest and relevance and suitability of the member of the governing body or the board of directors of such SRV. And then the fourth rule for me further talks about the composition of SRB board of directors, which includes eminent people from the gaming industry or sports or entertainment, depending on what is then further they have an individual representing online gamers, they also have an individual it is all of these are suggestive, this list is absolutely suggestive, however, if preferred that it should be in this manner. And interestingly, it can be seen here that they can also they will also be an individual nominated by the central government, who has practical experience in public policy, public administration, law enforcement or public finance, who should ideally be a member of the board of director or the governing body of such an SRB that is seeking to be registered with meeting and the SRB while along with its application should also provide its address of association or bylaws to inch to prove the fact that it can function independently and at arm's length from its members so that it does not get influenced by the members in terms of registering them, the members themselves. Or registering the games provided by the members. And obviously, the key component here is that the the applicant SRB must have expertise in trying to evolving framework as designed by the by Matey in respect of segment 69 A of the idea as well as verifying the fact that the game that they are registering are complying with the same and that the the framework should be evolved and with respect to considering application or of off any SRB Matey has the right to consult any appropriate government or agencies it needs to prior to accepting or registering a particular SRB with exception. Now, while while granting
why you granting membership to online gaming intermediaries meeting you will have the following the following criteria will be considered by SRBs which is essentially that the SR the intermediary should be adhering with the fact that it is performing all its due diligence and additional due diligence obligations for the fact that the intermediary and all games offered by it are adhering with the criteria particularly mentioned for games, which is in Rule four be fine. And the last thing that SRBs will will take care of or will consider while looking for looking at granting applications. Granting memberships to online gaming intermediaries is the track record of the intermediary in offering online games responsibly while not being in violation of Section six Jeremy now coming to the criteria for the games that need to be registered by the by the ESRB. The games should not be violative of section 69 of the IT Act obviously, then the game should have should also be offered by a member intermediary. It can't be that someone who's a non member will be coming to the SRB and saying Hey boss, please register my game. That's not going to happen. And the game last we should also be in conformity with applicable Indian laws and should not be violating laws, particularly relating to gambling or betting or should also not be targeting individuals who are not legally have contract basically. And now, with respect to the framework, that these SRBs are required to evolve, the following criterias or aspects should be risk should be requisites basically, that they that the framework must control must contain among other things. So these are aspects with regard to safeguarding users against harm including self harm. This is where the word potential harm comes in, which is from the notice that went ahead with this proposed amendment. And the the framework of the SRB should also safeguard children and should also have necessary safeguards against addiction to gaming as well as financial losses, which can which is already existing in terms of rent gaming
operators. Apologies you hurry a bit
after I'm done with like I shouldn't be done late the next morning. And with regard to financial fraud, we have made it should the SRB should also provide me with a list of all the games that they have registered along with their reasons for registering the same
Yeah,
and furthermore, this is the last night so yeah, um, a t shirt is made is of the view that in a particular SRB is not complying with the it rules, then Matey can write to them in light and direct them to be compliant. And if it seems it can revoke the registration of the SRB over revoking registration or the SRB might put the gaming intermediaries as well as users at risk in terms of their accounts or and gaming intermediaries in terms of the business for me it also has the right to provide specific directions as it may deem necessary. Now, lastly, rule six eight has been proposed to be inserted whereby I initially said that the gaming rules proposed rules look to games of skill and games with varying uses or pay are within the scope of the IP rules. However six A gives me at the choice that if it's if it is of the view that a particular game regardless of the fact that deposit is required or not, required to bring to be brought under the scope of the it rules, then Matey can notify the same and it can also notify the time period within which the intermediary providing such a game has to comply with these it. So that's it from my end and sorry for
posterity. Thank you for the detailed
presentation. So if there are any queries, we will take it later, but now I'll pass it on to Rahul Raghu. We have people from law enforcement and people from the security background. Would you like to have a discussion with them on this?
Yes. Thank you. Thank you Anna ticket and thank you everyone. So don't need time for detailed presentation covering various aspects of the landscape we are trying to cover. We know what the draft now says what are the various requirements. So now we moved on to the stakeholder discussions wherein we invite experts from various fields to present their views in respect to online giving a loss. So let me start with the remaining thing, who is the UK Police is is sp with the special task force and he has to leave so let me first invite him to serve to share our news with respect to the challenges that you see and also the when there is a requirement for a cybercrime investigation, what are the requirements that you see that you need from the help that you need from gaming companies? What do you see are the major barriers and overall general trends? So please,
thank you out. So first, let me share my console. What I have seen during lots of investigation, one time I was dealing with a case in which a boy just 11 years old and he spent you know 60 lakh rupees from his father debit card and you know, and he didn't know it because he was usually using it late night after midnight and used to delete the SMS delivered on his mobile phone and he had to marry his daughter. When he went to the bank he found that his account is still see this is the repercussion Euro because addicts on a kind of severe addiction is among the students if you if you are forbidding them from playing this kind of online game. What is the result is to withdrawal symptoms are they are they're going into anxiety and depression and psychological disorder. Lots of people have seen so many cases. Even a girl who committed suicide when she was sick was told by her mother not to play the game. So they are heavily addicted on the game. And I have seen that if I'm talking about the gaming platform I see that in the name of gaming platform, majority of them are into betting and gambling. So there is a very thin line between ethical and unethical, ethical is gaming and unethical is euro a betting and gambling betting and gambling in the name of you know chance and skill. So for the sake of saying they say that he is a playing game with his skill. The fact is that it's just chunk space and just Europe is kind of lottery seats only. So they will have to look into as far as this draft is concerned. There is provision for 69 A I think it will be a tough task for the gaming company to comply with but they will have to comply. The window time 24 hours has been given. That is right I think because in some of the cases we need immediate information from intermediary because being a key gaming company, you will be treated as intermediary and the intermediary guidelines and digital code conduct will be equally applicable on you. So as far as affordability of infrastructure to allow your law enforcement agency and police to interest intercept the call to get the data in real time per appointment of you know grievance officer and Iraq Chief Compliance Officer. It will be definitely a difficult task for them. But my concern is there should be clear cut division between gaming betting and gambling.
So it should be clearly
dropped in key what will be the skill base to gaming what will be the chance base? That should be exactly you know, it should be I mean explained in detail. number one number two when when we are talking about KYC then KYC should be complete without complete KYC along with debit card, your debit card and credit card because the ticket details because somebody may use the credential of some other to purchase some cloths or some special weapons for purchasing. You know, this container just just to win the contest, just to prove there are lots of rewards and competition held everywhere and there is spending lots of money. So there should be number one is strict KYC Now, number two, if banking credential or payment credentials are there, then whose current credit credential are these? Oh, it's related with their parents. Brothers are the gamer himself. He is providing his own KYC and debit card digit also there should be some AI and ML algorithm on the gaming company part to detect such kind of fraud otherwise, there will be lots of crime there'll be lots of psych psychosomatic disorder among the game medics so these are my concerns. Okay, thank you.
So thank you so much for sharing your views. So just to summarize, so you've talked about the need for scale versus chance, clarity. It's going to be very difficult now as you know the game what, what essentially a game is and how do you build and quantify those aspects of skill versus chance gets very difficult, but yeah, that's like, that's a good ask. And then second on the KYC norms that you said that every, every method should include a fully vetted, KYC ecosystem that allows only the vetted players okay. And then also the, the vetting of financial information, whether it is a gamer who is putting his own money or using money from other sources. So we have noted down your concerns. Let me then
some points here in the chat for Mr. Singh. And I think the question comes from the gaming companies is established gaming companies may have a better system, it is just that you know, you have fly by night. Companies also may not have a process because normally they have a registration process. So there were a few comments which were there that ideally there was between illegal and unethical, the debate around regulation has to be reality and not on ethics. And there was also a comment that there is a necessity to draw a distinction between addiction and lack of education to empower users of new technology. I think because many of them actually don't know how to use needs digital skills. And, you know, parents giving cards to children, without any question is also a concern. Apart from you know, the kids using access children is also a concern. There was a concern, very rapid, do you want to take it or perhaps it will be taken later
in the chat.
I leave it to Dr. Simpson, to also answer them. So about the aspects that you just mentioned about the illegal and what is unethical. Plus, you get asked a specific question about whatever the you know, video games like Katrin tempermental, etc.
Okay, so if we're talking just to the whole, you know, gaming industry as a whole, and they're forming their own, regulatory or reason, then it's advice from me that they should have their own team to monitor some unethical players they are bringing to the market the fly by night operators, so that should be your instant alert and some lightning with the law enforcement agency. We act against him otherwise the entire gaming industry will be defamed as far as credit credential of their parents and without their consent is known. There shouldn't be they should try to install some kind of mechanism to get explicit consent in case of you know, if that is being used by their children, their credit card details,
you can try, you know, this is
all right. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the abuse intervention. Now, let me invite Shailendra, sir, to share his views his experience of dealing with the issue while he was at mha. Now, as I would say, how does it look at it? What are the issues and challenges? How should the companies view these roles and what is the way forward?
Thank you.
[speaks Hindi]
Every buddy in the government was concerned about the safe and secured Internet well
Well Before you
in, I ask the speakers. So can you briefly discuss about the government thinking on whether a separate law was required for online gaming as a space to start with, or a separate regulator to begin with, or they thought that the intermediary rules are the best? Yeah. The interim provision, as per my understanding, this is the interim provision, because the government in the consideration of bringing a separate law into question interim measure interim measure AVG seek a product that would have a game being played on a bedpan Meninga whose skill it locks. Hey, modular come through. Okay, so like, the industry can look forward to a separate
law dedicated to either gaming or larger energy sector in the power industry.
Sector draft Okay, I gotta
follow those. We love when a guy will very big Mall of America support.
Okay. Thank you, sir.
Thanks for sharing reviews. We had the law enforcement but now we would like to hear you know, the trust is on consumers, users etc. So we have Shiva ninja who represents the Esports players Welfare Association Shivani if you're there, would you like to share your views on what exactly is it that users are actually looking at? What is it they need online?
If any of you out there can speak up okay, Raghu Shivani is not there. Would
you like to let's hear from the industry what they feel. Would you take the industry discussion ahead?
at all let me
Samia. Samia is here right Sami is with us. Yes. Yes, sir. Thank you for joining us. Please, you have been hearing the discussions. So please share your views as a company. What do you think how do you see this landscape? What do you think about the regulations in the Bay Area? What should be done to make them better? How do we address
thank you all for, you
know, kind of creating this opportunity and happy to read about it who is currently present on this forum. I think, you know, at a 10,000 feet level of cause, you know, it's a positive which at least gives us a fundamental recognition to the industry clearly,
clearly, you know,
calls out again, the distinction which already exists between a game of online game of skill and an online game of chance.
You know, this kind of a validation coming
from a government in the proposed draft, very, very timely, because it also feeds into an ongoing conversation by the group of ministers on GST. And, you know, kind of, we're hoping that it positively feeds there.
Over the past 18 months, as the
ecosystem has really evolved and a lot of players you know, a lot of people moved, you know, in India to smartphone and connected to Internet for the first time and we became the largest consumer base on the Internet globally. We also saw of course, growth of offshore betting and gambling products which was served in India, which of course, you know, by the dove the line was not legal. However, you know, given that it was a state matter, the government had little, you know, bars which were coming at the center level to restrict such products even there was 100% intent we saw how Consumer Affairs from Time and again, you know, send out notifications, which which clearly clarify the intent of the government that it should not be made available, there shouldn't be any advertisements, people should be protected. And hence, you know, we we see this draft which came after much consultation with the industry, you know, a lot of work which went from the inter ministerial task pose for months or together
and as the, you know, when positioned
rather to address some of the concerns that the government was looking to address, however, you know, before I get into the concerns, which we as a company could see your the ecosystem with companies like ourselves could see I wanted to 10,000 feet level later, how the gaming ecosystem really looks like today in India
because you have, you know, the gaming
ecosystem and specifically games which are played for what we commonly call real money is nothing new in this country. In fact, you know, it's at least 10 to 15 years old, where you had companies which innovated in the in the ecosystem and world leaders on the online Ramiz pace such as, you know, Rami Sokol, which, which, obviously, Rami as a format attracted a lot more players across last 15 years, but you know, that's one of the oldest player in the ecosystem. Again, you know, you had many companies which started you know, around the year 2000. And then in fantasy, which is, you know, dream 11 as a flagbearer, one of the largest fantasy companies, let alone in India, but globally, and of course, you know, there were many poker companies also that existed. And these all these companies age at least 10 to 15 years old, and fairly large, stable monetization, great values that they have generated. And hence you know, with with states often having a knee jerk reaction and blocking. There was a lot at risk with with you know, these large players. However, there's, there's a new crop, if I may say of companies that started you know, that that started the company in itself, maybe in the span of last three years max, right. And and this new crop is actually looking at the sector, you know, in a way that the world has never looked at. So, you know, they their products, which never existed before, and specifically made for a country like India. So for example, if I have to talk about Binzhou minzu is something like a you know, Netflix of gaming a platform, which actually does not has its own game, but gets third party game developers to publish its game on the platform across barriers, proprietary formats, which are made in house and metaverse which are made in house a unique micro monetization model, which is, you know, very unique to Binzhou. Which can be seen as a play to win or a real money gaming format for games such as eight ball pool, chess, carom Candy Crush, and these are the games which are played by product right, which is the mobile first audience and an audience which which has never been solved for an audience, which has kids been excluded from your consumer tech product space. We were the first company that actually offered the product in 12 plus languages. We focused very, very thoroughly on horror, and the average ticket size actually on a platform and when I say ticket size this amount spent on a platform per month is somewhere around 300 to 400 rupees, which basically makes it one of the cheapest entertainment format that a user can use on a social vernacular, culturally relevant form. And at the same time, you know, large studios that could not sustain in India because the monetization model didn't work now has an alternative distribution outside Google Facebook and the big tech giants in a way of Windsor, which has 100 million plus registered users today and not only that, but also they have an alternative monetization model.
And there are many many companies which are
doing something very similar today. You know, building a platform a cross site network effect, content, you know, pub G like game which which India really deserves to have because it's the largest gaming market globally. And monetization. Let's accept it. The biggest problem because of which we never had a studio to as a starting point, right. But
you know, there was a lot
of heat that the ecosystem for because of lot of consumers came onto the platform. And in the current draft, I do feel that there's there are certain aspects that could be addressed, which will actually help these companies which is the lattice set. You waiting the sector and would require a certain amount of bandwidth to create a IP which can help us win over the world right, like almost like a made in India for the world product pitch rules. And as we can see in like public markets in years to come, right. Some of these aspects, so you know, let's talk about maybe as a fundamental point, my access to market right, let's imagine that I'm a game developer, and I'm sitting here with an idea looking to develop a product before I can push out that product in the market. I have to have, you know, a lawyer who can fight with me in an SRO, whether it is a game of skill or chance. I don't even know whether my product is going to work. It's in terms of a sandbox, right? So it's an
industry sandbox. Yeah.
Sorry, just to work out. For the speakers. We have five to seven minutes so just keep that in mind. Please,
if you have any closing comments, then please share.
So, you know, the SRO construct and pre listing of or pre whitelisting of the of the content is something which can be relooked at because it puts the patent or the IP at risk, because there's no patent sorry, it puts the IP at risk because there's no way that you can fit in the product in this gaming ecosystem. In terms of KYC I think for smaller players, the the RBI equivalent KYC could be a little onerous, and expensive proposition, the compliance officers and all those can be thresholding because again, for starting companies, it can be something which can be an expensive proposition. I think those are some of the points which could be looked at and could be linked to a threshold, like a blanket, and definitely a pre listing mechanism or pre whitelisting mechanism. Through way of an SRO, which is in massage as a private body could be a little problematic, given that they are, you know, competing companies coming together to form the CSR. So
again, those are my comments. So thank you so much. They
pretty varied and relevant and I think we have heard these concerns similarly across to stakeholder groups. Now, let me move over to the legal experts. Let me invite wrench now. Hi, Roger, are you here with us?
Hi. Hi. There. Yes.
Let me ask you, by, you know, please provide us your view your perspective on what exactly is gaming. How do you define gaming? How does the law define online gaming, and what are the challenges that you see in terms of building this legal ecosystem where the government is in recent surging?
I want to just recap that a little bit travel in the interest of time and the fact that there are equally valid colleagues of mine from the majority and I'm sure they have a lot of points. To take up as well. America honor your five minute window as well. I think we should start by first thing is commending speed and purpose with which government has acted positively in this sense, right? I mean, we could all be naysayers the naysayers, but I think we just need to appreciate the fact that they're looking at giving a certain degree of legitimacy for this industry, which could be you know, a great contributor to the economy as a whole. So keeping that in mind, and I think Sharon 3G Very well said that, you know, let's not forget the fact that what we have before us, probably an interim solution to a very imminent problem, the long term solution probably live in the Digital India Act. So keeping that in mind and weighing in on that one. I think your first question with respect to online gaming and the definition itself, I think let's look at what is it what is it lack? As to the terms of the definition and there could be so many interpretations to it. I think that the lines on the word deposit is fairly heavy. It's been defined in a manner to include references to cash or kind, which sort of creates a bit of an anomaly in the law. And whenever you look at the word gaming in the Indian context, and you sit in theory material, usually the references are visa vie money or money's worth. Honestly, I think we all would agree that laws need to be nimble, to sort of evolve and kind of include all kinds of business models, right? The way the definition is given today. I do believe that a lot of us believe that maybe certain kinds of non real money games could also get included. At the same time. I feel that a lot of the versions where you don't essentially have a deposit of any kind of widgets, you know, like NFT, or something in their game ecosystem and the game journey, those kinds of game formats might not really get included. So in terms of lobbying, nimble enough to sort of encompass the current gaming ecosystem. Perhaps there's a certain two or three areas that could be included or clarified beginning with bringing in references to money or money's worth, and things like that. Some of it could also perhaps be achieved by you know, sort of not just trying to evolve what the definition is, perhaps also give certain guidance in the form of FA Q's in terms of trying to say what is included, not included so that the industry understands what was the intent, picking up an FAQ, I think, you know, given just the number of things that this law sort of encompasses including things like timelines, different thresholds to be met. One thing that the government will definitely look at equally is to provide a guidance by way of issuing FAQs, some of the issues that I can think of that we can cover in that be you know, things like guidance on just a simple example, in terms of formation of the SRP. Everything is very subjective without any real criteria being set out. It talks about things like track record. Now, how does the GM how does the industry really reconstitute itself? Right? How does it satisfy what the government's truly looking at? I do believe a lot of this cannot be articulated in the law. But it certainly can guidance can be provided by this kind of an FAQ probably be brought out, especially on the track record. My suggestion would be reliance on just having a track record in terms of existing SROs might not really tick the box, it just becomes a market entry barrier for more nuanced specialized SRBs in the future. Therefore rely on some track record of perhaps the Board of Directors might be a good way of looking at it, but needn't be articulated in the law. You know, it could be something which could be in the guidance. The ESRB since we read, I think one or two other things that didn't catch my attention. Why was decomposition considering the fact that there is a degree of an adjudicatory function that you know the sets or the does need to evolve? did find missing was a compulsory presence of somebody from the judiciary as an extradition, you're somebody who's lived that journey of sort of understanding the legal principles and evaluating them and applying them in an adjudication function. I would believe that that should be one of the compulsory positions to fulfill for composition to be very, very fruitful, the objectives been sought to be achieved. I think on the SRB itself, another thing that I found lacking would be that, for any kind of a grievance of the company in itself may have from a decision from an SRV truly wasn't a mechanism whereby they could approach maybe the government or rather, the only recourse was to probably go to court which doesn't really resolve the larger issue that you have in terms of, you know, the quantum of games you will be looking at, certainly kind of putting in an added level of reach from the SRP issues to the government to be one of the solutions to be looked at and to be evaluated. Very quickly touch upon some of the, maybe the one or two other things that I think will be impactful for the industry and round it up to that I think, for some of us have spoken about the need for KYC. I don't think that anyone disagrees that there needs to be a certain level of KYC to be there and when he sort of equating that at the same degree and level of what would be implemented for a financial regulatory regulated entity, you know, including things like video KYC and things like that. We extremely onerous about it this way. gaming industry is predominantly a startup ecosystem, and would create this to be a market entry barrier for a lot of startups out there. Especially I'm not even talking about the mature startups, who probably have, you know, kind of reached a certain degree of scale to startups especially who are still trying to you know, navigate the journey in terms of customer acquisition. I think every industry person on this panel would probably agree that having such stringent KYC at the time of the onset of a user journey, when you don't even know that you're going to convert that consumer to a real money gaming player. There may not even be any deposits at that juncture, extremely onerous, interferes with customer experience, and is going to act as a very big market barrier for what you're looking at sunrise sector as such. I think equally so. Another thing that attention was that while it is under the same intermediary guidelines, don't have the same sort of differentiation made between a significant old GI and no gi as a whole. So, different tattoo revisions that have been created like a Chief Compliance Officer excetera, which is for a significant social media intermediary in terms of the panel. There's no such distinction being made. Imagine a bootstrap startup, having to comply with something at the onset and the kind of the commercial economic impact it could have question is, what is the next shift that you're going to address? Is it really a commensurate measure? Or should you revisit this to see that there's some sort of a distinction to be made? I'm going to pause here because I'm fairly conscious of the time that amateurs given and I'm equally confident that my other liberal colleagues on the panel are going to take up a lot of points. Thank you, Robert, for giving me this opportunity of experiencing this. Thank you. And that's you mentioned about
Maitree also committed we also need to look at a more graded approach, compliance for companies based on their size, the number of users and they cannot be like in they cannot be rules and regulations, which become an entry barrier for the startups for customer acquisition for user acquisition to bring them on board. And with that, like, let me move on to the other legal experts. Let me bring in Abhishek next so shake. You have heard the discussion so far, you have heard the legal points and the points being raised by the users in the chat, and also otherwise the questions that were sent, so please share your views with respect to how do you see these rules panning out? And specifically one question we would like to address which Rendina like briefly touched on is the concept of web three Dotto. How does it impact the use of virtual assets? Those the NFT ecosystem with you know, the different worlds merging in the gaming ecosystem. So over to you appreciate.
Thanks, Ron. And thanks so
much for inviting me for this panel discussion. I know that you know, a lot of thoughts and and ideas have been exchanged on this panel. And you know, this gives a lot of food for thought, perhaps to be presented to the policymakers to maybe have a relook at the proposed rules. I'd like to start with the positives.
Only. You know, why has this come about? So I think it's
been a long standing need the industry to have a set of cogent, identifiable, implementable and standard set of regulations that people can rely upon from a point of view of saying that you know, yes, there is an inherent risk in this business, which is recognized, but we don't want that risk to be multiplied by the power of infinity because we have to be dealing with a different level of regulation or a different level of laws across different states and which have been consequences. So I think the that particular demand so so called the industry has been addressed to the process of bringing in first, of course, with the allocate amendment to the allocation of business rules whereby clearly This subject has been allocated to the meeting. And thereafter, you know, closed on heels of that you have these draft rules that have come out for consultation.
The, you know, really, whether or not this is the act, constitutional and
purely technically legal way of doing it. In that debate, perhaps is not for this panel. I'll just very, very just duck upon it to say that ideally speaking, the conundrum that we are facing and which is what was brought out by the Madras High Court and subsequently followed by the Karnataka High Court, the conundrum that we are facing as to what is the scope
of the buzzers of the state legislature, under the relevant entry in lists
to say betting and gambling and that was voted by the courts to say that betting which is in connection with gambling, which is that is to say that that betting which is in the case of games of chance, is the only remit in which laws can be enacted by the state legislature, that is yet to be finally given a stamp of approval by the Supreme Court and those those matters are in appealed. So we will find out whether that would be the appropriate solution, but my mind purely from a technical constitutional legal standpoint, if there was to be a final determination from a legislative standpoint, that this subject is going to be legislated and regulated by the Parliament, then that ought to have come in the form of the law, not in the form of these rules that have been notified under the act. So that's one of the aspects but as I said, for the moment, this was, in that sense, a quicker, perhaps more convenient way of trying to bring in some relief to the industry. So really a positive there, number two, and I'll just revisit point number one very quickly in the context of a particular rule that has is sought to be inserted. But number two, is that there was a need for the industry to say, look, we don't want stringent regulations. Ideally speaking, we should have a self regulatory setup that also has been answered in the positives. And that's certainly a welcome move for the industry to figure it out amongst themselves as to what works from for them in a self regulatory scenario. Coming back to one I would say that reason, I think that conundrum between the center and state remains unresolved. Because Rule three, one B nine and 10 bring about this aspect saying that your game must be the nature of an online game that is, you know, it shouldn't sorry, it should not be in the nature of an online game, which is not in Confirmative. Any law for the time being enforced. That leaves it open ended if there is a law for the time being forced in India, which is the state law. It seeks to overreach. So called remit of only regulating gambling games of chance, then does that fall foul? This is what makes this perhaps more difficult for us to argue that this is what was fought and states cannot I mean, to the extent that the state law is contrary to this, it should be not given precedence. And technical is the state legislature, the law enacted by the state that will have a higher footing than executive action through rules so that's one problem. But even there, it doesn't stop with the language which is not not in conformity for the lobbying enforce, it says, including any such law, relating to gambling or betting etc, right. So it's a much larger
genus, as laws which
potentially have a conflict with this. A second issue is
that whereas relevant entry of
lists to which was interpreted by the Madras High Court and Karnataka High Court first be words, betting and gambling. This provision nine says isn't the nature of an online game that is not in conformity with any other law for the time being and of course, including any such law relating to gambling or betting.
You have pie that
essentially created the possibility of a state enacting a law regulating betting or game of skill, because we all know that there is that element of betting involved, but it is in relation to game of skill, but that clearly then conflicts with this so what you want it to actually achieve, which is to give that power to the center, maybe I'll get through the rules, that gets defeated here. And then of course, x number 10. Just follows up with an omnibus thing that violates any law for the time being in force. So in my mind, this if 10 is deleted, nine is modified to say that game should not be in the nature of an online game that is not in conformity for any law relating to gambling. That will solve the problem. So that's one area which I identified as a potential ambiguity which could create this issue.
Thank you for review. So like
we have a limited time so let me move on to the next. Oh, absolutely. So now, last but not least for this session, let me bring Him glory. So Gary, you have been in the space for the experts speak. You have identified issues and challenges with respect to what we currently have and what is being proposed by MIDI. How do you see
this development
moving forward? In terms of regulation of the online gaming space? So please, please hear us. I think I'll start the
chase and I have written several articles and you know, submissions, so we do need us and law with some you know, constitutional rules, because the Karnataka and Madras High Court struggle to have a new day that even the games have killed fall under some other entry within the state list, right. So with that in mind, we do need a central law by one way or the other. This as Mr. Shailendra said, is a stopgap arrangement, at least give some relief to the industry. The other aspect, of course, you know, which I believe should be sorted out is the two ministry that recently got on board under a OVR which is the Sports Ministry for esports. That clear distinction between the ambit of you know what Matey will control and what eSports because even in other jurisdictions, I was speaking with some other lawyers. They also said that even in other jurisdictions, you know, this clarity has yet not been established, but it is important for us to even get that clarity. Thing number two, this is a welcome step, as everybody has said, which is an interior major, at least give the industry a chance to prove that they can self regulate and self regulate very well have been doing that for all these years, which has been applauded. Even in, you know, in our conversations internationally. But this gives at least some kind of statutory, you know, sort of oversight conduct, sort of act in a particular way. Right, but we will, since I do have problems there have been many spoken and in our submissions, we'll talk about many but I'll because of the time I'll limit myself to four or five key. I think there's confusion between Rule three, four and 48 says that in addition to three and four you have to comply with pourrais according to me, intermediary, and I sort of will not get into that it is right for the online gaming companies to be called as intermediaries when you agree that there is some kind of, you know, conundrum conundrum there as well. But as I said, this is an interim measure. So let's live with that. And as odd industry also has done, you know, that there were challenges for the rules under Part Three as well. sotp industry is CCPs decided to just go ahead with the rules, irrespective of the challenges, you know, avenues, right so in my mind, even if there are challenges to the rules, which may come through, if we sort of all of us put together you know, sort of want to go ahead with the rules, nothing can really stop us because ultimately most of it is self regulation, right. So coming back to the quick people points, in my mind, the inter online gaming operators who are really not having features such as chat feature that made them intermediary, should not be required to comply with reencode. I'm very clear about it. It is creating confusion. If you want certain of the provisions of three and COVID. We also have a slide with the online operators, please include them in for an array, just you know, buy the buy, you look at three and four becomes a problem in my mind. Just a question here.
So the gaming companies just act as a publisher and do not become intermediaries by providing those communication features. Do they come with a bit of these rules?
If they provide a chat feature, is there any way we are required to comply with the read and write and if you don't have the chat feature? Yeah, but if they don't have a feature which is to intermediaries, right, they are not required to comply with three or four right that is my point. So let there be clarity in that regard in the room. Second, is the regular intermediaries there to comply with the rule three and MA I think there is some confusion as to what exactly those intermediaries are required to in my mind they are to you know, intermediaries such as you know, advertising platforms and all that they should be simply required to provide a space for advertising publishing or whatever online gaming operators and to declare whether they have been registered or not registered, whatever it may be, is very difficult line gaming intermediaries to keep checking today, I'm registered, right as an online, my online game online. The intermediary has checked with me under AMA. And then tomorrow my Git game gets re registered. How is the intermediary supposed to know? So I think the obligation of intermediaries should be minimal in my mind. Right? They should have an ability to provide you know that verification or whatever it may be, so that's point number two and number three KYC and since spoken, but I just wanted to add about when in PPI if you see that PPI right there is very very, very minimal KYC that is required. Right so I think our graded approach similar to what we have seen in PPI should we adopt a number three, I think, you know, earlier all the you know, self regulatory bodies were focusing more on scale versus chance and you know, sort of having the operators comply with those elements. I think the law now requires them to also look at the content, right, there may be some SROs may be looking at that. But now there is the onus not only of the Skill versus chance or whatever compliance is, but it's a wider compliance with law making the rules will have to be revisited to check in on those elements as well. I think the next aspect, I want to sort of put out there is the grievance redressal I think because of three four and a 3232. Then you have a grievance letter, which is SRO as an appeal. What you have is an appeal from the grievance redressal. When it comes to the intermediary, it goes to the committee, right but it's a gaming platform. It is going to SRO right now if there are gaming platforms having chat features or something happening on chat features, then different appeals to different you know, Avatar, so it's creating some kind of confusion in my mind, they want let ourselves take complete control of all the issues you know on the grievance, right. So I think there is a I mean there is some there is some work required when it comes to the fine tuning of the rules in in relation to grievance redressal as well. I think even the takedowns right if you really see three one D that there is a takedown possible even for stage because some of the members mentioned that, you know, the states may continue to act in a particular way. Right. So that that you know, so that that particular issue or if not resolved and also there could be you know sort of interference in the manner in which the rules operate. In the last point again on KYC there is some confusion in for a which is D and E. So if it is KYC why again, are you talking about user verification? Honestly, I didn't understand what you mean by user verification that was relevant to your social media platforms, but not really relevant for you here. Right. So I think, I mean, some of some of these are drafting issues. But I think the major other issue which Samir mentioned, right, which is the foreign platforms, if there is an intention to allow say I'm not giving my view, positive or negative at all, if there is an intention to allow foreign platforms which are still platforms, I'm no nobody's saying you know, really jumping into non skill but Korean platforms because if you see the language in for a is that kind of their eluding, you know, you mean you need a presence in India and all of that. So, that means you're already contemplating there may be foreign platforms offering in India, right. You need the presence or grievance officer in India, whatever it may be. So, if there is an intention to allow foreign platforms or skill platforms, you know, to operate in India, then please bring in clarity and because, you know, there is you know, under the current account rules, because there is that confusion whether the remittance outside is allowed or not right, because, I mean, this is a larger picture I think somewhere also mentioned about GST, so, I think a lot of other pieces need to fall in place, this is a step in the right direction, but let the let the speed not, you know, sort of hinder who says that this is done and let's move on. I think this is just a work in progress. Of course, there are in my mind even awareness right the SROs job also to create awareness and lead in my mind, that is the most important part that should be brought in place, as well as a responsibility of the SRO is not clearly called out today. I think some of these elements, if I mean there are many other but because I won't have time, we are already past time. I can see that on a Friday evening. So I just stopped. Thank you so much,
Gary. And yes, we are over time, but I would request if people could stay for another 20 minutes. And thank you, Nikki for your comment. Which school is looking at perhaps other platforms also would be looking at it on this issue. And lawyers, please feel free to put it into the chat. So I go to the open house section and before I open it out for everyone. First I would like to ask chasm from the dialogue because they had done a consultation on the same amendments to share what the key taxes and after Kazim I would like to bring in the Pro from the quantum hub, who have also done a stakeholder consultation to share the views so cousin over to you today oh by modem. Thank you so much. And
I'll make it very quick. Because I know people have Friday plans. So I don't want to ruin those plans by taking a lot of time. But I just get straight into it. So I think I mean a lot of interesting points have been discussed. So I won't repeat, but just want to sort of focus a little bit on the only SRO and, you know, certain sort of
suggestions we have in terms of BFR
I think number one is that you know the SRO will play a very important role in terms of determining how skill is applied to various formats and various schemes. So I think over here, it is critical that of sort of a comprehensive model is developed, which could be a based on the jurisprudence developed by the courts, which have been the last few years in terms of what is game of skill, but also some sort of a statistical analysis, some sort of a quantitative analysis, which tests and which sort of reviews the gains and comes up with some sort of metrics
determined at that whether
you know, the predominant skill test is satisfied or not. And both these aspects are going to the students and this statistical sort of analysis could be clubbed together to create a model, which can then help SROs determine what constitutes a game of skill and game of chance and this can also sort of, you know, once this is developed and practiced and implemented, it can be further improved. And that could inform the future litigation as and when, if and when that happens in terms of what would be game of skill. So I think that's sort of one suggestion which I have. Number two is in terms of standards. I think this has already been discussed, but I think because we'll have multiple SROs we need some sort of standards and procedures to have certain uniformity in terms of how they implement you know, what is a game of skill and in terms of their practices, some sort of code of practices will have to be data mined over here. Number three, I think this is something which Mr. Surendra Singh had also spoken about that over the SRP, sort of another layer may be introduced could be introduced and we can look at a government led structure like a three tier structure beyond the SROs to be introduced, because I think that we'll also make sure that whatever complaints are coming, will then go to that committee, which could be a government led body and which could be similar to I think, what we have in part three,
and we spoken before, but
a retired high court or a Supreme Court Judge, I think would be would be very critical when it comes to the SROs. Think, the SROs I think this is this is what I have KYC very quickly, it should be done at the time of withdrawal, right, because I think a lot has been spoken about a Honorius it would be to have level of KYC which you know, RBI dictates procedures in the financial sector, I think in a number two a lot has been discussed. And it was discussed yesterday also that, you know, KYC as a practice itself, is not very foolproof, right? So, when we look at KYC we need to make sure that it's not onerous on the platforms. It's another time of withdrawal which makes it faster and easier to sort of execute as well. So that's another point.
There's one
critical sort of drafting change which can happen is with respect to you know, the previous recent timeline, so it's mentioned 24 hours, by you know, in part I think it will three it's, say 72 hours, so I think particular cloth
can be deleted, because I think it should be uniform
for gaming, intermediate and other intermediate. So I think 72 hours, could be sort of looked at
then of course, it sounds to
you know, what do we mean by deposit, this kind I think here, what we can look at as something like which is also part of money, money or worth of money or something like that could be a drafting change, which which the government can look into because defining kind is difficult. It could also mean tokens. So, I think that there's some sort of ambiguity over there, which I think we need the government to sort of look into, then I think on just in terms of the
implementation, we'll have to
revisit, I don't know if three months would be enough, I think, in the consultation also we discussed last time maybe required. So I think that implementation timeline also may be really looked at at this stage. And I think also need is adequate time for the companies to verify the users which will be also critical. So these are sort of very quick points, but happy to, you know, discuss more and share more thoughts on this. So no more questions. No more questions and just lead
me to the next speaker. Yeah.
Everybody talked about you know, the norms for
setting up standards by the SROs or the SRBs. Rather, and there is this fear that since it is going to be driven by members, it's going to be very heavy, driven by large players, and then in the nonzero set, so would it lead to cartelization of developing those SRV standards? And this was also I think, raised in one of the discussion by the quantum hub. So the pro over to you, please share your general views and also specifically this. Yeah, sure.
So, of course, I agree with him and most of the other panelists. It is a positive step forward. And there's some regulation, etc. What I did want to talk about right now, there was a question I had, which hasn't been a been for these conferences, the last three, four days and most of my questions have been answered at a question with respect to the one ma where it seems to you know, build out intermediaries which are not online gaming intermediaries and have certain compliances for them. These are intermediaries hosting, publishing, advertising online games as per the provision, but separately, of course, the online gaming intermediaries definition says
entities which for one or more online game, so I
was just wondering that in both of these definitions, any intermediate which is hosting publishing and advertising an online game is also really offering it to how does this differentiation play out and if it if it doesn't read for the shade then it brings in a whole host of like app stores, maybe an entire Facebook, Amazon, etc. So I was wondering if anyone else had thought about this?
If I may just come here,
the Pro I think this was brought up yesterday in our consultation, that I mean, if you read three one, sorry if you read the definition of you know, gaming intermediate basically offer so what is offer, I think your light over here. It does, it is very broad, and very vague, I think at this time because it could be that you're offering. So, I mean, one argument was also that, you know, if if a game is on a computer, or computer maker manufacturer is manufacturer also offering a game because it comes in a lot of mobile phones and computers. If it's I'm giving a game like pre installed games, my also gaming intermediary. You mentioned about App Store, Play Store,
then you know, the question around what do we how do we differentiate between offer an app store, a store versus an intermediary
where the game is actually being played? So I think certain carves out are required for this particular definition and I'm definitely convinced that more discussion needs to happen, because at this stage, it's not clear it's too broad. And it should be some sort of narrow definition for this. Okay.
Gary, or any other lawyers who would want to
take a stab at this? Yeah, so I don't think the
intention nearly here was to cover you know, sort of offer in the sense I agree. There is a wording confusion there and some drafting clarity is required, but I don't I don't think there is an intention to cover the the real intermediaries on the on whose platforms they may be offered or advertised for them to be complying with everything and that is why I mentioned if you sort of, if you see what I mentioned, that their obligation should be very minimal. Their obligation should be simply to say that if your platform is being used by other for the game, the game publishers like me, you know, sort of, sort of use that word, by game publishers to provide their game to the third, you know, to the end users, then your obligation should be limited to enabling them to provide that verification mark or whatever it may be. Otherwise, it's going to create chaos, you know, for the intermediaries to sort of keep track of what is registered, what is not registered, etc. So, in my mind, if there is a wording clarity, to, to sort of marry the intention, he will you know, reach at a proper place, but just want to assure that, in my view, there is there is no intention to cover all the platforms that you mentioned, to, you know, go beyond that limited due diligence obligation, as such, so we should sort of, you know, request for drafting clarity in that regard. Yeah. I think the intent isn't
there, but I think there are a couple of drafting clarifications which which could happen. Yep. Thanks, depot. Do you have any other points
or else we will open it up?
Yep, you can open open it up.
Thank you so much. I can
see under the ones that happens Han, Amira, you, you can unmute and speak, just keep it brief piece and document your affiliation. Here's my mom. I'm
just a student.
Working on the gaming platform psycho joining. My first question is whether it's right on the part of the media to recognize online gaming as intermediaries. my that was my first question. Second thing I wanted to ask was that there is a provision which talks about the Reserve Bank of India RBI regulations would have to be followed at the time of registration for account verification. What is the industry stance on this and what is the legal industry stance also on this because, as far as I understand, IBI is a quick in revamping its regulations. And v Wade is making a very tedious process for the gaming industry.
Thank you so much, very relevant questions. Any of the lawyers in the group or rule room want to take it or anyone from the industry or
even from the industry anyone
who wants to take it? And by the time you decide who wants to take a look, he has a question or comment. Lucas yes over to you. I guess
many times and I've been waiting for like three and a half hours to share my perspective. See, I think I'm a very confused person here. You know, after hearing you know all the thoughts and inputs
because fortunately, no, I heard the panel
I heard people and obviously a lot of people I only mean everybody's talking about gaming, gaming gaming. Right? Somebody mentioned that gaming worldwide is a $200 billion industry now. But let me kind of you know, remind everybody that gave the talk about gaming. We are worldwide. Worldwide, the $200 billion industry does not include the so called Real Money gaming apps of India. You know, when let's say if I talk about you know, how big is the gaming market and us so they will come up and say, okay, so we have let's say, Activision, right Microsoft, and we'll combine the revenues of all these video game developers and they will say okay, so us gaming market is this much. And so that is how worldwide 200 billion you know, it looks very catchy or clickbait for our Indian people talking about 200 billion worldwide and saying, Please, let me inform everybody, that this $200 billion industry is the video game industry and this worldwide video game industry does not include games like sympathy Ravi fantasy, you know, and my request here is that obviously, we shared our perspective with Rajiv ji on the meeting which we held on 11th that that definition when we say online gaming, the dictionary meaning and the meaning of online gaming worldwide, means that you play a video game on an electronic device using Internet. That's it. In our proposed current amendments, the so called the Indian definition of online gaming. We have included that you play an online game by default by putting money with expectation or money in kind and all those things. So we as a video gamer, I am a video gamer. Right? So, so I know I'm pretty I'm very much confused and not only me but the so called 400 million gamers in India. We are equally confused that what does this mean? Because the definition per day, the Miyagi have asked them how online gaming to hear Baliga the and who skates at their problem carriers maybe very humble because has subglobose say whether that's lawyers and everybody key there was a mistake which or there's a legacy which we are carrying on through our public gambling act 1867 Or a P seven right please by religious I'm not a lawyer, please correct, the year and the say, so we're happy suddenly Kawhi gaming houses that obviously you know, somebody took ECNs automata que Internet Olga computers anger and everything. But now since we have computers and everything, everybody has started saying that Okay, so this is gaming. And you know, so you're playing casino themed party Rummy, pokers and whatever. So now, so sorry, limit your
intervention because shorter
please, thank you for coming my name it so my request is that let's kind of you know, as stakeholders of the industry, we should, or typically the see we should look at and we should start calling this as a gaming industry the way it is defined worldwide. Let's not try to even in our discussion, everything. My humble request says that we should not use the word online gaming and gaming but that's not how the rest of the world also understand. Our problem is that you know, everybody's talking about online gaming, and we are largely talking about low RNG kind of game together. Nobody actually talked about video games.
Right. So may I come in quickly to sort of answer this quickly. So I think, you know, sometimes we need to recognize the regulation from a regulation perspective, the government will come in when there is a need to regulate it or to sort of control certain things, right, that decision that has been taken currently into RMG. That does not necessarily mean that others are not, you know, under under watch, for example, internationally. Even for the you know, the video games, there are age ratings, etc that are applicable. Right. So maybe if you see rule six A there it is, there is clear that even if there is no other you know, real money gaming, the government may still come in and regulate if there is addiction or those type of issues. So here we are talking about regulation. And in that context, I understand okay, what you're saying from a definition and also let's not get bogged down with the definitions. Let's let's look at the intention. So currently, at least this industry is, you know, getting regulated, but the government has the intention. There. are probably under 6G They have demonstrated now, whether we should have a separate you know, sort of age rating age gating for other types of games which are not RNG free time will tell and maybe you know, some of us will start looking at that as well. Focus on the immediate action and the mystery that is trying to be regulated. This image
six image clearly many of you
Oh, yes, please. Oh Mother, you cannot do
good. You can see Emily cover give the minister satisfied in respect of any game available on the Internet accessible via through computers without any deposit in heavy subdued due diligence Apollo Ganapati. They are threat to the national security or anything public safety, the action will be taken to compliance to regulatory compliances for all
okay, I have a gone to question to
Gary because now that you know this, these rules define what an online gaming is. associates with making a deposit. So how do you see now next time we're talking about regulating the the larger gaming industry or video games whatever, how do you then expect to make those changes? Are they you know?
From time to time? Know from time to time definition some other definitions so I think that's what I said let's
not get bogged down by the definitions. Six AI Shailendra ji said there is your foot in the door to regulate those. And maybe as I said, there is a conversation required even on the non money games, you know, wherever there is mischief wherever there is harm. Right now what is harming six eight we know there is no guidance, but PD PD build off. What is harm right so no further discussions are required. This is just the beginning. The first step as Dr. Singh said brush energy said this is the first step and immediate need was RNG but that does not mean you're stopping here. This is the beginning. Thank you so much
for this and we also believe that this is the first step and one of the many discussions we will have because it's a long way ahead. And I think we cannot see any more hands or comments, etc. In the chat. Okay. Renu I see your hand. You're the last one please go ahead.
No, you have Yes.
Yeah. And just want to quickly point with the caveat that I consult to the industry so my point of view may be accordingly. So I'm very pro industry. However one thing is there for the industry already CCI is there and if any Syndicate is formed if a lot of gaming entities are coming together and some games are created which are having impact in commercial sense on larger public, then obviously already CCI is there. So now, as the previous speaker said this particular regulation is more towards public awareness and also towards different use cases, which would be emerging in the future. So, at this junction, whether today as the draft is over, in certain coming time, say for few months, I think keeping things macro would be good because more and more use cases will be emerging. And as far as the commercial aspects in terms of industry are concerned, those things are already there in the law, this would be additional and above to this. So keeping the definitions very broad is better. i That would be my point of view. That is it.
Thank you so much, Reno for sharing this. Thank you everyone for participating and I think our industry partner AGI also what we would do next is we would be having a draft report being prepared. We would be circulating it and also making submissions. The date is 17 We hear whispers that it may be extended but we've not seen it yet so we still stick to 17 But thank you so much everyone for participating and joining in case you have any other points which you want to share with us. You can put it on a mail to me and Rahul we will try to perhaps by tomorrow so that in case we want to incorporate something else you missed, we would try to do that. So Rahul, anything else you want to say and obviously this is one of the conversations will have more such conversations because this industry is evolving and we'll have more things to come. So thank you so I and and Rahul, if you want to add anything, just some closing thoughts.
Thank you. This has been a very wonderful discussion. Thank you expert speakers and panelists for joining us and sharing your views. Thank you, AJ for supporting the discussions a lot of issues that we still see need clarification, we will definitely ask them through a report in form of consultation process to get those things clarified, have more consideration consultation us with experts to form the better suited regulatory model. And in some what industry needs to do in terms of building its practices for compliances you know, get its act together, find out ways as challenges for building trust with the government so that you know this model can actually work. And if the SRO model can actually work. We know the later law the larger law might not be as stringent as would have been in the first place which has been naughty so yeah, so thank you, everyone for joining us. Thank you for sharing your views your questions and good night. Have a Good Friday evening recording
last question still on the perfect guy to
kinda, but there is an issue as in we are not recording now but there's an issue because yesterday also in Carson session, there was a discussion that is this tool owner is the RBI compliances are too onerous and we're trying
to problem using the intermediary rules. This was a more human way which the government thought to do it. But again, camera you want to share something?
Yes. Now, I'm also one
thing which I mean, most of the people did discuss about the KYC procedure. However, I wanted to understand it, how owns the tedious is, is the KYC compliance. Like I remember Angela and I'm gonna talk about, you know, at the time of signing up, it can be an onerous procedure. So I do think that the way we have a significant social intermediary and social intermediate there should be a difference for you know, even the gaming industry.
Okay, we have no set answer, but yes, you know, if we look at
the KYC requirements,
the law like the draft rules go
in the present form, and we have just three months. We know somebody did this comment we have
how many like more than
1520 crores gamers, right.
How does it actually play out?
That's that's going to be a big big
challenge. So as I think Gary mentioned that, you know, we had this KYC for the Prepare department instruments that epi approach that is light and I think if that can be looked into for sunrise sector, such as gaming, that could be a good step, because again, you know, similar concerns was recently been for what could be the challenges of doing a full KYC with respect to RBI regulation so that they, they formed something, maybe the same models can be replicated here or maybe something more simpler now that even all the KYC is done digitally. So something some some tools, and somebody
mentioned in the chat
that GOT IT admins proposed that the KYC regulations should follow the same approach as that of small PPIs which has agreed KYC approach. Yeah, and we are not recording now. So we are just discussing an Opie want to make some point. Yes, ma'am.
Good evening, everyone. So my vision regarding the RBA policy, and also I'm concerned about like online gamers will be playing the game and if they are a victim of cyber fraud or anything during that time. So how to protect themselves because in the middle the grievance officer terms or even if the Chief Compliance Officer or whatever the person is, because according to the master director, non fraud, classification and reporting by commercial banks and select, like FIS, it was last updated by RBI, I think on July 3017, as per my reading, so, ma'am, one of the Sci Fi cell cases bank and the RBI ombudsman just defied the case by saying that the person is an educated person and have done that.
His own senses and
very in a knowing way, if this is that they just defy the cyber financial fraud cases in this way. How will the online gamers who will be totally into the gaming will be touching every touch points of might be the cyber points and every point of like, there is even the mitigation of this risk are not properly covered. How will they be protected? So this is one of my very important concern. And right now I'm going through this policies. So ma'am, I would like anyone from the session who is available to so throw some light on this point.
If you're looking at cyber sec, it
has to follow the normal processes, which is the reason you have a cleaver and now they'll have a grievance complaint mechanism they do have but it's more stringent the grievance officer to you know actually take care of it if it is not then you know, reach out to the different other bodies. But if you look at cybercrime per se there are many other things. Many of these crimes which happens is also because the users do not know how to use you know the system safely the or do not take care of their security. So there is a bigger question as in more capacity building on safe Internet safe surfing how to use it exception needs to be created. You walk in the street you may get crushed by a car unfortunately, but it also depends upon you how much safety you also you know, you whether you look jumping the green light etc. Red light and etc is also something which is important. So, user safety is absolutely important. That is why certain things have been brought into this draft or many things have been brought in but overall I think the awareness of people also needs to increase like parents giving away their credit cards as in Why do you give a minor add on why don't you have you know, so much of money goes away in one place. So those are basic things also which needs to be dropped. There is no clear answer, no question, but it has to be addressed in many ways.
Please, I'm saying that you have any
suggestions that something needs to be done with respect to the platform's are the gaming publishers for improving user safety, convenience and like reducing the risk and providing more good opportunity for grievance studies. Please do right. I will say that he's encouraged these comments directly also, please share to us also we will also include in our submissions and also give
suggestions because what meaty normally says is give us suggestions, we know the issues, but please give us with suggestions. Everyone knows that these issues but what what is the suggestion
you have welfare. But again, as we know that the car these days have the endcap rating, which also is yours. Some kids also like mitigate the risk a certain level. Does this give picture are the frameworks sued have ratings like where the online gaming's are being designed or like anything like wherever the touch points or does that touch points needs to have some kind of reading so this is one of the most important and crucial points because if there are some touch points which needs to be touched, and for now see, they have the touch points like on 1251. That one is the most recent thing. And five is the most safest. If they have the touch point one even if the user will do or we say to touch that point during their actual path. It's upon them but they should have that knowledge that this framework is so much lenient on the law of triangle with the follow the functionality law is more rather than the security point.
Yeah, but like you consider this as a
practical challenge, you know, so let's say you're a game developer. You're constantly innovating there are different models, we mean there are different touch points. So how do you then make this a practice that you get your entire touch points validated or certified by a third party for risk assessment
requires more r&d or r&d. My master's students are the PhD one who are working on the architecture level of the architectures and OS level. I guess this is one of the ways I have done a
sorry, I will have to break it. So we are all closing
an OPR like great points. Please do write to minister directly and also share with us right thank you so much.
Amira and somebody Thank you. Thank you everyone. Thank you