Game payments and player services

Around the gamer, from buying game credits to testing a game before release

A college student in India wants to buy a new character in a mobile game, but has no credit card. So the student buys game credits on a website that accepts UPI, and the credits appear in the game within seconds. That website is part of a small industry that sits around every game.

Services for players

Top-ups

Many games sell their own in-game currency, which players spend on characters and items. A top-up store sells that currency, and accepts local ways to pay, such as UPI, wallets and prepaid cards. This matters in countries where few players have a credit card. The store keeps a share of each purchase.

Tools for competitive players

Serious players want their game to run as smoothly as possible. Smoothness is measured in frame rate: the number of pictures the screen shows each second. Some tools tune a PC to raise it.

Rewards

Some companies pay players, in money or points, for playing, or for small online tasks.

A player with no credit card pays a top-up store such as Codashop by UPI, a wallet or a prepaid card; the store keeps a share and the game credits appear within seconds.

Services for studios

Playtesting

Before a game is released, real players try it and report what they find.

Player analytics

Once a game is live, the studio tracks how players behave. It learns where they get stuck, and why they stop playing. Players who stop are said to churn.

This industry is made of small companies, and all of those here are small in India.

The services around a game: top-ups, tools and rewards for players on one side, and playtesting and player analytics for studios on the other.

Every company named here has posted software engineering jobs in India. Famous companies that don't actively hire software engineers in India are left out.

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Payments, testing, tools and rewards

Payments, testing, tools and rewards

Paying for games

Coda

with engineers in Bengaluru, runs Codashop, a store where players in Asia and elsewhere buy game credits with local ways to pay. It also runs Codapay, which lets game publishers take those payments. (More on Coda in Market Segment 17.2, Payment gateways, in Industry Vertical 17, Payments.)

Testing games and understanding players

Lysto

with engineers in Bengaluru, runs playtesting and player analytics for game studios. It tells them where players get stuck, and why they leave.

Tools and rewards for players

Hone

with engineers in Delhi, sells a PC tool that raises frame rates for competitive players.

KGEN

with engineers in Bengaluru, runs a rewards and identity network for gamers. It checks that each player is a real person, and pays players for playing and for small data tasks. It is built on a blockchain, a shared record kept on many computers at once, which is very hard to alter. (More on blockchains in Market Segment 17.7, Crypto and digital assets, in Industry Vertical 17, Payments.)

One company here turns exercise into a game

Zippy

with engineers in Bengaluru, connects a treadmill to an app on a phone or TV. The app shows a virtual world, and races the runner against other runners. Zippy has the most job postings in this Market Segment. (More on it in Market Segment 22.5, Chronic disease management and digital therapeutics, in Industry Vertical 22, Digital health.)

The player who is also the tester.

Studios have always paid people to play their games before release. AI models now play them too, in large numbers, finding bugs and parts of a game that are too easy or too hard. Platforms like Lysto's measure what real players feel. The human tester's job is moving from playing the game to judging what the AI testers found.

That is the industry around the gamer: top-up stores, tools and rewards for players, and testing and analytics for studios. It is made of small companies.

Who they hire

Who these companies hire, and for what, is on What gaming companies hire for.

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